Day 214: Let’s Take The Whole Day Off

Eight months after the last time, I watched a movie in a New Orleans theatre. Last night, I saw Capote at Canal Place Theatre … and my eyes were glued to Philip Seymour Hoffman’s lips the whole time as he pursed them in that characteristic sneer to perfect Truman’s haute-nasal voice. I loved Hoffman in The Fifteen Minute Hamlet and even as the obsequious Brandt in The Big Lebowski, but this was different. This was eerie. Not the premise of the movie (there is no doubt the suspects were guilty), but the seamless merger of Hoffman and Capote. In different eras, both of them pulled off scared-country-boy-turned-scared-literatus to the point where I didn’t care who was who and when any more. All that was left was a quiet understanding of one of Capote’s more famous quotes, “I am a homosexual, I use drugs, I am a wunderkind.”

At the least, it was something different to think about besides the reality of New Orleans. For one, I watched the movie in one of the city’s more ritzy malls, which burned and was looted two days after the hurricane hit. There I was seven months later walking out of the same place, cleaned and restored. What amazes me is the varying nature that one place can take on over time. This concept drives home quickly when I stand on an outcrop of thick limestone and realize that, millions of years ago, a reef thrived under my feet. Or when I put my hand on the wall of an Indian temple and feel what my ancestors did thousands of years ago. And there I was, last night, walking out of a place that was the scene of utter chaos and destruction just seven months ago.

Same place, different moment. What separates us is the space of time.

After dwelling on that thought and the ones that went into this morning’s Metroblogging post, I retreated to the comfort of a low-carb frozen mocha (with whipped cream and sugarless chocolate syrup) and my iPod. I believe it’s time to unleash a brimful-style music quiz on my loyal readers. Follow the game, most of the rules of which I have shamelessly cribbed from ms. b herself :

The idea is that you take your mp3 player or iTunes (or multi-CD player for those of you who haven’t entered the 21st century), set it on random and write down the first line of the next twenty songs that play, regardless of embarassment quotient. If the title of the song is the first line, it must be excluded. Songs from the same artists should also be excluded. Then, you ask your readers to give you the artist and title.

Rules:

* No Googling. We work on the honor code. Leave your guesses on which songs are represented below, and I cross them off as you get them right.
* I will annoy everyone by tagging them. You’re all tagged, all of you.
* D is disqualified from playing as he possesses an intimate knowledge of my music collection. Good thing this isn’t an electro-techno sound bites quiz or Julie would have to be kicked out of play as well.

So, here are the results:

Read the rest of this entry »

March 30, 2006 | hurricane katrina, movies/tv, music, new orleans | 25 Comments »

Day 212: ThinkNOLA Viral Linking Campaign

The use of the term “New Orleans Blogger” twice in yesterday’s post is part of the Link Think New Orleans viral campaign, a variant of The Indie Virus campaign. “Virus” is a good thing in this instance because, like your mama said about chicken pox, it’s one a kid wants to catch. Chris Pearson, the mastermind behind the campaign, explains its two-fold rationale:

“All you’ve got to do is link to lesser known blogs from within a post (or two, or eleventeen), but you have to make sure that the anchor text of your link is The Indie Virus [or in the case of New Orleans, New Orleans Blogger]

“The experiment … has two goals:

* To bring exposure to lesser known blogs (especially those outside of Technorati’s top 100)
* To explore the metrics behind a viral linking campaign launched by the “little guys” (less popular blogs)”

So, if you’re an area blogger and/or would like to bring attention to blogging about the city of New Orleans, link to two New Orleans bloggers you consider relevant, with the anchor text of the link being New Orleans Blogger. e.g. New Orleans Blogger. Important note from Chris: “make sure that you link directly to a post WITH A TRACKBACK and not to the site itself – it speaks louder!”

You may thank Alan, tireless hamster of the New Orleans Blogger group, for applying yet another online concoction to our local cause.

March 28, 2006 | computing & internet, new orleans | 3 Comments »

Day 211: The New State Of Hockey

Oh, and …

UW Women’s Hockey: Badgers Win NCAA Title [Article]

UW Men’s Hockey Advances To Frozen Four [Article]

GO BIG RED!

March 27, 2006 | wisconsin | 4 Comments »

Day 211: Something Is Arbitrary In The State Of New Orleans

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. -T.S. Eliot

My sweet post about Charity Hospital was all written, ready to breathe in the sweet air of the electronic stage. And Alan, that buzzkill (*smile*), had to inform me about an impropriety in the way the two candidates are chosen for the Clerk of Criminal District Court debate. This New Orleans Blogger explains that the candidates are picked by WDSU, the local NBC affiliate, via an online poll in which anyone can vote and numerous times. Can you say “vote early, vote often?”

… by using an entirely unscientific online web poll, WDSU will choose two candidates that [are] given valuable television time, and priceless exclusivity. Worst of all, you can vote in the poll every five minutes or so.

Already, two of the candidates have 800 votes apiece. Are [they] voting again and again? Why wouldn’t they? … Someone could write a script to vote every five minutes.

WDSU’s poll disclaimer reads: “Please keep in mind that our polls are for entertainment and are not conducted in a scientific fashion. We make no guarantees about the accuracy of the results other than that they reflect the choices of the users who participated.”

There is no such thing as a scientific poll. Period. That said, there are ways to safeguard against possible abuse. How hard would it be for WDSU to permanently block IPs that have already voted? More importantly, why does the window for voting open again after 5 minutes?

A phonecall to Alan helped me understand the poll’s mechanism better: “In memory, the poll has a list of the IPs of the last few votes that were clicked. And then the software forgets either because time passes or whatever buffer it uses fills up after a while. I can’t believe that my most viable candidate can be excluded from a debate because another candidate had his/her nephew clicking for hours on end.”

VatulBlog supports no candidate for Clerk of Criminal District Court. The point of this post regards the stupidity of this situation – it is ludicrous that two candidates will receive media exposure in a debate, i.e. political manna, through a completely arbitrary electronic process. Local politics constitute the most important and accessible arena for citizen participation. This is where we exert the strongest influence on who governs our immediate surroundings.

I’m certain this is an innocent oversight on the part of WDSU, but a troubling one, nonetheless. Technology is more easily abused by the foxes at the expense of the poultry. No American community, much less New Orleans, can afford a lapse in secure polling on the part of its media outlets if that’s how debate contestants are picked. A manufactured debate cannot bring about a serious discussion of the issues, especially with respect to an office recently vacated by Kimberly Williamson-Butler.

I wonder what another New Orleans Blogger has to say about this.

| computing & internet, government, new orleans | 4 Comments »

Day 209: I’ve Got A Library Thing

After blogging, my favorite activity is reading. I’m aware that neither of these tasks involve much in the way of kinetic energy, which is underpinned by my third-favorite hobby – sleeping. One of my biggest peeves about being away from New Orleans for so long after Katrina was the separation from my cherished library. My dad loves his plants, my mother her writing … I tend to my books like they are my precious children, each one allotted a special place in the hierarchy of barrister bookcases that is my library. Each item is organized by genre, importance within genre and then height – a fractal system of management, if you will. And believe you me, I know when even one soldier is out of place.

My compulsive fate, in the form of Dave, introduced me to LibraryThing right after my last post. Ever since then, each of my 500 or so books were entered into this online interface and are in the process of being tagged, ending with my last three literary purchases. Of course, these are only the books that reside in my immediate possession and not every one I’ve read. That would be cheating.

Once all of the books are entered [Update: ISBN or Library of Congress Call No. is the best way to search], the interface offers features like how many other users share your library and by how much, and “clouds” of favorite interests and genres. For instance, my cloud emphasizes the tags funny, geology and science fiction. Go figure.

Check out my personal catalog and the new widget in VatulBlog’s sidebar. Cool, huh? [*readers roll eyes*]

Books are enthralling, their organization is a vortex. Seriously, if you ever want to keep me occupied (and stop the whining about how bored I am), hand me last week’s newspaper or even a Chilton’s manual and I will stay out of your hair for a while. Give me books, papers and music to sort through and the silence will last for weeks.

Which makes me wonder if there is a Library Thing for music. CD cataloging, here I come!

March 25, 2006 | books, computing & internet, new orleans | 6 Comments »

Day 206: Carbs, Indian Tokens Of Love

March is a great month because its first day marks my arrival on this planet and the following thirty involve people giving me the coolest things. Like the year Julie presented me with a care package containing everything a good geologist could ask for including Madison, WI Dive Bars: The Game or D unsuccessfully, yet sweetly, tried to surprise me with an XM boombox (tech support included).

Arriving home for lunch today, what should I find propping open my storm door but a box from the rare and cultivated Ms. MP, more familiar in these here parts simply as brimful. She had mentioned mailing me something, but I figured it was a card at most. No, no, the darling woman sent me a collection of food, more explicitly her homemade baked goods expertly and lovingly wrapped, the cutest little bottles of Fudge Fatale dessert sauces and a bottle of Chandon. *does happy dance* How could I eat just one of those yummy chocolate-smothered flowers or crunchy globules of flour, sugar, cardamom and another ingredient whose identity eludes me, but with which my tummy is in love? Let’s say that I’ve just consumed enough dessert for four days. Brimful of comatose …

Like the rest of my family, I show my friends love by feeding them. When Machelle or Amanda come over, they eat whatever I’m eating, even if it’s berries, eggs or microwaved Lean Cuisine and I will go out of the way to reduce the hypoglycemia quotients of the ones I hold dear. This is something else I love about New Orleans – every party, every get-together, every shindig has enough food for a wedding. From gumbo to red beans & rice and bread pudding to olive salad, it is difficult to go hungry in this city.

Note that I said I feed my friends and don’t necessarily cook for them (ok, rarely, and only Indian food). MP, on the other hand, is the consummate baker; affectionate is the first word that springs to mind regarding her confectionary creations and the people for whom she makes them. *sigh* Thank you, MP, for the love you put into remembering me and for the thoughtful-funny card. You bet challenges will be met with my “characteristic resolve” as long as I know I’ll come out on the other side to your delectable carbs.

As someone who shuns simple carbohydrates (and lost 25 lbs. after moving to New Orleans by staying away from them), it’s hard to hail from an Indian family. Seriously, we have every form of starch, sugar and combination thereof cornered. Speaking of love and food, what about the birthday package I received a few days ago from my parents? Aside from a dozen or so of the most snazzy pieces of jewelry picked out by my tasteful mother, the box contained an assortment of South Indian desserts, murukku (a salty, crunchy snack), sambar powder and narthangai (a dried-citrus pickle/relish).

How many times have I asked my parents to send me just three laddus and to cease and desist with the murukku? “No, no, the poor child doesn’t get enough home cooking and we will have to stop referring to her as an eruma maddu for a while.”

They adore me and wish only for my happiness – what else can I ask for? But, these pounds don’t get taken away by elves, you know!

Some day we’ll win ‘em all. Until then, these culinary gifts go in a safe with a timer that shoots the door open for five minutes every other Saturday. After I tuck into one last piece of MP’s cardamomy goodness … teehee …

March 22, 2006 | desi / india, food & drink, new orleans | 13 Comments »
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