NOLA

Keely is in New Orleans for a couple of days shooting spectra for our gulf oil spill work. I dug up this article for her, food suggestions and the like.

New Orleans / Bob Edwards Weekend

In the early summer Bob had a series of interviews with New Orleans-based musicians. Super interesting. Then he interviewed people from all walks of life who live there -- the 'No Place Like Home' series of interviews. The food scene in NOLA has interested me for a while, Harry Shearer's show is often NOLA related, and now with our lab being involved with remote sensing of the oil spill and the aftermath I'm a little more connected. Here's an annotated list of the shows:

1 Preview of the Jazz Fest interviews, full Dr. John Interview
2 Ben Jaffe / Preservation Hall
3 Stanton Moore, Trombone Shorty
4 Anders Osborne, Theresa Andersson
5 Allen Toussaint
6 Irma Thomas
7 Roger Lewis
8 Jimmy Carter (Blind Boys of Alabama), 2 church deacons on life in NOLA after Katrina
9 A gulf deep-sea diver, Keely Smith, NOLA shave ice (awesome interview)
10 Jon Cleary, Preview of the No Place Like Home interviews
11 mostly about the levees
12 seafood, shrimper, duckhunter
13 oiled birds
14 wetlands (this one is particularly good)
15 how the city is doing
16 St. Bernard Parish (the 2nd story, starting ~17:45, darn good)
17 post-Katrina stuff: entrepreneurs, farmer1, farmer2 {his questions for the farmers were kind of weird, the 2nd guy answered them better}

Ben Jaffe / Bob Edwards Weekend

Forgot to put up a link to this, from last weekend. Talking music in New Orleans.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Finally saw it. When the movie came out I posted a link to an interview with Werner Herzog about the movie, and also a link to the trailer. OnionAV did a new cult canon for the movie a couple of weeks ago when the DVD came out, and I elevated it to #1 on the netflix queue. To some extent it's a movie for movie snobs; the movie doesn't make much sense as a murder mystery, but it makes perfect sense as a comedy making fun of the cop/murder mystery genre/plot conventions. The movie is so ridiculous it has not one but two critter cam shots -- an alligator that is watching the scene where a dead comrade has caused a traffic accident has a camera on it's back, and one of the above iguanas has a camera on it that gets in the face of the other one. At least I think that's what was going on, Werner Herzog is credited with the camera work in the credits, so theoretically he could have been hanging out with alligator's to get that shot -- less dangerous than some of the crazy stuff he's done more movies. Also, Nic Cage channeling Klaus Kinski was interesting as heck. I didn't love this, it's a little too tongue in cheek, but I quite liked it. The dvd is bare bones, so I don't think I'll buy it, but it's certainly worth a rental.

On a side note: I've cut back my Netflix to 2 a month for a while now to reduce distractions as I try to finish the dis. Cutting back on buying used dvds, too, to some extent. I have a 3 disc changer in my dvd player (an old Pioneer) and Saturday night I had an old movie in (Blues Brothers) a netflix movie (Bad Lietuenant) and a new to my possession half.com movie (Zero Effect). A very tough choice. I went with Zero. I love that movie. Great plot, cute girl, and lines such as:

I'll shoot you. Really. I will. I have a gun and everything.

New Orleans / NPR II

More coverage of the show Treme on Fresh Air. They dedicated the whole hour to it.

New Orleans / NPR

New Orleans intrigues me. Not the drunken tourist version. The food culture. The music culture. Paul Prudhomme's cooking style is huge to me. Just now I heard an NPR piece about a new show on HBO called 'Treme.' It sounds pretty awesome.

Harry Shearer does a show on NPR called 'Le Show' and he often talks about New Orleans. His shows around when Katrina hit are heartbreaking parts of I, all of II. {Alas, streaming from the KCRW website stinks, they are also available from his website, search for the 25 Aug and 4 Sep 2005 shows}. The 25 Aug was one day before Katrina hit. He plays the song Louisiana 1927 by Randy Newman, and discusses evacuating New Orleans. The 4 Sep show is stunning. I've learned a ton about New Orleans listening to him, the history and tradition associated with the non-touristy part of Mardi Gras is fascinating (e.g., 3 Feb 2008 is about Mardi Gras Indians, 31 Jan 2010 has a bit with pianist John Cleary, 3 Sep 2009 is about the Army Corps of Engineers/levees). This American Life also did a couple of great post-Katrina shows I,II. Float On by Modest Mouse featured prominently in one of them.
Update: this morning Morning Edition also had a piece on 'Treme.' It wasn't as interesting as the All things Considered last night, but it was still quite listenable.
Update2: it's a little wonky, but AV talk talks about Treme, starting at the 24 minute mark.
Update3: Fresh Air covered it, too.

Bob Edwards Weekend - good music

This is a little old, but a show a couple of weeks ago included an interview with the guy who owns Preservation Hall in New Orleans, and an interview with Justin Townes Earle. Both interviews are great.

RIP Donald Bordelon

Radio is funny, you make mental images to go along with the stories, and sometimes you're right, sometimes you're wrong. Donald Bordelon appeared on morning edition many times, he was a Katrina survivor in New Orleans, and his voice and general outlook on life always made for an interesting interview. The funny thing is, I thought for sure he was a black guy (big, booming voice; New Orleans resident), so when I was listening to the interview with his wife this morning it was surprising as heck when she said she loved his beautiful blue eyes. Anyway. Give a listen, and they have links to some of the other stories, too.

Zandalee/the Color of Night

These two movies appeared in the OnionAV, My Year of Flops column back-to-back a couple of weeks ago. The jist of the column is the guy reviews a movie that didn't do any box office, and determines if it is because the movie actually stunk, or if it was erroneously neglected. Both movies feature a big name Hollywood star (Nicholas Cage in Zandalee, Bruce Willis in the Color of Night), lots of people over-acting cause the scripts are thin, and quite a bit of nudity. They are pretty epic. Zandalee also benefits from being set in New Orleans, small roles by Steve Buscemi and Joe Pantoliano, and a big role by Judge Reinhold. And namedropping the Room in the review doesn't hurt, either. The Color of Night is notable for also using the house in Malibu that was used for the party house in the Matthew McConaughey classic Surfer, Dude -- alas, another flop. It also features Bruce Willis essentially reprising his Die Hard role, except in this movie he is a psychologist. Granted there is a crime to solve and stuff, but psychologists don't have cop training....