b.rox

While many of my neighbors are trying to get hot water in their houses, we’ve been longing for cold water. See, we got our gas turned back on and a new water heater installed way back in November. All was well until we had most of the house re-plumbed in late July. Actually Coleman did [...]

Tomorrow we vote on thirteen amendments to the Louisiana constitution. In a futile attempt to make sense of the issues on the table, I’ve compiled a grid comparing the recommendations of every organization I could find, with links to sources for further reading. I’m probably voting for amendments 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 12 and [...]

When Herb and Jenny came to visit last weekend, they were surprised to find Herb’s picture hanging in our hallway. Jenny took this picture, which demonstrates that Herb was simply beside himself: What made it even funnier was that I don’t even know Herb very well. The picture was taken by Rachel Whang in Bloomington, [...]

My friend Daisy told me the following Katrina story. It’s a simple tale, but kind of chilling. I wanted to record it before I forget. Daisy and her husband stayed through Katrina, and their Garden District apartment was relatively unscathed. They lost power, of course, and they heard about the looting at Wal-Mart but they [...]

Today is the day when the Saints return to the Superdome. I think everybody who lives in New Orleans is pretty happy about that, even football-skeptical folks like myself. It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement, since so many people seem to pin so much on this team. But even as we [...]

If you walk around my block you will see… Flooded homes. Some have been completely renovated, some are currently being renovated, some have been gutted and stand vacant, some appear not to have been touched since the flood. I’d say fewer than half are occupied. Cajun V&T Grocery. You know the one. It hasn’t been [...]

ROX #94, “Hangover Cures,” is finished. The core video was shot in the Quarter about a month before Katrina. Putting it together was a labor of love. Check it out. (Warning: Contains pickled herring.)

Roy Bragg writes about NOLA bloggers (including yours truly) in the San Antonio Express-News.

Both elevators are out of commission for the last few days, so I’ve been using the emergency stairwell to get to and from my office on the 5th floor. The air is mighty stale in there. Going down these stairs reminds me of a very grim story, “Descending,” by Thomas Disch. Except… wait, that was [...]

The most interesting thing Xy and I did over the weekend was to attend the premiere bout of the Big Easy Rollergirls at Mardi Gras World. Good thing we bought tickets in advance: It was sold out. Xy pretty much demanded that we go, and given that she’s generally too preoccupied with teaching to do [...]

I know I mentioned this a couple weeks ago, but I thought I’d plug it again because my copy just arrived in the mail. Now that I’ve actually seen the book I can vouch for its quality. I’m talking about Signs of Life. It’s a book of photos taken in New Orleans and around the [...]

Xy and I are continuing our alphacinematic odyssey, at a much reduced pace. I don’t have as many evenings to watch movies as I once did. Nevertheless, it remains a welcome distraction, and we’ve finally made it through the letter R. It took us five weeks to watch eleven movies. They were mostly pretty good, [...]

The owner of the grocery store in question called me yesterday evening. He got my letter. I’ll call him Paul, because that’s his name. He told me his story, and as predicted, it was a sad one. Paul lost his job after the storm, and then he got real sick, and he now has no [...]

Michael and I met Dave Coustan (a.k.a. the Earthling) at Finn McCool’s yesterday after work, to talk about Mid-City’s desperate thirst for WiFi. Earthlink is working to bring free WiFi to New Orleans. They’re naturally inclined to focus on the most populous areas first, that is the unflooded areas. We’ve been trying to make the [...]

I’ll be on the local CBS affiliate, WWL channel 4, sometime this evening, talking about you-know-what.

I was on the local news last night — top of the ten o’clock hour. They pegged it to Nagin’s 100+3 day press conference, citing his quip about commercial blight, and then segueing to our rodent-infested grocery. They shot the interview with me yesterday afternoon. The camera operator (who bravely ventured into the grocery) turns [...]

I think I’ll be on the local news tonight (ABC 26 at 9 and 10) with some other Mid-City residents, talking about that corner grocery. Yeah, you know the one. It looks like I will also be on NBC Nightly News (national) but I’m not sure when. The producer, a guy named Steve Majors who [...]

At last, an easy way to geocode Flickr pix. You can see some of my pix on a map here.

A few days after the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, I wrote a short essay titled “I Thought It Couldn’t Get Worse.” Sadly, it seems it has gotten worse. A lot worse. We’re now embroiled in a war that has nothing to do with those attacks, yet those attacks are used to justify this [...]

I write here without editorial filter. Sometimes I wish I had one. So it was a pleasure to write an op-ed piece for the Times-Picayune, which appeared in this morning’s paper. It was nice to have a second set of eyes checking my work. Here’s what I wrote, followed by some notes.