b.rox

Just excavated an old paper, not by me but about me — check it out.

It was five years ago today that I got the terrible news that Helen Hill had been murdered in her home. She will not be forgotten. A few months ago I had the decidedly bittersweet pleasure of viewing Helen’s final film, The Florestine Collection, which was completed by her husband Paul Gailiunas. A true labor [...]

On November 11, 2011, eleven of us gathered at The 1111 Building, in parking space #11, and at precisely eleven minutes and eleven seconds after eleven o’clock a.m., we raised a toast — the No. 11 Cup. That’s eleven elevens, in case you weren’t keeping track.

A bit discombobulated and disconnected for this recent holiday. Perhaps that’s because I was traveling just before — the POD Network traditionally has their conference at the end of October, and this one was combined with the annual conference of the HBCU Faculty Development Network, and we mustered our biggest contingent (four) ever. Wouldn’t have [...]

Once again we interrupt our regularly scheduled investigations to draw your attention to a notable screening. The Florestine Collection Experimental animator Helen Hill found more than 100 handmade dresses in a trash pile on one Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans. She set out to make a film about the dressmaker, an elderly seamstress who [...]

Here’s Persephone’s directorial debut. Cast: Xy — Snow White Persephone — Nice Fairy Michael — Grumpy Therese — Dopey Nicole — Flower David — Prince Cinematography by yours truly. Obviously this was mostly improvised, but Persephone engineered the basic situation. She assigned roles and costumes. She didn’t want a Wicked Queen in her movie, for [...]

So I went down to Michael’s house last night to watch Treme. I fully expected to see a commemoration of Dinerral Shavers, and that is how the show began. The funeral scene was moving. Nakita Shavers, playing herself, gave a heartbreaking eulogy for her brother. I read that she had to do that scene four [...]

It’s the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon/Macondo/BP blowout disaster catastrophe oil spill. I don’t know how much coverage it gets outside the Gulf Coast, but oil is still percolating up in marshes here, and it’s very discouraging. Generally I have supported science and the scientific worldview, but this debacle has shown how science is just [...]

I was just coming home from the first real parade of the carnival season, fired up and aglow with the love, and I get online and I check my e-mail and I find myself on Facebook, looking at a kindly invitation to enjoy the next night’s diversions, looking at the profile of a friend, and [...]

Just noticed I have exactly 666 “friends” on Facebook. Damnation. Now I can’t add anymore friends unless someone unfriends me. Because, of course, I am an ardent hexakosioihexekontahexaphile. Update: It took me a while to figure out how to save an image showing all 666 “friends.” (Abduction by Rowan Lewis proved to be the key.) [...]

I’ve gotta give some props to Eric Spears for continuing to excavate such gems from his personal video collection. Here’s Christy Paxson Behind the Scenes at the Making of the Latest John “Cougar” Mellencamp Video. Eric sez: “Between episodes of her access TV series, The Christy Paxson Show, Christy made several video shorts, and this [...]

We had some friends over for dinner.

Yes, it’s that time again. As I’ve noted here before, Twelfth Night is traditionally observed on January 6th in New Orleans, but in other places it’s considered to begin at sundown on January 5th. I guess this relates to the old idea of holidays beginning the night before, like Christmas really seems to start on [...]

I didn’t really know Betts, but I know Gentilly Girl, who has also been a regular commenter on this blog, and so I am reposting this from Liprap’s Lament in hopes of garnering a few more bucks for the cause. There’s currently over $300 in the fund but more is needed. Start the New Year [...]

3:15 AM, New Orleans Of course this is a terrible photo, but it proves I was there. I caught some zzz, then got up at 1:45AM. The total eclipse was in full effect. A half dozen people were hanging out in the street in front of Banks Street Bar, gazing upward. I went around the [...]

Our friend James is kind of like the brother I never had. We’ve even been known to quarrel from time to time. I remember some years ago when James went back to school and started studying history in earnest. That he’s now presenting original research at the Louisiana State Museum fills me with a feeling [...]

I don’t really know Gina very well. She’s a friend of a friend, the intermediary being the irascible PJ Christie. Gina and PJ played together in a band called Rabbit Hatch back in the pre-K days. They played at our 2005 Samedi Gras party, as pictured here. So obviously Gina is a musician but she’s [...]

It’s not just a sign — it’s a kinetic sculpture. This was constructed by Peter Hickman and friends at the place where the Jeff Davis neutral ground intersects the Lafitte Corridor at the foot of Bayou St. John. It is propelled by the wind. In my personal opinion, it’s a perfect expression of community desire [...]

I’m still in touch with a number of friends back in Indiana. Last week I heard some sad news from one of these friends: His mother had passed away. She was advanced in years, but it was still rather sudden and unexpected. Yet what he asked the next day brought a smile to my face. [...]