b.rox

Our first plan was to reprise last year’s costumes which we didn’t really get to employ last year. But then it became clear that this Mardi Gras would be unseasonably cool, and perhaps downright cold. Costuming as Olympian deities seemed like it would be uncomfortable, and so I scrambled at the last possible minute to [...]

Baron Samedi (encre et crayons de couleurs) by Cecily Devil / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Looking back, I realize we had only four Samedi Gras parties at our old house. It seems like more, because we lived there for seven years. Plus, we always did it up big. A keg of beer. Serious home-cooked food — usually [...]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/35221084@N08/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
I’ve often heard it said that sweet juicy rum drinks can be very dangerous, but that’s really no excuse since I was mixing them myself. The simple fact is that I didn’t pay careful attention to how much I was drinking, and thus I drank too much — way too much [...]

I’m still trying to catch up to the present.
We celebrated Xy’s birthday last Tuesday. Since she was feeling sick and I was run ragged it was a pretty lame birthday, but of course she’s used to such disappointments, as are all children of late December. I tried to recontextualize the Escape as Xy’s birthday present, [...]

I spent the last week recovering from my family reunion. We have one every five years, and this was the tenth such event. The family is spread around the country pretty well (except for the northeast) so we have been rotating the location ever since my grandmother sold the farm. This time we were in [...]

Friday night my daughter stabbed me in the eye. Not intentionally — she was just waving her arm around. Her little finger somehow got past my glasses, and her nail sliced right across my cornea. When she realized I was in pain she gave me a kiss. Very sweet.
It was pretty painful, but I thought [...]

A photo I took in 2005 was recently used to spur a collaborative writing assignment.

I have no idea where the class was even located. I only found this through Flickr’s referrer logs. The students used EtherPad to collaborate, allowing me to see the final product.
Here are their instructions.

As a group pick one image from [...]

Today I’m giving thanks to so many people who have given me so much over the past year.

To all of my co-workers, for helping me develop professionally to better accomplish our mission.
To my fellow FOLC board members, for tirelessly pursuing our shared vision for a new greenway in New Orleans.
To our neighbors for providing [...]

If you’re in range of WTUL you will of course want to listen to Big Al’s “Ballads to Baste Your Bird By” tonight from 6-8 PM. It’s a New Orleans tradition going on ten years now. You can listen online too.
In the same spirit I offer the following mix to get you in the spirit [...]

Here at work we had our Hallowe’en social hour yesterday afternoon. I supplied the music; unfortunately we didn’t have the bandwidth to play this over the internet. Hopefully you do. So here’s a halloweenish mix of thirteen tracks including music by Andy Forray, Bauhaus and Body Odor.

Warning: This mix contains three covers of a [...]

We used to purchase thousands of flags for International Flag-Burning Day [anthem] and build huge bonfires. It was so thrilling to watch the colors of every nation go up in flames. But who can afford that in today’s economy? Besides which, we realized we were subsidizing the flag industry. That’s no way to end to [...]

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As I rode my bike to my book club yesterday morning, I wondered idly what name the day might have. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday… surely this Saturday must have a name too?
We had a new visitor to our book circle, a woman named Charlotte. I’d guess her to be somewhere around my mother’s [...]

Here’s a Good Friday mashup to help you celebrate the day.

Tenebreuse Responsorium by Editor B

A well-crafted prank is a thing of beauty. I’ve pulled off a few in my day of which I am proud, but they were modest endeavors. More elaborate pranks raise the stakes, and the dividing line between a successful prank and abject failure is precariously thin: A prank that doesn’t come off makes an ass [...]

I don’t know who came up with the idea of giving up something at this time of year. I first encountered this practice as a part of Christian Lent, of course. I’ve been surprised to learn that many Christian practices actually have their roots in much older traditions, something which I find fascinating and deserving [...]

I was really looking forward to this Mardi Gras, in part because we skipped the last one, and because it was my baby girl’s first, and because it’s also the first for my septuagenarian parents, and most of all because I’ve come to learn that all celebrations have an aspect of transcendence, and that’s good [...]

Parties are strange affairs. People gathering together for no other purpose than to celebrate life and enjoy each other’s company. What an ephemeral proposition! And also how wonderful. It’s almost enough to make one suspect that gross material possessions are not the most important things in life. Hmm.
We had a great party here yesterday. I [...]

Here’s Persephone (my daughter) with Persephone (the float):

Also pictured: Persephone’s father and grandparents.
In fact, this morning we got a tour of the Rex den from the very kind Dr. Stephen Hales, who also took the photograph. It’s my parents’ first Mardi Gras as well, so this is all new to them. I think they appreciated [...]

OK, let me get this out of the way first: Yes, I dressed the girl in her little Valentine’s Day outfit for daycare this morning. And yes, she looked cute. But all the same, allow me to insert a peremptory and curmudgeonly growl in advance of Valentine’s Day. Somewhere along the line, in Chaucer’s time [...]

Carnival may begin on the sixth day of the year, officially, but it doesn’t really feel like Carnival until you see your first parade. That first parade in Orleans Parish is Krewe de Vieux, and it also happens to be the best — always. It’s raunchy, satirical, and tremendous fun. This year KdV took on [...]