What I learned this week, November 11, 2011

Posted on by Bill Chance

Looking around the shelves at a used book store I came across a copy of 500 Essential Cult Books. I’m casting around for something to read right at this moment.

I didn’t buy the book, but I did sit down with it, some index cards, and a Parker 21 that I carry, and sat down at a table to go through most of the 500.

My first impression is that I was shocked at how many of the books I had already read… somewhere around half. The books were divided into categories and some I had read almost all of the selection.

At any rate, I filled a couple cards with books that I had not read and that looked interesting. Some I already have in my library or Kindle, most I do not. Here’s the list, in no particular order:

  • Generation X – Douglas Coupland
  • Nausea – Jean Paul Sartre
  • Been Down so Long it Looks Like Up to Me – Richard Farina
  • Cathedral – Raymond Chandler
  • A Feast of Snakes – Harry Crews
  • Perfume – Patrick Suskind
  • The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
  • VOX – Nicholson Baker
  • The Wasp Factory – Ian Banks
  • We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver
  • Almost Transparent Blue – Ryu Murakami
  • Bad Behavior – Mary Gaitskill
  • Cocaine Nights – J. G. Ballard
  • The Ginger Man – J. P. Donleavy
  • Atomised – Hichael Houellebecq
  • Young Adam – Alexander Trocchi
  • Wonderland Avenue – Danny Sugarman
  • A Hero of Our Time – Mikhail Lemontov
  • How Late it Was, How Late – James Kelman
  • Of Love and Hunger – Julian Maclaren-Ross
  • D. B. C. Pierre – Vernon God Little
  • Nelson Algren – A Walk on the Wild Side

I’ve been reading a lot about the “Bubble in Higher Education.” One of the interesting articles in that vein is called, Where Have All the Chemists Gone?   It links to a New York Times article – Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It’s Just So Darn Hard)

You can read both of these articles and decide what you think about it on your own, but it does bring back an experience of my own, one I’ve talked about ad nauseum – but still…. I think I’ll write it down here. This is something that happened almost forty years ago… so maybe the trends identified in the articles aren’t so new after all.

I remember my first freshman chemistry class at the generic big Midwestern public university. It was held in a large old gothic auditorium (since burned down) where they played the basketball games back in the twenties and thirties. The professor walked out on the first day and said, “This is Chemistry 301, Introduction to Chemistry for Chemistry Majors. You should only take this class if you are going to get a major in Chemistry. There are three hundred and fifty students in this class. We graduate about forty chemists a semester. You need to do the math. If you don’t think you can make it through this class, drop as soon as you can to minimize the damage to your academic career.”

I was stunned when about a dozen kids walked out at that point. How low must their self-esteem be to give up at that point (or maybe they realized they were in the wrong classroom). The first exam took over half the class. The mid-term dropped half of those that were still left. At the end of the semester the class was well under a hundred. The really bad thing was that, three years later, Physical Chemistry took a third of those that had made it that far (I still believe that P-Chem is one of the absolute evils in the world – I know if any other chemists are reading this – I just gave you a nightmare).

A few years ago I was at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Arlington (I remember there were three Nobel Prize Winners at the dinner) and the the topic was improving chemistry education. I was talking to a professor afterward about how to increase the enrolment of chemists and he said, “Actually, in my experience, most of the student that can be chemists, are chemists… what we need is to increase the understanding of some of the basic tenets in the non-chemist population.” This was a guy that should know what he was talking about.

Oh, and the article talks about how grades are lower in STEM classes than in, say, business or liberal arts. No shit. My goal in chemistry was to graduate, that was it (I consider my bare C- in P-Chem I and II to be one of the greatest accomplishments in my life. I managed to pass two semesters in a subject where I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on at all). In the decades since, I don’t think I have ever had anyone ask me my GPA. I have hired a few chemists in my day and if I ever had a job applicant with a 4.0 and a major in chemistry (In reality I never have seen or heard of such a thing) I would not hire them. To get a 4.0 in a chemistry curriculum you would either have to be too smart to be in the same world as I am, or some sort of mutant that could not relate to ordinary human beings in any meaningful way.

Another list of “Must Eat At” places in New Orleans.

New Orleans – A Foodie’s Paradise

  • Gumbo at the Gumbo Shop
  • Crawfish Etouffee at Chartres House Café
  • Jambalaya at Coop’s Place
  • Red Beans and Rice at Joey K.’s
  • Muffulettas at Central Grocery Co.
  • Beignets at Café Du Monde
  • Bananas Foster at Brennan’s
  • King Cakes at Sucre
  • Po’ Boys at Parkway Bakery & Tavern

I’ve been to six of the nine… though some were a long time ago. I wrote about Joey K’s the other day. Last year I set out to find the best Shrimp Po-Boy in New Orleans, and Parkway was the best, IMHO.

How to make pancakes from scratch

Wallet Pancakes

Why imitation syrup is better than the real thing

How to make the best diner pancakes in america

a new word for our time
ineptocracy

Man, I would love to snag a 2011 Rangers World Championship Cap. I wonder what impoverished tropical hell hole I’d have to go to so I could buy one of some poor dude’s head.

Where does World Series Runners-Up Gear Go?

A few more Scopitones. Starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

I used to Love the Tijuana Brass, back in the day. This song and Scopitone is not why.

Great Hair… terrible rock and roll.

There have been some very good versions of Telstar over the years. This is not one of them. Plus odd and wildly inappropriate footage.

Petula Clark… one of the greats. There was “Downtown”, “I Know a Place”, “My Love”, “Colour My World”, “A Sign of the Times”,  and “Don’t Sleep in the Subway.”

Oh…. and this:

And, last but least… The absolute worst:

The Stooges Brass Band

Posted on by Bill Chance

The kids at Tulane are so lucky (in many different ways) – and I’m not sure they realize it fully. Can you imagine going to college in that city? Being young and having that much history, music, and soul around you all the time would be an unbelievable experience.

All I had was bad disco.

After driving to New Orleans we were able to catch some of the homecoming festivities on campus. The Stooges Brass Band was set up on the Quad in back of the student center – though most of the kids seemed more interested in lining up for some free food.

The Stooges Brass Band

The Stooges Brass Band

The Stooges Brass Band

The Stooges Brass Band

The Stooges Brass Band

The Stooges Brass Band

I really liked The Stooges and wanted to stick around for the next act, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, but Lee had to work. He has a very important job. He works the door at The Boot. He said he was scheduled to work happy hour. We asked how long that was and he said, “Six to Ten.”

Great Music, Great Food, a Great City, and a four hour long happy hour.

The Boot

Lee working the door at The Boot. You can see his face on the right of the pipe sticking up.

Happy Hour at The Boot

It was a big Friday Evening Happy Hour Homecoming crowd at The Boot. Lee says it's always like that.

Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans

Posted on by Bill Chance

It was such a nice day to be walking around the French Quarter. Not much more than a block down Royal Street from the Nola Jitterbugs was another band playing in the street. These folks were playing the real thing, the traditional New Orleans Jazz. It was Doreen Ketchens and her band, Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans. They were very good.

Jitterbugs in the French Quarter

Posted on by Bill Chance

New Orleans is Culture. New Orleans is Architecture. New Orleans is Food. But more than anything, New Orleans is Music… Live Music.

Jazz is the one true American art form. Jazz was born in New Orleans.

At any time of any day or night you can hear live music in New Orleans. You can see dancing.

Even Jitterbugs in the French Quarter.

Nola Jitterbugs

Dancers – Chance Bushman and Giselle Anguizola

Music – Loose Marbles

New Orleans Architecture – The Garden District

Posted on by Bill Chance

The Garden District in New Orleans is one place where time has ceased to exist. The ancient, worn mansions, massive greenery, and unique architecture keeps sitting there in the humid gulf air, sticking a middle finger at floods, storms, and modernity itself. The best place for a peaceful afternoon walk. It’s no wonder so many rich and famous end up there.

The Garden District is famous for its collection of giant stately mansions. But I like some of the little details the best. Look at this beautiful little curved porch off a bedroom overlooking Magazine Street. I would like to have a morning coffee on a balcony like this at every dawn for the rest of my life.

Look at the iron railings and the colors on this building. I love the lime green on the underside of the porch overhangs. All through New Orleans you see the little round punched tin lights like you see here – they are beautiful at night.

Another cool overhang. this one is painted sky blue and you can clearly see the round lights.

The trees and the porches – they seem to be growing together.

I never get tired of looking at the intricate and beautiful details on the wooden overhang bracing.

New Orleans Architecture – Fauberg Marigny and Frenchmen Street

Posted on by Bill Chance

The French Quarter has become too touristified for my taste. Filled with grimy bars, expensive antique shops, tacky trinket emporiums, and overpriced food the Vieux Carré isn’t always what it promises to be. Immediately downriver, however, is another neighborhood that is.

New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods and one of the best is the Fauberg Marigny. At the start of the 19th century, Bernard Xavier Philippe de Marigny de Mandeville (also famous for “inventing” the dice game craps) divided his plantation into residential lots, and the Fauberg Marigny was born. In the middle part of the twentieth, the neighborhood fell into decline, with the area around Jackson Square being called “Little Angola” – after the prison due to the extreme crime. In the eighties, however, commercialization in the French Quarter drove a lot of the residents downriver into Fauberg Marigny. The Marigny became what the Quarter used to be with Frenchmen street becoming ground zero for New Orlean’s essential live music scene.

The neighborhood is a good twelve inches above sea level and escaped the worst of Katrina’s ravages. There is a wide variety of classic New Orlean’s style architecture there – early Creole cottages and townhouses, American cottages, American townhouses, shotgun houses , 19th century corner store-houses, and various modern additions.

If I could live anywhere… I think I would live in Fauberg Marigny.

The Balcony Music Club isn't actually on Frenchmen Street. It's twenty feet down Decatur Street - but it's one of my favorites.

Standing outside the Balcony Music Club last Mardi Gras (I had stepped out for a second simply to catch my breath) a large group of German Tourists came down the crowded sidewalk. The man in the lead asked me in a thick accent, where to find, “Some real jazz music.” I lead them around the corner and pointed them up Frenchmen Street, telling them to stop by each club and pick the music they liked the best. He thanked me and said in very excited broken English, “Goot… Now Ve will get to see the Real New Orleans!”

Entrance to a jazz club on Frenchmen Street.

The Spotted Cat Jazz club on Frenchmen.

A row of shotgun houses in the Faubourg Marigny.

A mermaid stained glass window.

New Orleans Architecture, French Quarter

Posted on by Bill Chance

I love the wrought iron railings throughout the French Quarter. They are beautiful even when they are not crowded with Mardi Gras crowds showering topless women with cheap plastic beads. Most of the balconies are decorated – many with tacky sports stuff – but some are particularly attractive with loads of live plants.

Something you see in tropical climates is the idea of a shaded green interior plaza or atrium with a water feature. The water and plants add a coolness, making the mid day heat almost bearable and the rest of the day delightful. These are wonderful and usually hidden living spots.

A bare balcony showing off the beauty of the elaborate wrought iron.

New Orleans is the most original of all American Cities. The French Quarter has become a tourist Mecca, but in the mornings it still feels like the natural heart of the city.

What I learned this week, November 4, 2011

Posted on by Bill Chance

Maybe I should take this list and try to get through it  before I die (probably right before). So far, before reading the article, I’ve been to five (that I can remember).

The 15 Spots for the Best Drunk Food In New Orleans

I’m sorry…. but this is simply too stoopid to pass up:

Something has exploded in a spectacular fashion on Uranus

Sometimes I look ahead and read a book because there is a movie coming out at some future date made from the book. Thus it is with Hunter Thompson’s The Rum Diary.

I enjoyed the book more than it deserved. That whole Caribbean Ex-Pat wasting away in Margaritaville, almost getting killed by the government dictator’s thugs thing is very attractive to me. Probably better read (and written about) than lived.

The movie is out now and it looks good. At least to me.

It is interesting that this is the second time Johnny Depp has played Hunter S. Thompson in a film. I always thought that Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was unfilmable… and the film proved me right. This one should be very different.

Here’s Why No One Reads Your Blog

  • You’re Boring
  • You’re a Waffler
  • You’re not a Controversialist

How Blogging Taught Me to Be a Writer

  • Discipline: writing on a schedule
  • Discipline: writing even when you don’t feel like writing
  • First drafts don’t have to be perfect
  • In fact, it’s okay to write first drafts that are so bad they end up in the trash
  • I’ve learned to hone in on the details and connections in daily life so I can write about them
  • I know how crucial it is to let a piece rest
  • I’ve also learned that sometimes good enough has to be good enough
  • A career in writing involves mandatory, non-writing activity
  • Sometimes a blog post launches into the internet … and nobody cares
  • The best part: every one of the above lessons has carried over into other forms of writing

Joey K’s

Posted on by Bill Chance

One of the challenges of visiting your children once they are off to school is that you have to adapt to their schedule – which is chaotic, involved, and long. It means that you never get anything done on time.

Tulane’s homecoming weekend is also parent’s weekend and there are a lot of activities and entertainments planned to occupy parents while their spawn are busy studying or whatnot. I looked these over and marked the ones that looked interesting. We didn’t do any of them.

There was a trip planned for all the parents to go to Joey K’s – a fairly well-known traditional New Orleans eatery on Magazine Street. I thought it would be fun to sit down and commiserate with some adults in the same condition as we are, but it was not to be.

Much, much later, however, Candy and I found ourselves seeking sustenance and casting about for ideas. She wanted Rice and Beans, so we decided on Joey K’s. We took the Saint Charles Streetcar down to about sixth street and walked to Magazine, passing the little cluster of shotgun houses that I like on the way. Walking in this part of New Orleans is always a treat, even in the dark.

We didn’t have to wait for a table and the food was delicious. Hearty, traditional, New Orleans style home cooking. Candy had her red beans and rice and I went with a bowl of Gumbo and the Creole Jambalaya. I have had a soft spot for Jambalaya ever since I worked a train derailment in Livingston, about twenty years ago. A large group of us were out there working for a long time and they hired a local man, Jambalaya Joe to do the cooking.

But the gumbo was the star. Gumbo isn’t really a single dish – everybody does it different.

Joey K’s does it just right.

The late night crowd gathers outside Joey K's on Magazine Street in New Orleans.

Occupy New Orleans

Posted on by Bill Chance

While we were lost in Downtown New Orleans trying to find a place to park before the Tulane homecoming game we wandered by a little park, Duncan Plaza, across from City Hall. A good part of the open grassy area was covered by a motley encampment of multicolored nylon tents. My first reaction was to think this was where the city had allowed the homeless to gather. After a few seconds of thought I figured out what this was. I said, “Hey, this is Occupy New Orleans.” Then we were past and I found a parking lot nearby.

After the tailgate party and the game we walked back to the car as the sun set. This time we went right by Duncan Plaza and I asked Candy and Lee to wait at the corner while I loped over a little grassy rise to see what was up.

The Occupiers has set up what looked like a lending library in a park gazebo and beyond a few men listened to some guy yelling into a small public address system.

I guess this was a library the occupiers had set up for the education of the masses. I didn't have time to read anythin.

I like the one guy's cart with a portable sound system on it.

There didn’t seem to be very many folks there. Even though it was early Saturday evening I didn’t see enough people to fill a tenth of the tents. I guess without television cameras, press, or anybody watching at all the enthusiasm waned. I would have liked to have stayed at least long enough to try and understand what the guy was yelling about, but it was getting late and Candy and Lee were waiting on the sidewalk. I snapped a couple photos and left. As I was walking some guy asked me if he could take my picture with his camera phone.

We walked to the car and left. The Saints were playing the Indianapolis Colts the next day at the Superdome and a line of RVs and chartered buses were filing into the downtown parking lots. They disgorged thousands of fans wearing the familiar gold and black of Saints fans – walking into the restaurants that shovel out New Orleans’ famous cuisine. The sound was swelling from the jazz clubs as we drove the darkening streets out through the Garden District to meet up with some of Lee’s friends for dinner.