The Information Super-Frog

Two years ago today was my last day of evacucation in Austin, Texas, before I started heading back to New Orleans.

On 3 October 2005 Ms.Hollie and I had BBQ for lunch at Ruby's-- sorry, anyone who thinks that's quality BBQ needs to come eat at "The Joint" in Bywater, New Orleans. The Tex-Mex place our kind hosts tooks us to for dinner that night was much better -- Austin is the Tex-Mex capital as far as I'm concerned. The next day we hit the road, drove the newly reopened but still Rita devastated I-10, crashed in Baton Rouge. Next morning the usually 40 minute drive from BR to NOLA took 4 hours.

A hell of a lot has happened in the last two years, but that doesn't seem so long ago. July of 2005, on the other hand, seems like it was back in the 1980s or something.

H & I are planning to mark the anniversary of our return on Friday by going back to Specialty in Terrytown, where we had our first meal back at one of the few restaurants open (limited hours and menu) in Greater New Orleans at the time.

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Last week Pentomino was visiting town. He thought the nail gun from reconstruction work down the street was gunfire.

Pentomino, H, & I went to the WWII museum, which has interesting stuff and ties in with the Ken Burns series running on PBS.





German "ENIGMA Machine".
In the early '40s taking a photo of one of these babies probably would have gotten you shot.

A "Higgins Boat", via which New Orleans saved the world from Fascism. You're welcome.

I was glad the last episode of the Ken Burns series at least touched briefly on how war often screws up for life even those who escaped without physical injury.

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Monday there were memorials for late musician/bandleader Jacques Gauthe. Things started off in the afternoon in front of Preservation Hall.




A "jazz band", via which New Orleans saved the world from Squareness. You're welcome.


There was then a memorial second line parade-- sort of a tumble, stopping at various bars-- winding to the Palm Court for a memorial concert with buffet. Good music for a good musician.


Tuesday H & I saw the film "In the Shadow of the Moon", about the Apollo moon astronauts. Reccomended!

Last night Ms. Hollie had a bipolar-bear attack, poor dear, but fortunately she's feeling better today.

Today we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum which is super-cool. The namesake founder/collector organized it with personalized juxtapositions. It has the feel of a musem of a century ago-- which it is, since her will creating the museum trust specified that nothing is to be rearranged or moved, or else the collection is to be immediately sold off with the proceeds going to Harvard. Much beatiful stuff; I'd enjoy visiting again on a return visit to Boston.

Next to the Boston Public Library. Not to slight the works of John Churchill Chase at the main branch of New Orleans Public Library, but the work of John Singer Sargent puts our home town boy to shame. What a temple of librariness! Serious library envy! Some interesting exhibitions in addition to the striking murals.

Then, back to Cambridge, where we enjoyed some ice cream at Toscannini's before heading back here to the guest house to chill a bit before dinner.

mshollie has been better about posting about our trip than I, despite the fact she's been busy pagenting, photographing, and webmastering the last 3 evenings.

Our hotel is in an area of modern generic off-Interstate-Highway America, but as it's in an example of such with a Panera rather than just a McDonald's we're not suffering.

Wednesday we had an excellent day in Providence. We drove in the morning to a light rain and drove around town and went into the Rhode Island State House. We met Kerri for lunch at Paragon on Thayer Street. Afterwards to the RISD museum, a teaching museum with some very fine collections. Afterwards we took look around Prospect Park before meeting Jacob at Coffee Exchange. Jacob took us on a walking tour of historic and wacky sights around downtown Providence and some good beer at Trinity Brewhouse.

Thursday we looked around the town of New Bedford, which was the world's busiest whaling port in the early 19th century -- yes, the seaman's church really does have an altar shaped like a ship's prow.

Yesterday back to Providence to eat Italian lunch at Venda Ravioli and look around the Federal Hill District. We got some pastries to go at Pastiche before heading back.

Today Hollie decided to stay at the hotel and "power nap" in the afternoon. I went over to Fall River, where I visited the historic society museum, in an impressive early 19th century mansion. I was interested in the art and architecture. Everyone else taking the tour was conversant with all the details of the Lizzie Borden case. The museum has a room dedicated to the Borden murders, advertised as "The World's Largest Lizzie Borden Exhibit". The Borden fans probably would have spent the rest of the day in the room discussing the case, but the tour guide eventually pushed the group on. (One hundred and ten years from now, will groups of tourists be debating the details of a late 20th century case at an O. J. Simpson museum?) The museum shop had some strange bottled soft drinks; I had a "Dandelion & Burdock" ginger drink which didn't taste as unusual as it sounded.

Hollie is at the big final night of the Miss Mass Pagent now.
Tomorrow we head on to Cambridge.

I had a good visit to Florida with mshollie.

Gator Nation, King Tut, Beached in Miami, Whistler's Red Bunnie, and Confederates seize the Indian Temple Mound

My Trip, By L'il Froggy

In Gainesville we visited the Art Museum and the Natural History Museum, which are at new locations on the University campus and have been much expanded from when I last visited them some dozen years ago. The African Art included an interesting beaded scabbard that reminded me of Mardi Gras Indian beadwork. We stopped at a yarn shop for Ms Hollie (who found some goodies for herself) and a wine shop for me (where I only got a marziapan chocolate-- they had a good selection of wine, but I was mostly hoping unsuccessfully to find a 6 pack of "Czechvar", the real Budweiser from Ceske Budejovice, Bohemia).

Gainesville has nice museums for a small city, a number of decent restaurants, and some natural beauty in the area. The city's psychological idenity, however, seems entirely tied up with fanatical devotion to the Official State Religion of the Florida Gators sports team. Gator Nation! Chomp!!

South of Gainesville stopped at the cute 19th century central Florida town of Micanopy, where I picked up a couple of good old New Orleans post cards (best found out of town if one wants to pay a reasonable price) including one with a nice view of part of Storyville and another of the (recently collapsed) New Canal Lighthouse at West End. Then on to the Florida Turnpike down the Peninsula to the Boca Raton area.

We stayed at a La Quinta near the Interstate in Deerfield beach (Wi fi in the rooms, yay!). We visited my parents who live in a high-rise condo with a view of the beach in Boca. The area was hit by Hurricane Wilma. Broken fascades, downed signs, and blue roof tarps were occasionally evident, but it was very unlike around here. All the traffic lights are working, and I saw no piles of debris nor trash. Shows what can be done when there's plenty of money and government support. Having a Bush family member as governor apparently has an upside. Perhaps we should see about drafting Jena as Louisiana's next governor.

I managed to get tickets for the King Tut exibition in Fort Lauderdale for H & myself. We got reservations for 9:30am, shortly after opening. Wonderful stuff, including a couple rooms on Akhenaten and historical context before the tomb splendors. Oooh, shiny. We seem to remember the exhibit at NOMA (a quarter century ago now) as having had more stuff, but this was well worth seeing none the less. The crowds weren't too bad when we went, but were quite heavy going in when we were heading out 2 & 1/2 hours later.

I should have brought a cd of the New Leviathan's "Old King Tut" to play in the car. They didn't sell that, nor any Steve Martin cds, at the Museum gift store, but they did have a large selection of other Tut Uncommon Merchandise. They had "I love my mummy" shirts, but no "Nice Tuts". I thought the kleenex box covers in the form of the Pharoh's mummy mask might not have been entirely respectful, especially since the kleenexes are pulled out of Tut's nose. Then again, that is how they removed his brain for mummification.

Hollie wanted another look at the Art Deco district of Miami Beach which we visited a couple years ago, so we drove around down there, then had lunch at Wolfie's Rascal House, a local institution for over half a century; it's a Floridaized version of an old Jewish New York Deli; about 5 times as large as anything one would find in Manhattan. I took Ms. H to Little Havana last time we'd visited Miami, so I wanted to expose her to other local culinary traditions. Gigantic Reuben sandwich and potato pancakes, delicious.

We enjoyed some beach time in the area. My parents took us out to "La Ville Maison" excellent upscale French place. On our own we chanced to find "Jamie's Downtown Grill", where we split the "Uptown downton quesadillas" made with brie, chicken, and grannie smith apples.

The Boca Museum of Art has some items of interest in the permanent collection, including a nice photography collection and a self portrait by José Clemente Orozco. The temporary exhibits were the big draw, however. A collection of old Japanese prints entitled "A Floating World" was a good compliment to the exhibit which drew me here: James McNeil Whistler works from the Hunterian Gallery in Glasgow. Some really splendid stuff, especially the items from his later years. Perhaps the highlight is a wonderful full lenght portrait of his sister-in-law with bold red strokes, formally entitled "Red and Black -- The Fan" but which Whistler himself refered to as "The Red Bunnie". Another very enjoyable exhibit was of fin de siecle French posters entitled "Toulouse-Lautrec" [in big letters, then smaller letters adding] "and His Contemporaries". Toulouse-Lautrec was the big name draw; there were perhaps 5 by him, but most of the rest was no less interesting. There were a couple of Alfons Muchas, who I've long been fond of, but my favorite was one I'd not seen reproduced before, a delightful Absinthe Berthelot poster by one Henri Theriet. It looked a good deal better than this reproduction I found on line but which gives you some idea. I doubt modern purveyors of intoxicants would have the honesty to advertise with a portrayal of users of their product clearly wasted off their asses. The museum also had an exhibition of nudes by Milton Avery. Although nekkid ladies is a subject dear to my heart, this wasn't much to my taste. I'd rather have one small Whistler etching than rooms full of Averys.

Back on up the Peninsula, into the Panhandle to Fort Walton Beach, where we stayed again with Ms. Cristina, as we did in September. We visited the Indian Mound Temple & Museum with tal_greywolf. It was "Heritage Day" so entrance was free, with various special events. There was a group of costumed Historic Reenactors, some in soldier garb. At first I thought they were portraying Indian Wars troops, but they turned out to be Confederates. A group of confederates got into a van with with a "Support Our Troops" bumper-sticker and the slogan "Stay the Course" painted on the back. Hm. Tal treated us to lunch of burritos at "Moe's" before we hit the road to go back west. While stopping for gas in Slidell we heard the cashier say "Yeah, you right" and knew we were almost home.

Total miles of the road trip: 1,970.3; Boca to my house: 890.8.

Yay, some important local reopenings yesterday.

In the morning I went to the grand reopening of the New Orleans Museum of Art. As I entered, Shades of Praise were singing "Study War No More" in fine style, then later jdquintette was playing wonderful jazz sax. Some local films were being shown as well; I caught "Hexing a Hurricane".

The bubble tea place that I thought for sure was gone (well, it had been cleared out and had an eviction notice posted) is back. Rosie Lea's is now known as Jay's Bubble Teas from a new partner, but Ms. Ruby and the same great bubble teas are still there (along with coffee and Wi-Fi, too long missing on the street which had 3 places back pre-K).

In other local news, the wackiness factor of local politics was BAM!ed up a notch as the Clerk of Courts, who'd been in hiding from contempt of court and arrest warrents, showed up at the courthouse and announced to the assembled media that she was running for Mayor. Kimberly Williamson Butler was one of the more colorful figures on the local scene even pre-K. Doc Brite commented: "Kimbo is pure comedy gold. If I didn't care about the future of the city, I'd vote for her in any office she decided to run for just to enjoy her continuing antics."

Also, they're in the process of cutting up Mr. Ingram's barge in the Lower 9th. One can no longer get within a block of it while they're doing it.

I still havn't gotten a new TV. I rather want to get one from a local place in the city. The other day I was tempted to buy one from a place on St. Claude in Marigny that was open despite having no electricity and I may wind up going back there; they seem to be the only place on the East Bank of Orleans with tvs larger than 13 inches.