tama iowa hotels
We couldn't find the page you requested, either because it is temporarily unavailable, has had its name changed, or no longer exists on FindArticles.
This error occurred at: 2009-12-16 03:25:18
If you'd like to forge ahead here are some ideas:
Thank you for visiting FindArticles.
| | | |
© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | | |
Forget 'What are your strengths and weaknesses?' If you want to get the real dope on prospective employees, ask job candidates these seven questions.
Jo-Ann Stores is posting impressive sales and earnings numbers and is an example of a retail sector on which Walmart doesn't have a steel grip.
With so many college rankings and so many different schools rated No.1, it’s hard for parents to know whom to believe. An exclusive MoneyWatch.com analysis has the answer.
Rusty Costanza/The Times-PicayuneIt’s easy to see how Laborde and Magill moved on to this project from “Canal Street: New Orleans Great Wide Way,” for much of Christmas in New Orleans” centers on that street as an important public gathering place as well as a shopping destination. Canal Street decorations have always been a much anticipated part of the season, from street post decorations to hotel lobbies, such as the Roosevelt’s signature Angel Hair lobby.
So many Christmas icons and experiences are here - the full story of Mr. Bingle, whose rotund form graced Maison Blanche, and, as a child-sized doll, many New Orleans homes; the tea for dolls at the Beauregard-Keyes House; a trip to the French Quarter for caroling in the Square or worshipping at St. Louis Cathedral; a family trip upriver to see the elaborately constructed bonfires, lightng the way for Papa Noel.
Laborde and Magill take us back to the roots of the celebration, imagining its very early days when the city was a mere settlement, and the way Christmas developed here, as it did across the country, into a huge commercial enterprise as well as a religious holiday. They recall present-decked Chrstmas trees in Creole homes, the traditions of visiting other families on the holiday. And while snow may be a rarity here, Laborde and Magill lovingly record remembered white Christmases.
Food, so important to every New Orleans celebration, gets its due here, with a long section devoted to the tradition of the reveillon dinner. Chefs Jeremy Langlois, John Besh, Gus Martin, Lazone Randolph and Tariq Hanna contribute recipes that add up to a delicious holiday menu, and food historian Maureen Detweiler’s Louisiana Navel Orange Fruitcake sounds like something you’d keep for yourself, rather than passing along.
Christmas, of course, is a celebration of light in winter darkness, and those lights shine brightly in this book, from the elaborate decorations of the Centanni Home on Canal St. to Al Copeland’s over-the-top display in Metairie, and of course, Christmas Under the Oaks in City Park. In one especially moving memory, Myra Centanni Mehrtens describes how a lighted Christmas wreath was delivered to her father’s wake in 1995, with a card from Al Copeland saying, “To the real King of Christmas.”
Christmas is also a season of song and story, and Laborde and Magill remember everything from James Rice’s “The Cajun Night Before Christmas” to Benny Grunch’s “The Twelve Yats of Christmas.”
Whatever your celebration, you will find some sweet echo of it in these pages. There are holiday memories from Deacon John, Moore, Irma Thomas, Anne Rice and George Schmidt, whose attempt to make wassail with Dixie beer results in a Dickensian catastrophe. My favorite photograph in this book is an image of a very young Peggy Scott Laborde gazing up at Santa, just as so many children have throughout the years. That sweet spirit illuminates this book -- the hope for joy, the pleasure of tradition, the way the holidays put us in touch with the children we were. That festive continuum moves seamlessly on, as Laborde and Magill point out, with the coming of Hannukkah, Kwaanza, fireworks over the Mississippi on New Year’s Eve, Twelfth Night (and of course, the Phunny Phorty Phellows) and Carnival.
“Christmas in New Orleans” is another welcome reminder of the special way we celebrate all those things here, in a living festival.
••••••••
Book editor Susan Larson can be reached at slarson@timespicayune.com.
Best-selling author John Berendt will be keynote speaker at book fair.
Frenchmen Street will take on a decidedly literary air Saturday with the eighth annual NOLA Bookfair, that celebration of indie publishing and the rowdy, distinctive spirit of small presses.
The 500-600 blocks of the street will be filled with books on display, authors reading their work, and the fun that comes with any Louisiana festival. Founded by G. K. Darby of Garrett County Press in 2001, the NOLA Bookfair has evolved into a real happening, with booklovers coming to view titles ranging from the bizarre to the basic.
Musician Robin Stricklin, the self-described "Paris Hilton of the punk rock scene," coordinates the bookfair. She started out as a volunteer. "I was the person in charge of the music and set up the bands that played. But the bookfair just fell into my lap, and I thought, how hard can it be?"
Stricklin writes a zine called The Nose Knows; the fair is a way for her to reach new readers. "It’s so hard for independent publishers to sell their work and this gives a venue for them to be heard and found," she said. "The biggest change over the years has been the move to Frenchmen Street. One of the main things that’s grown is that we have so many people who make blank books and handmade books and letterpress. Everybody’s going back to using old-fashioned ways of printing."
Another new addition this year is the appearance of a keynote speaker, best-selling author John Berendt.
"Otis Fennell at FAB (Faubourg Marigny Art and Books) is my right hand man on Frenchmen Street," Stricklin said. "We were talking about how we’d never had a headliner before and we started throwing out names. So we got his e-mail and wrote him and he said yes! He’s going to talk about censorship and freedom of speech."
Berendt, who is in New Orleans researching a new book, faced a challenge to his book, "City of Falling Angels," earlier this year in North Dakota; the book was reinstated in the library’s collection, but censorship is something he has experienced firsthand.
Veteran publisher and poet Bill Lavender, who directs the University of New Orleans Press, applauds the spirit of the fair.
"I think the bookfair’s an important thing because it brings books out into the social fabric of the city," he said. "What I like about it is that it’s loose. You see everything from comic books to major press stuff to authors hawking their own works. There are handmade books. And it’s completely free and open."
The New Orleans indie publishing scene, Lavender said, "is pretty strong actually." Not that it’s lucrative. "I have 19 titles on Amazon now, and out of those, my gross income for the year will be something under $100," he said. "Small press poetry publishing is strictly a labor of love."
Humorist Diana Grove will be making her debut with "Dot.conned," her hilarious collection of e-mail responses (and photographs) to e-mail con artists, a wonderful revenge for anyone who’s ever been bugged by Nigerian scam artists or