More press

Columnist Chris Rose, a panelist on this year's "Southern Culture on the Skids?" discussion, writes about the Stanley/Stella Shouting Contest in today's Times-Picayune.

The attendees are back home, and they're blogging

Judy Merrill Larsen (whom I didn't get the chance to meet) had a blast in what sounds like her first visit to New Orleans. And thanks for spreading the word that the people in town are friendly, funny, and just plain nice...because they are.

And then there's Amy Guth, whom I met briefly. I wish I knew that she was looking for vegetarian food, because I could've steered her around (I'm not vegetarian, but there actually are some really good vegetarian [if not vegan] options in the French Quarter and thereabouts). Her New Orleans story needs to be read in its entirety, because the city was working all its weirdness on her, and she had the good sense to be more amused than alarmed.

...and this is how it ends for another year...

...so you end a literary festival with a party (free to the public, of course, with free food and free drink and free readings and free laughs, all those things that still flow like water in New Orleans, even after Katrina) in a building where the Louisiana Purchase was signed in 1803, and you fill it with a few dozen authors who range from a former Bourbon Street stripper to a distinguished professor and winner of an O.Henry award, all of whom contributed to an anthology with 110 contributors, and all of whom attempted to summarize Louisiana in the space of a single page.

Meanwhile, down the street, dozens of crazy people have gathered in the street below a balcony of America's oldest apartment building, all shouting "STAAAANLEY!" in their best Streetcar Named Desire impressions, hoping to win a prize or at least a few seconds of airtime on the evening news, and one of the distinguished litterateurs from the upstairs party notes, "New Orleans is a place where you can have good sex," and a seventyish gentleman passing by stops to correct her sternly: "Good sex? No--GREAT sex."

And, a few steps away, the preliminary winners from the screaming contest are herded into the courtyard of an 87-year-old theater, where the Festival president Peggy Scott Laborde is giving them all last-minute instructions or advice or just passing the time of day, while a giant sheet cake and hundreds of cups of sweet tea are being handed out at a table by some exhausted and stressed-out Festival volunteers and assistants, who are still managing to smile despite a four-day weekend of sweat, humidity, logistical high-wire acts, and thousands of book fans in various states of decorum, intelligence, and inebriation.

And inside the theater, a group has gathered, including the actor Jeremy Lawrence (who plays Tennessee Williams) and the memoirist, essayist, journalist, and foodie Calvin Trillin, who are dragooned into judging the finalists, which include everything from a modern Stanley who tries to call Stella on his cellphone to a generously proportioned man who gets the crowd screaming by ripping his T-shirt and exposing his ample belly. And while the judges total up their ballots, yet another pair of actors takes the stage and enacts an entire four-minute "Tennessee" play, with Stanley stuck on the roof of his tenement in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina while his wife paddles away in a rowboat.

And then a winner is crowned, and the dates of next year's Festival are being yelled from the stage (not by Stanley Kowalski), and I'm too tired to get 'em straight, and it really is over, except for word of an impromptu dinner gathering at Galatoire's and word of a few people gathering later in the evening at a sketchy bar at the other end of the French Quarter...

All over, including the shouting

I've got other photos of the finalists in the Stanley/Stella Shouting Contest, the event that always closes out the TW Fest (this guy was the Grand Prize Winner, or the Big Stanley, or whatever you call it), but the Times-Picayune actually has a better slideshow, complete with sound.

A few more photos and stories tomorrow. Right now I'm beat.

Dessert

"I think people are spending too much time thinking about what they put in their mouths rather than what comes out. Stop eating so much! We’re become a generation of people chewing their cud, eating all the time! No. Eat your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and be happy."

--Mrs. Leah Chase, of Dooky Chase restaurant

This was the local legendary chef Leah Chase with Times-Picayune food editor Judy Walker at the party for Kit Wohl's new cookbook New Orleans' Classic Desserts.When I asked Mrs. Chase for a photograph and Judy Walker explained it would be on the Internet, Mrs. Chase said: "The Internet! I don't know anything about the Internet, but I know I need to be on it. Just don't put me up in the men's room."

The Louisiana in Words party, in photos

Bev Marshall, author of Walking with Shadows, autographing her essay in Louisiana in Words. There is really nothing you need to know about Bev except that she's written three terrific novels, one as-yet-unpublished memoir that has gotten a lot of buzz around the South (and is currently being read in New York by several editors), and that she brought 9 pairs of shoes to the Festival.


Leonard Earl Johnson, New Orleans bon vivant, "Yours Truly in a Swamp" columnist, and contributor to the collection, signing his work. That lipstick stigmata on his head is from the one and only GiO, the former Bourbon Street burlesque queen, writer, radio host, and fellow contributor, who used his pate to demonstrate one of her many, many techniques du charm.



Oh, man. This is John Biguenet, whom I've wanted to meet ever since I read his first incredible collection of stories, The Torturer's Apprentice...which got the sort of reviews that would've probably transported him to the top of the publishing heap if he wasn't a "Southern writer." He was really gracious when I started gushing about a six-year-old book, and talked about his latest endeavor, a play called Rising Water, which has become not only a held-over hit at Southern Rep, but also a sort of touchstone for the city and the nation: the first big post-Katrina play. And from what John said, it may soon have a life far beyond New Orleans.

The beginning of the end

Got to the Festival this morning in time to hear the "Wild at Heart" panel, with Paula Morris moderating a discussion of women's memoirs with Judy Conner, Louise Shaffer, Emily Toth, and Haven Kimmel. It was pretty lively at times--not exactly antagonistic, bu I had the feeling that a couple of the panelists wouldn't be establishing longtime Sisterhood of the Traveling Typewriters style friendships. But the cool thing was that they were all smart and funny and had a lot to say about their books and their fields, and it made me want to read the two writers I hadn't yet read (Shaffer and Morris).

When it was over, I met Emily Toth in the hall and complimented her on Inside Peyton Place, her biography of the writer Grace Metalious, which originally came out in 1981 and has recently become heaty again with the new interest in Peyton Place and the fact that Sandra Bullock has optioned her book. Toth, a professor at LSU, was charming and I felt like a dope for not bringing my copy of her book to the Festival to sign. It really was a lively piece of scholarship, and the fact it came out in '81 was remarkable: back then, Metalious was probably being sneered at in both English and women's studies departments. Anyway, Ms. Toth was a great conversationalist, and I was happy to learn she kept a place in New Orleans in addition to her home base of Baton Rouge.

(An aside: when a writer is standing in the hall after one of these things, go up and say hello. If you're not an insane fan, someone peddling an unpublished manuscript, or a Person With an Agenda, they're likely to be happy to have the chance to talk to someone who wants to talk to them. And if they're not nice, you have a story to share for years.)

Louisiana in (French) words

Cheré Coen of the Lafayette Daily Advertiser wrote today about the launch party for Louisiana in Words, which was held Mar. 18 at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans:

Erlene Stewart of Lafayette, one of the many writers of Louisiana in Words, Pelican Publishing's collection of "one-minute" nonfiction entries that complete a day in Louisiana, attended the book release party March 18 at the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans. The place was packed, Stewart said, and there were live music and refreshments.

"Mais, chèr, everyone passed a good time," she said. "I signed so many books, my fingers cramped and my signature became almost illegible."

William Faulkner: rocking the French Quarter for one night only

Braved the millions of prom kids and wedding parties in the Quarter tonight--you couldn't walk down the street without having to dodge a limousine or a girl in a satin gown--to see Mirrors of Chartres Street: Faulkner in New Orleans/New Orleans in Faulkner.

An old friend, Rob Florence--historian, playwright, cemetery tour leader, and about 80 other things--had adapted the vignettes that Faulkner had written during his stay in the Vieux Carré into one cohesive narrative. It consisted of Faulkner's notes to his mother, along with recitation of his newspaper character sketches of beggars, longshoremen, sailors, grifters, and other denizens of the Quarter who still exist today. Ryan Reineke, as William Faulkner, carried off the 90-minute one-man show with no small amount of panache. The director was Perry Martin, who seems to be directing everything in New Orleans these days.

Playwright Rob Florence and his Faulkner, Ryan Reineke.

People usually get caught up in panels and parties at the Festival, so it was nice to see Le Petit Théâtre packed on a Saturday night. Rob said he's going to keep revising the show, and I think it'll get an even wider audience. I don't know how he's going to squeeze that name on a marquee, though.

Saturday afternoon panels

This afternoon brought "A Conversation with Yusef Komunyakaa," who read poetry and was interviewed by Dr. Henry Lacey, former vice-president of academic affairs at Dillard University, who has to be the one of the first moderators in the Festival's history to play the trumpet while his subject read poetry. Since Mr. Komunyakaa came up in Bogalusa, La., much of the conversation was spent discussing his formative years and literary influences in that paper-mill town bordering Mississippi. His poetry was wonderful, and his voice...let's just say that he makes James Earl Jones sound like Don Knotts.

Meanwhile, it started to become hard to hear inside the ballroom, because outside a rock-concert-sized crowd was gathering for "Tennessee Williams' Memoirs: When the Playwright Had His Say," which was the hot ticket of the day, with a panel that included local legend Dr. Kenneth Holditch, stage director David Kaplan, and film director/general personality John Waters. This was one of the most gossipy events at the Festival, since the Memoirs were pretty frank, and the literary/society crowd ate it up with a spoon, even the ladies in the little sweater sets. Maybe even especially the ladies in the little sweater sets.

Dr. Kenneth Holditch (back to the camera); John Waters; David Kaplan; and moderator Thomas Keith, being introduced by a Festival spokesman.

All three men read passages from the Memoirs, and then the gloves came off when it came to sexual frankness, lively anecdotes, and some dissing of lesser TW biographers. Waters had the crowd roaring with some outrageous comments, including "When The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Any More came to Baltimore, I begged my parents to take me to see it, but they wouldn't, which I consider child abuse." Dr. Holditch defended the decision to bury Williams in St. Louis, which didn't go over well in that crowd, and pointed out that Williams' most famous Quarter apartment, on Orleans Avenue, was right across the street from the ballroom.

And there was much talk of Boom!, the Liz-and-Dick film adaptation of Milk Train, which everyone on the panel considered the great "lost" Tennessee film. From the reaction of the crowd, a screening of Boom! at next year's Festival would be a major hit (and make a ton of dough). Get the attendees toasted enough and you'd have a literary version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

I heart Haven Kimmel

Panelists Margaret Sartor (Miss American Pie) and Haven Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy).

Just heard a reading by the wonderful Haven Kimmel (A Girl Named Zippy) and walked with her back to the Bourbon Orleans. She's as charming as her books, and in the space of five minutes filled me in on a) the two men who have proposed to her since she arrived in New Orleans; b) the three times she's lived here; and c) the last time she came to the TW Fest, when an audience member took ill and a doctor who was also a concert pianist had to come to his rescue.

And then she was off to WWOZ, where she was to be the guest DJ on the afternoon Brasilia show. Since she doesn't know anything about Brazilian music, she said she was tempted to play "The Girl From Ipanema" for an hour.

She's got a third book in her Zippy trilogy coming out this fall--I'll find out more about it later. Right now I'm leeching WiFi on the sidewalk on Conti Street. Gotta go.

More blogger reaction

Local blogger Ernie the Attorney attended Michael Lewis' panel on Thursday and had more thoughts on what Lewis had to say about Ray Nagin and the state of the city.

48 hours: hitting the wall

48 hours of little to no sleep (hello, insomnia) and I finally crashed this afternoon after my last panel. Missed the dinner with John Mariani at the Windsor Court, missed the reception for Calvin Trillin at Brennan's, missed the birthday party for Marva Wright at the Ritz-Carlton...all of which looked fantastic (especially the Trillin reception). Frankly, the amount of panels and parties seems to have outgrown the four days of the Festival. Or maybe I'm getting old.

Tonight? I got nothin' except this room.

Several years ago, when Harrah's wanted to come into New Orleans, the city allowed them to build a casino, but no hotel; the already-here hoteliers used their pull to shut down hotel plans. Later, when it went through, there were worries that a casino hotel wouldn't be "New Orleans" enough (as if the chain hotel skyscrapers on Canal Street were antebellum mansions).

Anyway, the place is plenty luxe and completely separate from the casino, but what strikes me is the amount of local art in the rooms. I have two lithographs by the photographer Richard Sexton and one by Lee Tucker in one room, and all three are striking original works of art. The hotel could've put up prints of a Mardi Gras parade or Jackson Square in each room, and the guests probably would've found it sufficiently picturesque, but someone put some thought into buying work from local artists for out-of-towners to enjoy. And that impresses me more than the huge sunken bath, which is plenty nice but could be anywhere.

Tomorrow, four panels, a play, two parties, and a dinner, and I don't know how much I can fit in. This requires a mule team of bloggers.

"Southern Culture on the Skids?"

Professor Helen Taylor; Charles Reagan Wilson of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture; writer Michael Swindle; columnist Chris Rose; and moderator Josh Clark.

“Some people would probably like to secede from the U.S., but a lot of others would argue that the U.S. has seceded from us," said moderator Joshua Clark at the "Southern Culture on the Skids?" panel, which was one of those TW events where everything goes off the rails a bit and ends up just fine anyway. You want a literary festival where everyone behaves? Don't come to this one.

I had a feeling it might go a bit catawampus when my old neighbor, the Village Voice writer and essayist Michael Swindle, wandered off down the sidewalk with Barry Gifford in search of a pre-panel Bloody Mary, a concoction that seemed to be unavailable at the Bourbon Orleans, where the panel was being held. Mike was disgusted that a New Orleans hotel didn't have a place for a man to procure an adult beverage at 12:30 on a Friday afternoon, and he let his displeasure and disbelief known during the panel several times...until a hotel manager finally came upstairs with a tray of cocktails in hurricane glasses for all the panelists.

"The three English phrases most recognized in the world are Jesus, Coca-Cola, and Elvis Presley – and two of them are undisputably from the South," said Professor Taylor, who had an interesting perspective as an Englishwoman who had made Southern studies her vocation. She and Charles Reagan Wilson provided a more academic contrast to Swindle and Chris Rose, who just shrugged his shoulders at trying to sum up a culture that "encompasses Minnie Pearl, Ernie K-Doe, and George Wallace. And then some audience member delivered cans of Spam to the panelists.

When it was over, I found Mike and his cocktail at the authors' table, but it didn't appear that his publisher had actually managed to get his latest collection to the Festival for sale. It has the impressive title Slouching towards Birmingham: Shotgun Golf, Hog Hunting, Ass-Hauling Alligators, Rara in Haiti, Zapatistas, and Anahuac New Year's in Mexico City. Mike shrugged. "I talk good," he said, "but I just can't sell any books."

Apple-latcha, not appa-laytcha

Moderator Bev Marshall and authors Mark Powell, Ron Rash, and Sharyn McCrumb.

The first thing they established on the Appalachian writers' panel this morning is that the region is properly pronounced apple-latcha, not appa-laytcha. In a town with street names like Tchoupitoulas, people understand the import of getting it right.

Sharyn McCrumb read an engaging snippet of her novel St. Dale, and kept things popping with some tart observations and notable quotes, several of which made everyone in the room crack up:

“I grew up in an atmosphere of Johnny Cash meets Debussy.”

"On tour, I kept running into people who thought Deliverance was a documentary.”

“It’s fun to talk to the literati about NASCAR, because they think it’s the former president of Egypt.”

Actually, I wasn't too impressed with that last quote; there are probably racing fans in the halls of Harvard as surely as there are Dante fans in the woods of Tennessee. As any New Orleanian who has spent significant time Uptown and downtown knows, there's snobbery and then there's reverse snobbery. But McCrumb is a good reader and an even better writer.

Ron Rash, I'm ashamed to say, is a writer of whom I knew nothing, but after listening to him read, his books are going to the top of my reading pile. He's got a gripping, quiet, pared-down style that's incredibly powerful. Same with Mark Powell, who read a selection from his book Blood Kin, which won the 2005 Peter Taylor Prize for literature. Powell brought up the ongoing problem of the suburbanization of the South and Appalachia in particular, with McMansions going in atop the mountains and Wal-Mart clear-cutting the old downtowns.

Mr. Rash made one particularly poignant point about that: “There’s three ways that the culture will survive," he said. "Music, cooking, and literature.”

Which shows, perhaps, that Appalachia and New Orleans aren't that far apart at all.

Photos from Tennessee's house

Tonight there was a party at the former residence of TW, now owned by Dr. Brobson Lutz. It was one of those French Quarter places that's very modest from the street, and opens up to country-club expanses inside: courtyard after courtyard. Lots of local folks and visitors there, and if I took your picture tonight and it's not here, you should be thanking me instead of cursing me; the gods of Olympus and Nikon were not with me, and I took a cameraful of remarkably crappy snaps of not-bad-looking people. That said, this was the best of the bunch:


Paul Willis, executive director of the Festival, with Errol Laborde, editor of New Orleans magazine. Errol's wife Peggy Scott Laborde, the fest's VP of development, was there as well, but I didn't get her picture. New Orleans' professional photographers have nothing to fear from my digital cam from Target.





A not-so-good picture of Josh Clark, editor of Louisiana in Words, a new "flash" anthology of stories that encapsulate one minute each of life in Louisiana.









David Cuthbert, theater critic of The Times-Picayune, with Jeremy Lawrence, who plays Tennessee Williams.





New York visitor Travis Holder, enjoying himself and telling some really funny stories.










The lovely bartendrixes for the evening...I didn't get their names, but they were grace under pressure personified when it came to facing dozens of New Orleans social types who needed to get their liquor on. The whole staff for the party was remarkably patient, funny, and on the ball.

Michael Lewis on what's holding New Orleans back

Another blogger, Dangermond, attended the Michael Lewis panel this afternoon and recorded Mr. Lewis' thoughts on what's holding the city back post-Katrina. It's well worth a read if you haven't figured it out from the fiendishly clever clue on the left.

Barry Gifford does not take drugs and neither should you

"What kind of drugs are you on?"

That was the first question asked at the Barry Gifford master class this afternoon, which was moderated by New Orleans filmmaker and teacher Mari Kornhauser. The subtitle for the panel was "Translating Life to the Screen," so naturally there was a lot of talk about movies; Gifford was interesting, funny, and articulate, but I would've rather heard about his books (22 of them! in 28 languages!). Gifford was also the founder of Black Lizard Books in the 1980s, which brought back into print a number of wayside-fallen noir authors (his reprint of After Dark, My Sweet was what introduced me to Jim Thompson).

He has two more books coming this spring: Memories from a Sinking Ship (a novel) and The Cavalry Charges: Writings on Books, Films, and Music (essays). But most of the discussion centered on the movie version of his most well-known novel, Wild at Heart, which seems to have a bigger cult following than I knew...and by that, I mean a bigger cult than usually gathers around David Lynch movies. (For the record, he loves Laura Dern and liked Nicolas Cage's interpretation of his character.)

Gifford had so many interesting things to say that I gave up trying to transcribe, but this quote stuck with me all afternoon:

My father was involved in organized crime. I grew up in a world of men, and my role was to sit and observe; that was my university as a writer, and I was fascinated by this. I had very little discipline – I didn’t go to school in the early years – so I would stay up all night and watch the Million Dollar Movie. That's how I developed this sense of narrative. Separating truth from lies...and realizing that there wasn’t much difference.

(Oh, and for the record: Mr. Gifford says he stopped taking drugs in 1970, when they began to interfere with his imagination. Why do you think they call it dope, kids?)

Another food event: Willie Mae's Scotch House

Got a note this a.m. from Mary Beth Lasseter of the Southern Foodways Alliance:

John Egerton, a guest at the TW festival in NOLA, has been reading your blog and suggested that I get in touch with you to let you know of a special event planned for Sunday night, April 1, after the festival. Several guests of TWF, including Egerton and Calvin Trillin, will join the Southern Foodways Alliance to celebrate the re-opening of Willie Mae's Scotch House in the Tremé. The rebuilding of this restaurant began last January, has cost over $200K, and has been led by a volunteer crew from all over the nation.

On Sunday night, we'll have a dinner (it's sold out now) and a film screening (which isn't). If time/space are available, might you mention this film event to your readers? Info on the film screening is available here. To read more about the rebuilding effort, visit here.

We hope that you, and others, might join us for a celebration on Sunday night. And, if your time allows, stop by Willie Mae's on Monday for a plate of fried chicken.

That is tempting. As you can see by the pre-storm photo, the Scotch House was basically a small living room with a few tables, and the one time I tried to go there, I couldn't get in. Fried chicken, smothered pork chops, red beans: as a good friend of mine once remarked, "That isn't soul food--that's food food."

Opening day and master classes

So far, so good; the organizers are walking around looking sanguine, whether that's really how they feel or not. This is the scrum at the checkin table. Somewhere in there is executive director Paul Willis, associate director Karissa Kary, v.p. Doug Brantley, LouAnn Morehouse, and program assistant Marika Christian. Marika was a longtime Festival attendee who just up and moved to New Orleans one day, and the city opened up its magic box for her; she found an attic apartment above the city's most notable TW scholar, Dr. Kenneth Holditch, got a job with the Fest, and is now working on her first novel under the tutelage of local writer Julie Smith...all of which is the sort of thing that happens in New Orleans with alarming regularity if you just strip off your defenses and dive right in.

Here's the table from the Garden District Book Shop, which came through Katrina just fine and is actually bucking the brick-and-mortar bookstore trend by, well, not going out of business and actually making a little bit of scratch. It's in a great area; the Garden District is, if anything, cleaner than it was before the storm, Commander's Palace is (thank God) open again, and all that's missing is the streetcar running up St. Charles Avenue. Taking the "St. Charles bus" just doesn't have that romance to it.


And here's the Festival president, Pat Brady, with her inamorato/main squeeze Michael Ledet. Pat is also the author of Martha Washington: An American Life, which has gotten the sort of reviews that writers could (and have) killed for. Michael, who owns 2 Martini Press with the Gumbo Shop's Richard Stewart, was about to present a master class on self-publishing with Richard and Allain Andry, the author of the children's book Louie the Buoy.

Is anything going wrong? Well, they ran out of free coffee (which is, fortunately, not in short supply in the Quarter), and the out-of-towners are mopping sweat from their brows and looking slightly poleaxed. Wusses! It's only March.

Feeling Riche

Currently sitting at Riche in the Harrah's hotel with about six other journalists in town to cover the Fest...folks from Philadelphia, Lexington, Washington D.C., and parts farther afield: Corinna Metcalf from The Washington Times, Joseph Blake (formerly of the Philadelphia Inquirer), the married travel and antiques writers Angela Wibking and Virgil Fox, the former New Orleans travel writer Patti Nickell, who is thriving in Lexington, Ky., and Bonnie Warren, who reps the hotel and writes for a lot of local publications. (Photo: Bonnie's lobster bouillabaisse.)

This is typical Festival stuff--people have spent 10% of their time talking about books and 90% of their time drinking wine, yakking politics, gossiping, and chowing down.

Steak frites, mac-and-cheese, and a nine-onion soup. The best thing was escargot served on flatbread with chèvre, like a little snail pizza. And the service: outstanding. (Full disclosure: I ain't paying for this one, but believe me: it's good.) Verdict? Chef Todd English knows what he's doing.

After the meal, a couple of us went into the 528 jazz club next door to hear the excellent John Boutté, who has a voice like Sam Cooke, or maybe Jackie Wilson--but jazz-inflected and New Orleans through and through. Midway through the set my old neighbor Margarita Bergen appeared at our table with news; she's a columnist for Bayou Buzz and her biography lists her as the diva of culture, entertainment and epicurean delights of the New Orleans area," which is as good a description as any. (Photo: Joseph Blake and Margarita Bergen.)

And now it's 5:30 am, I have insomnia, and there's a whole day of master classes, plus a play and a reception at Tennessee Williams' old house tonight....

They all ast for you

Before spending four days immersed in books, I decided to walk on the wilder side of New Orleans with a visit to the Audubon Zoo. Years ago, the zoo was a local and national disgrace, but today it's one of the best zoos in the nation, with beautiful plantings everywhere. And thanks to the heroic staff, they only lost a few animals during Hurricane Katrina.

In fact, you wouldn't even know there'd been a hurricane. The sea lion exhibit was closed for repairs, but there was lots to see, and the Louisiana swamp habitat was packed with people gawking at alligators, nutria, the black bear, and the famous white alligator. But the best things were two six-month-old endangered leopard cubs, which were gamboling and frisking and dive-bombing their tolerant parents just like a pair of housecats.

Leaving the zoo, I turned on WWOZ-FM, America's best radio station, and listened to local music interspersed with a live interview with Miss Tee-Eva--chef, caterer, and sometime backup singer to the great Ernie K-Doe--just laughing and carrying on and talking about her famous gumbo recipe.

I don't care about Katrina, about Ray Nagin, Bill Jefferson, Kathleen Blanco, George W. Bush, Entergy, Allstate, or the Road Home program. Thanks to the people, this is still the best city in America.

In my room at Harrah's now, which is worth a post in itself. Later. After dinner and an hour in the jazz club downstairs, where John Boutté is playing tonight. And tomorrow: the Festival.

Festival eve

Tonight's the kickoff party for the TW Festival. The major donors and swellelegant folks will be getting together at the Palm Court Jazz Café for dinner, drinks, and music. I'll be spending the day at the Audubon Zoo and then checking into my hotel. Having dinner with some visiting journalists at Riche, the new Todd English restaurant in Harrah's, and then plan on checking out 528, the jazz club next door.

TENNESSEE AND HIS WOMEN: AN EVENING OF LITERARY REVELRY
Wed., Mar. 28, 7:30 pm
Palm Court Jazz Café, 1204 Decatur St.
$150

Online ticket sales closed

From the Festival organizers:

Online ticket sales for the 2007 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival have ended. To purchase tickets, please visit the Festival box office in the lobby of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel (717 Orleans St. at Bourbon). The box office will be open Thursday-Sunday, 9 am-5 pm. Event availability information will be updated regularly and is available by calling the Festival Offices (504-581-1144).

Chris Rose and the Tennessee Ernie Ford Festival

Chris Rose is a columnist for The Times-Picayune, who underwent a metamorphosis from Britney-chronicler to Outraged Man of the City after the levees collapsed. Since then, he's been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and become a contributor to both PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR's Morning Edition, and his book of post-K essays, 1 dead in attic, has raised more than $25,000 for New Orleans musicians' charities.

Today's Rose column is about the incredible sights and sounds of spring in the Crescent City, but it also has this intriguing mention:

Springtime in New Orleans is when and where the highbrow Tennessee Williams literary festival concludes with a contest to see who can scream "Stella!" the best in a dirty T-shirt, and the Tennessee Ernie Ford Festival in a local juke joint around the corner serves as a cultural counterpoint, seducing unsuspecting tourists into drunken singalongs to "16 Tons."

A Tennessee Ernie Ford Festival? I am so there. But, Chris, which juke joint is it?

Fri., Mar. 30, 1 pm
"Southern Culture on the Skids?"

Panelists: Chris Rose, Mike Swindle, Helen Taylor, and Charles Wilson. Moderator: Joshua Clark.

Brad, Angelina, and Tennessee: a generous offer

It's no secret that the French Quarter has two rather well-known recent transplants. Made a couple of movies, I gather. Heard something about them starting a family, too.

After lunch today, I walked past their new house, which has its own history; it was once owned by the New Orleans record producer Cosimo Matassa, who used it as a recording studio. Fats Domino recorded "It's Raining" and "Walkin' to New Orleans" there. Irma Thomas cut "It's Raining." And it's where Ernie K-Doe immortalized his "Mother-in-Law." Once an avocado warehouse near the Mississippi River docks, it's now more Architectural Digest than Avocado Digest.

What has this to do with the Tennessee Williams Festival? Well, among Ms. Jolie's extensive collection of tattoos is this quote emblazoned on the inside of her forearm:

"A PRAYER FOR THE WILD AT HEART KEPT IN CAGES"

It's the subtitle for TW's 1941 play Stairs to the Roof, but it's probably better known today in its abbreviated form as Wild at Heart, the Barry Gifford novel that became a David Lynch film. And since Mr. Gifford is going to be at the Festival...is it completely out of the realm of possibility that Mr. Pitt and Ms. Jolie might walk down the street and attend a panel or two? After all, everyone who's run across them in the Quarter says they're about as nice and down-to-earth as they possibly could be.

This would be a great idea for several reasons, not the least of which is that there aren't two better people to helm a remake of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof than Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Just the thought of her in a white slip and him in an undershirt would probably guarantee sold-out performances for months. (And they both can actually act, which I gather is optional for an "actor" these days.)

So...here's my offer. If you're reading, Angelina and Brad, I will personally pick up the cost of your panel passes if you want to walk up to the Historic New Orleans Collection on Thursday and take in Barry Gifford's master class (if there's room for you). Since tickets are $25 apiece, that's a $50 value.

I will even buy one of you a T-shirt (you can decide which one of you wants it). Think about it.

Thu., Mar. 29
1:30 pm

"Barry Gifford: Translating Life to the Screen" (master class)
Historic New Orleans Collection

More schedule updates

Fri., Mar. 30, 5:30 pm: "A Fireside Chat with John Mariani" is sold out.

Sun. Apr. 1: The winner of the 2006 Festival One-Act Play Competition, Cary Pepper's Small Things, has been moved from noon to 11:00 am.

Where is Richard Ford? Right here, as it turns out

In the earlier profile of Richard Ford, one of the leading lights at this year's Festival, I mentioned that I wasn't sure if Ford and his wife were staying in New Orleans. Thanks to a commenter named Teresa, I discovered that it seems he is, and he's helping with hurricane recovery in a truly hands-on way: as a volunteer "carpenter, painter, and jack of some trades," working on the first houses to be rebuilt in the Lower Ninth Ward.

The homeowners, Josephine Butler and Gwendolyn Guice, moved back in during the last week of February, in an event clogged with politicos and covered by The New York Times. Mr. Ford addressed the crowd there, and here's a transcript of his statements. I was particularly struck by this:

I want to just say this to Ms. Butler and Ms. Guice. There's a lot of cheap talk we hear every day about whether this community will come back, can come back, should be allowed to come back. But if it's going to come back, that will depend a lot less on politicians' talk, or land developers' greedy plans, or on "the economy" (whatever that means); and instead it will depend on people like you two, who let their feet and their hearts and their determination do their talking, and who know that "community" is not just a word on a sign.

Happy birthday, TW

Tennessee Williams was born March 26, 1911 in Columbus, Mississippi...which would make him 96 this year.

Deep-fried pickles and art museums

If there's one good reason to come to town a few days before the Festival, it's to squeeze in a few more meals and a little more sightseeing. Yesterday I hit Liuzza's, a Mid-City institution that got creamed by Katrina and finally reopened last July. It's classic New Orleans blue-collar Italian fare--shrimp-and-artichoke soup, gumbo, po-boys, red beans, and all the comfort foods that mean so much to people here, particularly after The Thing. I had a smoked sausage po-boy and a plate of Liuzza's surprisingly light and completely addictive fried pickle chips:


Waddled off that lunch with a walk up N. Carrollton Avenue, where the streetcars are running again--but they're the old olive-green streetcars from St. Charles Avenue, not the bright-red ones that normally run up Carrollton (they were flooded). Green streetcars on N. Carrollton? I guess you have to live here to understand how wrong that looks.

Over in City Park, I thought about going into the New Orleans Museum of Art to see "Femme, Femme, Femme: Paintings of Women in French Society from Daumier to Picasso," their new exhibit on loan from the government of France. But it was late in the afternoon and the weather was too perfect, so I walked in the museum's sculpture garden instead. Whatever damage Katrina did there isn't visible; it looks better than it did before the storm. And there was a new, post-K addition: George Rodrigue's Blue Dog, which, surprisingly, looks more natural in the Louisiana landscape than it does on the wall of an art gallery.

The whole schedule

Susan Larson, books editor of The Times-Picayune, has done her usual excellent job chronicling the dozens of events on the schedule at this week's Festival. (The T-P's mystery critic, Diana Pinckley, will also be interviewing Sharyn McCrumb on Friday afternoon.) And Cheré Coen of The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La. has her own preview of the Fest as well.

Susan also has a rundown for Friday's Tennessee Williams Scholars' Conference, which includes the following anecdote:

Lest you think it may be too dry and scholarly, there are lots of anecdotes such as this one, told by Robert Bray: "Tennessee said of his own family, 'We're all crazy, but Dakin [Williams, Tennessee's brother] is the craziest of all of us.' And Dakin's rejoinder was, 'Well, maybe so, but I'm the one who got in the car and drove all of you to the mental institutions.' "

Profile: Richard Ford

A look at some of the personalities at the TW Fest

Richard Ford is one of America's preeminent modern novelists, but a lot of people don't associate him with New Orleans--or, for that matter, with the South. He was born in Jackson, Mississippi, and lived for years in the French Quarter (his wife, Kristina, was head of the city planning commission for eight years until Mayor Ray Nagin came along).

Ford is the author of six novels and several short-story collections, but he's probably best known for the trilogy of novels chronicling the progress of American everyman Frank Bascombe: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and last year's The Lay of the Land. In 1996, Independence Day became the first novel ever to win both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize.

I'm not sure if the Fords are still living in the French Quarter or if they've decamped permanently for parts North, but I did see him a couple of years ago at Fiorella's on the French Market, quietly waiting for Fiorella's justly famed fried chicken plate lunch. That's typical New Orleans; you can run into anyone in a barroom or a luncheonette. Even a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Fri., Mar. 30, 4 pm
"A Conversation with Richard Ford"

The Times-Picayune on John Waters on Tennessee Williams

David Cuthbert of The Times-Picayune has an extremely entertaining Tennessee-themed Q&A with filmmaker and panelist John Waters in today's paper. Waters has written the introduction for Memoirs, the TW biography that's just been reissued by New Directions Publishing.

There's also a great roundup of stories on the Festival's theater offerings, including Jeremy Lawrence in "Everybody Expects Me to Write Another Streetcar," Gregg Barrios' new play "Rancho Pancho," and a general roundup of Tenn-themed stage offerings.

Sat., Mar. 31, 4 pm
"Tennessee Williams' Memoirs: When the Playwright Had His Say"

Panelists: John Waters, David Kaplan of the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival, and Thomas Keith, editor of New Directions Publishing. Moderator: Kenneth Holditch.

CDs from past Festivals

Missed the 2006 TW Fest? Get up to speed with archival CDs from the first post-Katrina Festival. They're $10 apiece, and there are dozens to choose from at the Festival's online CD store.

First day of spring, New Orleans style

Spring--early spring--is the very best time of the year to come to New Orleans, as people seem hellbent on getting outside before it gets hellishly hot (which it always does before the end of April; 'spring' is more a seasonette than a season here). And the flowers always seem to be at their best during the time of the Festival--the azaleas are going crazy, and I saw rivers of crimson-and-clover growing wild alongside the highway this afternoon.

Like all things in New Orleans, though, the good is inextricably twined with the regrettable, and with all this lushness comes some of the worst hay fever in the country. Pollen.com listed today's pollen count as 10.7 on a scale that I thought only went to 10, and said that the oak, grass, juniper, and cedar are busily budding and spor-ing and sending sinuses haywire.

Everyone knows that if you're coming to the Jazz Festival, you bring a hat and sunscreen. For Tennessee Williams? Claritin and Kleenex. Trust me.

Annette Cardona joins the program

Annette Cardona, who played the role of Perla in the 1996 off-Broadway production of one of Williams' last plays, The Red Devil Battery Sign, has been added to the Festival lineup. (And I'd be remiss not to note that Ms. Cardona also originated the role of Cha-Cha DiGregorio, 'the best dancer at St. Bernadette's...with the worst reputation' in the film version of Grease.)

She'll be appearing in the "Ode to Tennessee" panel, as well as speaking after the screening of the documentary Tennessee Williams: Theater in Process. As the program says:

Narrated by Tennessee Williams, this documentary traces the development of his play The Red Devil Battery Sign from its opening press conference to its first performances at Boston’s Schubert Theater in June 1975. The film offers an unusual look behind the scenes at a different kind of drama — the process of bringing theater to life. What we see and hear in the film is what makes the play possible. We witness the rehearsals, follow the revisions, and encounter the problems Williams faced in bringing the work to stage.

Sun., Apr. 1, 10 am
The Cabildo

Tennessee Williams: Theater in Process
A screening of the 1976 documentary narrated by Williams, with a discussion of the play The Red Devil Battery Sign featuring Annette Cardona

Back in town

I arrived in New Orleans last night about midnight. My luggage did not. Fortunately I had my one-quart Ziploc bag with no more than 3 oz. of essential liquids and gels on my person rather than in my suitcase...

Will it be found in time for the Festival? Or will I be covering it in a T-shirt and gym shorts?

Edited to add: Man and bag are one again. Thanks, American Airlines!

NPR on Tennessee's notebooks

Last weekend, National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition" had a feature on Tennessee Williams' Notebooks, which have been collected in a new volume by scholar Margaret Bradham Thornton. Actor Rick Foucheux read them aloud; you can listen to the broadcast here.

Arriving today

By the grace and mercy of the U.S. airline system, I'll be pulling into the New Orleans airport tonight at an ungodly hour and flopping at the house of some friends in Metairie. Dinner will be eaten in the concourse of the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, where I'll have my choice of Popeyes or Subway and be dreaming of a muffuletta from Napoleon House.

Profile: John Waters

A look at some of the personalities at the TW Fest

John Waters is a director, a writer, and one of the most hilarious people in the world. Even if you didn't grow up watching Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble, and his other cinema outrages, you've probably seen Hairspray (either the film or the Broadway musical, which has been turned into a film again). Two years ago, I was lucky enough to interview Waters on one of his jaunts to New Orleans, where his artwork is often on display at the Arthur Roger Gallery in the Warehouse District.

Waters is also a major Tennessee-ophile, and wrote about his obsession last year in The New York Times. This year, he wrote the introduction for Memoirs, a reprinting of Williams' biographical essays. His new projects are "'Til Death Do Us Part," a macabre comedy-documentary series that premieres tonight on CourtTV, and Fruitcake, a children's film (!) scheduled to start shooting this fall.

Sat., 4 pm: "Tennessee Williams' Memoirs: When the Playwright Had His Say"

The schedule continues to evolve...

More panel and panelist changes...

New Orleans as a Home for Writers ... Still

In 1987, at the first Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, a group of writers gathered on a panel to discuss the distinctive elements that make New Orleans congenial to their creative spirits. Is it Mardi Gras, the weather, the Sazeracs, or the jazz? Join original panelists as they share how the Crescent City continues to inspire and influence their work.

Fri., Mar. 30, 10 am
Panelists: Jason Berry, Christine Wiltz. Moderator: Ralph Adamo.
Bourbon Orleans Ballroom


And the Beats Go On

With the end of World War I came the Lost Generation and the Golden Age of American prose: Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway. With World War II came a very different movement—the Beat Generation—one that brought the rhythms of jazz to the written word, and continues to influence the major writers of today. Kerouac, Burroughs, Thompson: All spent time in Tennessee Williams' "spiritual home"—part of the "Golden Triangle" between New York and San Francisco—and like him, captured the Crescent City with their words. In this panel, three authors who knew and have written about members of the Beat movement, discuss the Beats' influence on their own work and the group's lasting contributions to the contemporary literary landscape.

Sat. Mar. 31, 11:30 am
Panelists: Doug Brinkley, Barry Gifford, and Curtis Robinson. Moderator: Michael Swindle.
Bourbon Orleans Ballroom