{"quotes":[{"text":"Another site of Leftist struggle [other than Detroit] that has parallels to New Orleans: Palestine. From the central role of displacement to the ways in which culture and community serve as tools of resistance, there are illuminating comparisons to be made between these two otherwise very different places.In the New Orleans Black community, death is commemorated as a public ritual (it's often an occasion for a street party), and the deceased are often also memorialized on t-shirts featuring their photos embellished with designs that celebrate their lives. Worn by most of the deceased's friends and family, these t-shirts remind me of the martyr posters in Palestine, which also feature a photo and design to memorialize the person who has passed on. In Palestine, the poster's subjects are anyone who has been killed by the occupation, whether a sick child who died at a checkpoint or an armed fighter killed in combat. In New Orleans, anyone with family and friends can be memorialized on a t-shift. But a sad truth of life in poor communities is that too many of those celebrate on t-shirts lost their lives to violence. For both New Orleans and Palestine, outsiders often think that people have become so accustomed to death by violence that it has become trivialized by t-shirts and posters.While it's true that these traditions wouldn't manifest in these particular ways if either population had more opportunities for long lives and death from natural causes, it's also far from trivial to find ways to celebrate a life. Outsiders tend to demonize those killed--especially the young men--in both cultures as thugs, killers, or terrorists whose lives shouldn't be memorialized in this way, or at all. But the people carrying on these traditions emphasize that every person is a son or daughter of someone, and every death should be mourned, every life celebrated.","author":"Jordan Flaherty","tags":["celebration","civil-disobedience","community","death","funeral","life","martyr","new-orleans","non-violence","palestine","resistance","second-line","struggle"],"id":4691,"author_id":"Jordan+Flaherty"},{"text":"He pulled out handcuffs and snapped them around my wrists. 'Where's your bag? You didn't bring your staff?'I have it. It's hidden.' Charlie was currently tucked inside the leg of my Harry Potter pajama bottoms, which were beneath my jeans, but that fell under the category of TMI.","author":"Suzanne Johnson","tags":["elders","magic","new-orleans","pirates","shifters","wizards"],"id":6133,"author_id":"Suzanne+Johnson"},{"text":"A good crowd had formed along the sidewalk and the concrete ledge that bordered Louis Armstrong Park. The anticipation was dizzying...New Orleans had the big-boy parades and [Jackson \u0026 Billy] couldn't wait to attend a second line...","author":"Hunter Murphy","tags":["french-quarter","louis-armstrong","music","musicians","new-orleans","new-orleans-french-quarter","nola","second-line"],"id":7302,"author_id":"Hunter+Murphy"},{"text":"I have fourteen black wives an' one white, de chiefest one. I would sure enough shoo her away dis minute if you tek her place in my bed tonight, Mama Sam Moon.'Was sex all these people ever thought about? I guess life was short back then, and nobody had much time to waste on anything else.","author":"J.R. Rain","tags":["loup-garou","new-orleans","shifters","time-travel","vampire","voodoo","witches"],"id":7343,"author_id":"J.R.+Rain"},{"text":"My places were emotional, primarily. I wrote of locales in which I had lived, or in which I imagined I could live, but the topography was primal and sexual and terminal. It bore no distinct architecture or design or dialect. It was merely human and in peril, which is to say universal. But on Royal and Coliseum and Vista--streets I cannot relinquish--I found my places and I dreamed a narrative. Can I go there and find it again?'--Tennessee Williams.","author":"James Grissom","tags":["dreams","identity","inspiration","james-grissom","los-angeles","new-orleans","place","tennessee-williams","writing"],"id":14938,"author_id":"James+Grissom"},{"text":"We walked the length of Jackson Square, stopping to look at the work of a couple of artists who'd set up their sidewalk shops for the day.'Look.' Eugenie stopped in front of an acrylic painting of a mustached man with curly dark hair, hooded eyes, and a big hooked nose. He looked like he'd steal the hubcaps off your grandmother's Cadillac.'It's Jean Lafitte, our most famous pirate,' the artist said. 'He was quite a character.'She had no idea. She also had badly missed the mark on his looks. His hair wasn't that curly, he'd been clean-shaven the whole time I'd known him, his nose was straight and in perfect proportion to the rest of his features, and he didn't have hooded black eyes. Still, he might find it entertaining. 'How much?' I asked.","author":"Suzanne Johnson","tags":["elves","fae","magic","new-orleans","shape-shifters","shifters","vampires","wizards"],"id":29655,"author_id":"Suzanne+Johnson"},{"text":"The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off. That means beignets and crayfish bisque and jambalaya, it means shrimp remoulade, pecan pie, and red beans with rice, it means elegant pompano au papillote, funky file z'herbes, and raw oysters by the dozen, it means grillades for breakfast, a po' boy with chowchow at bedtime, and tubs of gumbo in between. It is not unusual for a visitor to the city to gain fifteen pounds in a week--yet the alternative is a whole lot worse. If you don't eat day and night, if you don't constantly funnel the indigenous flavors into your bloodstream, then the mystery beast will go right on humping you, and you will feel its sordid presence rubbing against you long after you have left town. In fact, like any sex offender, it can leave permanent psychological scars.","author":"Tom Robbins","tags":["beignets","crayfish","food","gumbo","jambalaya","new-orleans","pecan-pie","po-boys","red-beans-with-rice"],"id":29729,"author_id":"Tom+Robbins"},{"text":"If there was no New Orleans, America would just be a bunch of free people dying of boredom.' -Judy Deck in an e-mail sent to Chris Rose.","author":"Chris Rose","tags":["america","freedom","fun","new-orleans"],"id":40179,"author_id":"Chris+Rose"},{"text":"An iron? Was he kidding? God.","author":"Suzanne Johnson","tags":["magic","new-orleans","pirates","wizards"],"id":41063,"author_id":"Suzanne+Johnson"},{"text":"Strong hands slipped over her shoulders as Alex joined us, standing so close, I could feel his body heat radiating up my back….He squeezed my shoulders a little hard for it to be a show of solidarity. I’d probably have bruises. He was marking his territory.","author":"Suzanne Johnson","tags":["fae","magic","new-orleans","pirates","wizards"],"id":43074,"author_id":"Suzanne+Johnson"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":95,"pages":10,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}