LIVING

The latest lifestyle news from around New Orleans

Where to go on Wednesday night that would not be overrun by the 15,000 other journalists crawling all over the Democratic National Convention?

A guerilla marketing-style poster taped to a streetlight near the Colorado capital provided the answer: Ralph Nadar's "Open the Debates" rally at the University of Denver, with actor Sean Penn and guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. Outrage on parade.

Keith Spera / The Times-PicayunePosters on street lights throughout Denver advertised Ralph Nadar's rally.

The scene at Denver U. did not disappoint. Adjacent to Magness Arena, an ultimate Frisbee match was in full swing. A scruffy jazz-funk band called The People's Party banged out a shaky reggae version of "All Along the Watchtower" aboard a truck that morphed, Transformer-style, into a two-tiered stage.

Editor's note: Due to Tropical Storm Gustav, many events scheduled for this weekend may have been canceled or postponed. Please be sure to call ahead.

Much of the Crescent City's richness comes at a bargain price.

Free events abound. So, you can formulate your own cut-rate tour such as the Saturday afternoon outre art outing below. A friend called from Los Angeles this month to ask if I was free to give him and his family an insider's peek at the New Orleans art scene.

Free?
No.
But darned cheap.

It's K+3, and I feel like we've all been to hell and back.

Three years is a long time, but all the grief still can come streaming back. On a recent Sunday morning, I saw the work going on at what used to be Manuel's Hot Tamales. I talked to the lovely couple, Mike and Lori Bettencourtt, who are putting a poor boy shop into the hallowed space. New Orleans natives who moved home in 2002 after living in several states while Mike was in the Navy, they have their own Katrina story, losing their home in Lakeview.

Thom Scott / Times-Picayune ArchiveIn this week's Food pages, find out what happened to the Manuel's Hot Tamales family.• Search the recipe archive• 'Recipe Swap' forum• Cookbook reviews• Latest food news

Three years after Katrina, Manuel's Hot Tamales is a legendary business still stuck in post-storm limbo. The history of it's founder and the company are online exclusively at NOLA.com.

Marcelle Bienvenu shares cooking tips, recipes and memories of the late Eula Mae Dore, who lived on Avery Island and cooked there all her life.

In Exchange Alley, readers provide and receive recipes for red gravy -- also known as tomato gravy or tomato sauce -- a nice cool cucumber and mint soup, and a perfect take-along dessert, Blueberry carry cake.

Crista Flanagan riffs on 'Juno' in 'Disaster Movie,' opening Friday (Aug. 29) -- which also happens to be the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

Around these Katrina-scarred parts, Aug. 29 is still -- and will be for some time -- a black-armband kind of day.

For Lionsgate studios, however, Aug. 29 isn't quite as sacred. For them, the third anniversary of the day the levees were breached and New Orleans slipped under is something on the order of perfect timing: a ripped-from-the-headlines release date for the big-screen, low-concept spoof "Disaster Movie."

Daniel Erath / The Times-PicayuneGEORGETOWN GATHERING: Ted Laborde, Jennifer Rareshide, Alex Gershanik, T.C. Wicker.

Collegiate connections! A trio of fine institutions of higher learning said hi to a new crop of collegians, all the while acknowledging parents and alumni. Assembling their own were Georgetown and Vanderbilt universities and Rhodes College.

It was hi to the newest Hoyas (the class of 2012) when the Georgetown Club of New Orleans welcomed Eric Begoun, Brad St. Angelo, Imani Tate and T.C. Wicker and their parents at a reception in John and alumna Jennifer Rareshide's Garden District home, which was decorated in colors of blue and gray. Those are the colors Georgetown selected after the Civil War as a symbol of unity to honor the students who wore the Union blue and the Confederate gray.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Southern Decadence Various French Quarter locations. Gay and lesbian fest with dances, street parties, talent shows, costume contest and a parade. The benefit kick-off party takes place, 8, at The Bourbon Pub, 801 Bourbon St., with performances by prior years' grand marshals. Events continue through Sept. 1. Weekend passes are $65 in advance, online. Schedule at www.southerndecadence.net. Call 529.2107.

DecaFest French Quarter and CBD. Theater, music, films, cemetery tours, all events benefiting HIV/AIDS and LGBT community organizations continues through Sept. 1. For the schedule, visit www.decafest.org. Call 945.6789.

John Bazemore / AP PhotoCheck out Lil Wayne on SNL on Saturday, August 30.

NBC's "Saturday Night Live" announced Wednesday (August 27) that chart-topping New Orleans hip-hop superstar Lil Wayne will be the musical guest on the show's 34th season premiere Sept. 13.

Olympian Michael Phelps will host.

Red Rocks is God's own concert venue. Two sandstone monoliths, as long as a football field and several stories high, flank this natural amphitheater in the Rocky Mountain foothills 15 miles west of Denver.

Keith Spera / The Times-PicayuneFans jam in the shadow of Ship Rock, one of Red Rocks' sandstone monoliths.

"Stunning" does not begin to describe it. The stage sits at the bottom of the basin; all 9,450 seats that fan out above it boast unobstructed views and flawless acoustics.

For those of us accustomed to the rock-free environs of southeast Louisiana, it is especially impressive. On Tuesday night, I tagged along with Houma guitarist Tab Benoit and members of his Voice of the Wetlands Allstars to hear Willie Nelson at Red Rocks.

Politics and commerce have mostly co-existed peaceably along the 16th Street Mall promenade in downtown Denver.

Keith Spera / The Times-PicayuneSteve Horner is a rare voice of dissent along the 16th Street Mall in Denver.

During the Democratic convention, the permanent and generic assortment of contemporary American retail and restaurant outlets -- Ann Taylor Loft, Chili's, Radio Shack, Starbucks, Athlete's Foot, Jamba Juice, Subway, an H&R Block office -- is augmented by a partisan, pro-Democrat street circus.

Dozens of police -- on foot, bicycle and horseback -- keep the peace. Conflict is rare, as most folks tend to be on the same side for the upcoming election. But occasionally a dissenting voice cries out.

One of those voices belongs to Steve Horner.

Kathy Anderson / The Times-PicayunePacking up for the storm? Be sure to take the clothes you care about. Especially sentimental items, like wedding dresses.

If you didn't do it back in June when hurricane season officially got rolling, then now is the time to spend a few moments in your closet.

I learned my lesson the hard way in Katrina, when my wedding dress stewed under five feet of flood in my parents home. Now, any sentimental clothing gets packed for possible evacuation alongside family photos and important papers.

Be sure to catch Tony DiTerlizzi, co-creator of "The Spiderwick Chronicles" at Octavia books.

SPOTLIGHT ON:

• Who: Tony DiTerlizzi.

• What: The co-creator of "The Spiderwick Chronicles" signs 'Kenny and the Dragon.'

• When and where: Thursday, 4:30 p.m., at Octavia Books, 513 Octavia St.

• Call: 504.899.7323.

• Poet Gina Ferrara presents a birthday reading, followed by an open-mike session, Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Maple Leaf Bar.

• Voodoo Mystere Lounge, 718 N. Rampart St., presents 'Speak Its Name: a Queer Open Mic,' hosted by Frederick Mead and featuring local gay writers, Monday at 7 p.m. as part of Southern Decadence.

Even though his Tuesday night concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater outside Denver fell during the Democratic National Convention, Willie Nelson's show was mostly devoid of politics -- until the very end.

"Every now and then I get pissed off enough to write a protest song," Nelson said. With that, he broke into "Peaceful Solution": "When the war is over and we've won it, let's remember how we done it, so we don't have to do it again...There's a peaceful solution called a peace revolution/Now let's take back America."

The potential threat of Tropical Storm Gustav is shaping up like a most unwelcome case of dejà vu for certain New Orleans musicians.

Blues harmonica and accordion player "Jumpin'" Johnny Sansone was recording an album in Toronto with Cuban jazz saxophonist Jane Bunnett when Hurricane Katrina struck three years ago. Drummer Johnny Vidacovich was on tour in the Pacific northwest.

As Gustav churns toward the Gulf of Mexico, Sansone and Vidacovich are in Colorado with Tab Benoit's Voice of the Wetlands Allstars.

Here's something you don't see at every convention party: Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu and Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius dancing like teenagers at a 1950s sock hop as an all-star Louisiana band fires up "Go To the Mardi Gras" and Allen Toussaint and Harry Shearer look on with bemused grins.

Keith Spera / The Times-PicayuneLeo Nocentelli, left, with an all-star New Orleans horn section at the Fillmore in Denver on Sunday.

That scene played out at Sunday night's Friends of New Orleans party at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver. The FONO party followed the Democratic convention's delegate welcoming party earlier Sunday night, which featured many of the same musicians.

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-PicayuneSinger Irma Thomas is one of many New Orleanians in Denver for the Democratic National Convention.

The hotel elevator door opens. Inside are Irma Thomas and her husband, Emile Jackson. The next floor down, trumpeter Terence Blanchard joins us.

"This is the local," Thomas says. The New Orleans local.

This week in The Reading Life, we meet several authors of Katrina poetry. Readers will laugh, cry and be inspired by their words. Author Andrei Codrescu even offers readers a sampling of his work online. Marigny Dupuy, our children's book columnist, introduce us to "Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival," written by Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery, illustrated by Jean Cassels. Also, we have a brief review of Tony Diterlizzi's (co-creator of the popular Spiderwick Chronicles) latest work.

More in books . . .

• Hot reads: New in bookstores
• This week: Literary events around New Orleans

Among the Tuesday afternoon browsers outside the Colorado Convention Center was Ani DiFranco, the celebrated folk singer who now lives in New Orleans more or less full-time. "She winters in Buffalo," noted her manager, Scot Fisher.

Keith Spera / The Times-PicayuneFolk singer Ani DiFranco supports her candidate on the streets of Denver Tuesday afternoon.

DiFranco and Fisher had just pulled into Denver and were out for a stroll to soak up the scene around the Democratic convention. "There's a lot of good energy," DiFranco said, before posing with a Barack Obama T-shirt borrowed from a nearby vendor. "I'm hoping the momentum carries us to November."

From the 2006 benefit anthology "Hurricane Blues," edited by Philip C. Kolin and Susan Swartwout

Listen to Codrescu, Boutte, Ivan Neville and the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars read from "Jealous Witness: Poems" »

Poetry lends itself to all occasions, happy and sad, everyday and rare. It offers a multitude of forms -- the exquisite slenderness of a haiku, the sprawling pages of an epic, the rigor of a sonnet, the bouncing rhyme, the grace of free verse -- but every word is the result of a careful choice.

Poets writing in response to Hurricane Katrina and the flood in New Orleans have risen to that terrible muse in virtually every way imaginable -- some with humor, most with deep seriousness, all with a sense of responsibility. From the 2006 benefit anthology "Hurricane Blues," edited by Philip C. Kolin and Susan Swartwout, to impassioned small-press efforts such as "Katrina-Ku," published by the New Orleans Haiku Society in 2006, to Dave Brinks' "Caveat Onus," an intricate, three-part epic published over several months in 2006, the waves of poetry are still hitting this shore.

Matt Rose / The Times-Picayune ArchiveTALK TO MORGUS Live chat with Sid Noel in character as "Morgus the Magnificent" on Wednesday, August 27.

Momus Alexander Morgus has been a leading visionary in the fields of science and technology for nearly a half-century.

Just ask. He'll confirm.

So it's no surprise Morgus the Magnificent has embraced the Internet.

At noon today (Aug. 27), he'll participate in a historic online chat.

The chat topics are up to you, but the occasion is another repackaging of Morgus footage on Cox Communications channel 10.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Southern Decadence Various French Quarter locations. Gay and lesbian fest with dances, street parties, talent shows, costume contest and a parade, begins at midnight with a talent contest upstairs at the Bourbon Pub, 801 Bourbon St. Events continue through Sept. 1. Weekend passes are $65 in advance, online. Schedule at www.southerndecadence.net. Call 529.2107.

DecaFest French Quarter and CBD. Theater, music, films, cemetery tours, all events benefiting HIV/AIDS and LGBT community organizations, kicks off tonightat Voodoo Mystere Theatre, 718 N. Rampart St., at 6 with a reception and a performance, at 7 of "A Vision of Tomorrow, " a multimedia stage adaptation of Roberts Batson's "Gay Heritage Tour of New Orleans." $20. Continues through Sept. 1. For the schedule, visit www.decafest.org. Call 945.6789.

The To Be Continued Brass Band spends most nights making a ruckus at the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets. On Tuesday afternoon, they popped up unexpectedly far from their usual stomping grounds: At the corner of California Avenue and the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver.

Keith Spera / The Times-PicayuneNew Orleans' To Be Continued Brass Band parades down the 16th Street Mall in Denver.

Wearing black and gold "New Orleans for Obama" T-shirts, they drew a crowd as soon as they fired up the brass on a corner recently occupied by a vocal group of Sept. 11 conspiracy protestors.

Michael Democker / The Times-PicayuneActor Brad Pitt unveils his $12 million "Make It Right" project on Dec. 3.

A "Make it Right" neighborhood block party scheduled for Friday, Aug. 29, in the Lower 9th Ward to dedicate six new houses being build there has been canceled, says Virginia Miller, spokewoman for the organization.

The organization was founded by actor Brad Pitt to provide affordable housing to a neighborhood devastated by the 2005 storm and flood.