106. Interview with Alys Arden about Casquette Girls

106. Welcome to the beginning of our third year!  This week we interview Alys Arden.  She grew up in the Vieux Carré, cut her teeth on the streets of New York, and has worked all around the world since. She still plans to run away with the circus one day.  Her first novel is The Casquette Girls.  After the Storm of the Century rips apart New Orleans, Adele Le Moyne and her father are among the first to return to the city following the mandatory evacuation. Adele wants nothing more than for life to return to normal, but with the silent city resembling a mold-infested war zone, a parish-wide curfew, and mysterious new faces lurking in the abandoned French Quarter, normal will have to be redefined. Amidst the mayhem, strange events – too unnatural even for New Orleans – lead Adele to an attic where she accidentally opens a Pandora’s box – one that has been sealed for three hundred years. The chaos she unleashes threatens not only her life but everyone she knows.

1. This week in Louisiana history. May 31, 1964. Last run of Canal Street Streetcar.
2. This week in New Orleans history. On May 31, 1985, the New Orleans Saints were sold for $70,204,000.  Tom Benson acquired the franchise from John W. Mecom, Jr., the team's first majority stockholder.  Benson  hired Jim Finks as general manager and Jim Mora as head coach.
3. This week in Louisiana.New Orleans Oyster Festival
   Woldenberg Park
   New Orleans, LA 70130
   504.835.6410
   http://www.neworleansoysterfestival.org/
   May 30 - 31, 2015
   10:00 AM - 7:00 PM CDT  
   "More than 20 restaurants will be preparing oyster dishes for a festival that includes the Acme Oyster-Eating Contest, the P&J Oyster-Shucking Competition, and the New Orleans Fish House Largest Oyster Contest. There also will be arts and crafts vendors, and children's activities. Entertainers for 2015 include the Treme Brass Band, Colin Lake, the Bucktown All-Stars, Rockin' Dopsie, Marcia Ball, and more. Proceeds support the Louisiana oyster industry, the French Quarter community, and the 8th District of the New Orleans Police Department."

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The Casquette Girls

The Casquette Girls

105. Interview with Rep. John Bel Edwards, Lamar White, and Dayne Sherman

105.  Our second anniversary episode.  We interview Rep. John Bel Edwards, who is a candidate in Louisiana's upcoming gubernatorial race. "John Bel, as his friends and family know him, excelled in high school athletics (football and baseball) and graduated as valedictorian of his Amite High School class. As one of eight children from a family long dedicated to public service, John Bel carries on the family tradition. With a father who was the elected Sheriff of Tangipahoa Parish – the Edwards have four generations of Tangipahoa Parish Sheriffs in their family lineage with John Bel’s brother Daniel currently serving as Sheriff – John Bel learned the importance of public service at an early age." After Rep. Edwards has to leave, we talk to our friends Lamar White and Dayne Sherman, two of Louisiana's political bloggers.

1. This week in Louisiana history. May 23, 1934. Law enforcement officers and posse members gun down outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow beside the Jamestown-Sailes Highway - about eight miles from Gibsland.
2. This week in New Orleans history. May 23, 1939, WPA workers began work on the sand beach at Elysian Fields and the Lakeshore Drive (Milneburg) at what would become Pontchartrain Beach. Plans called for the construction of the beach, a swimming pool, a bath house, parking areas and roads. The seawall had already been completed and the sand beach would lie between it and the lake waters.  Pontchartrain Beach amusement park closed 44 years later, in the summer of 1983.
3. This week in Louisiana.  "Purchased Lives: New Orleans and the Domestic Slave Trade, 1808-1865"
   Williams Research Center
   The Historic New Orleans Collection
   410 Chartres St.
   New Orleans, LA 70130
   504.523.4662
   http://www.thnoc.org/
   May 21 - July 18, 2015
   9:30 AM - 4:30 PM CDT
   Admission: Free

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John Bel Edwards

Lamar White

Dayne Sherman

104. Martha Serpas Interview, Part 2.

104.  Part 2 of our interview with poet Martha Serpas.  “Martha Serpas is the author of three collections of poetry, The Diener (LSU);  The Dirty Side of the Storm (W.W. Norton); and Côte Blanche (New Issues). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Southwest Review, and Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, as well as in a number of anthologies, including the Library of America’s American Religious Poems, The Art of the Sonnet, and Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image. She holds degrees in English and creative writing from Louisiana State, New York University, and the University of Houston, and a master of divinity from Yale Divinity School. A native of south Louisiana, she remains active in efforts to restore Louisiana’s wetlands. Since 2006 she has worked as a trauma chaplain at Tampa General Hospital. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.”

1. This week in Louisiana history. May 16, 1932. In just 17 months, H. Long's new state capitol was completed, dedicated, and opened during the inauguration of Gov. O.K. Allen.
2. This week in New Orleans history. The Southern Baptist Convention founded the institution as the Baptist Bible Institute during the 1917 convention meeting in New Orleans. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, or NOBTS for short, was the first institution created as a direct act of the Southern Baptist Convention and was located in the Garden District on Washington Avenue. The institutes's purpose was centered on missionary work, and initially established as gateway to Central America. On May 17, 1946, the SBC revised the institutes' charter to enable it to become a seminary, and the name was changed to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Missions and evangelism have remained the core focus of the seminary.  The Seminary started as the Baptist Bible Institute and relocated to a more spaciouse campus during the 1950s to the current location in Gentilly after purchasing a 75-acre pecan orchard and transformed it into what is now a bustling campus over 100 buildings, including academic buildings, faculty and staff housing, and student housing.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   
   42nd Annual Greek Festival New Orleans
   May 22nd, 2015 - May 24th, 2015
   Holy Trinity Cathedral
   1200 Robert E. Lee Boulevard, New Orleans, LA 70122
   504-282-0259
   Website 

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103. Martha Serpas interview, part 1

103.  Part 1 of our interview with poet Martha Serpas.  “Martha Serpas is the author of three collections of poetry, The Diener (LSU);  The Dirty Side of the Storm (W.W. Norton); and Côte Blanche (New Issues). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, Southwest Review, and Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion, as well as in a number of anthologies, including the Library of America’s American Religious Poems, The Art of the Sonnet, and Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image. She holds degrees in English and creative writing from Louisiana State, New York University, and the University of Houston, and a master of divinity from Yale Divinity School. A native of south Louisiana, she remains active in efforts to restore Louisiana’s wetlands. Since 2006 she has worked as a trauma chaplain at Tampa General Hospital. She teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston.”

1. This week in Louisiana history. May 10, 1781. Formal surrender of Pensacola to Gov. Galvez.
2. This week in New Orleans history. At the Wednesday May 9, 1832 session of the Conseil de Ville (City Council) it was resolved “that the Mayor is and remains authorized to use the stores necessary to complete the sidewalks ‘City Carré Banquettes’ already begun. The paving material left over and that which shall hereafter be had from this should be exclusively used to pave Royal Street. Approved May 15, 1832 by D. Prieur, Mayor.”
3. This week in Louisiana.
   Mid-City Bayou Boogaloo
   May 15th, 2015 - May 17th, 2015
   Bayou St. John
   Intersection of Orleans & N. Jefferson Davis Parkway, New Orleans, LA 70119
   504-488-3865
   Website

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102. Interview with Maggie Heyn Richardson

102.  We interview Maggie Heyn Richardson about her book, Hungry for Louisiana, a book about our food and its relation to our culture.  "Richardson reveals the way that food sets a powerful tempo to life in the Bayou State, a place where eating locally and seasonally existed well before it was fashionable. Whimsically told and thoughtfully reported, the book provides a fresh look at eight of the state’s most emblematic foods: crawfish, jambalaya, snoballs, Creole cream cheese, filé, blood boudin, tamales, and oysters, revealing angles not reported elsewhere. Richardson takes readers on a journey into Louisiana farms, meat markets, restaurants, festivals, culinary competitions, roadside vendors and other spots where she interviews the men and women responsible for producing these memorable items as well as those who cook and enjoy them. An engaging look at the way food informs identity, Hungry for Louisiana will tug at the heartstrings of anyone who has ever lived in this bizarre and homespun state as well as those who want to know more about it."

1. This week in Louisiana history. May 4, 1970. T.H. Williams wins Pulitzer Prize for his biography, Huey Long.
2. This week in New Orleans history. Jennifer Quayle in the Times-Picayune (May 2, 1976): It's said that pralines were named after Cesar du Plessis Praslin (pronounced 'pralin') a grand marshal of pre-Napoleonic France. According to legend, it was Praslin's valet who suggesed his master's almonds be cooked with sugar to prevent indigestion.... The French brought the candy to the New World, ..., when they copied it (since almonds weren't readily available, Louisiana pecans were substituted.' Ms. Quayle goes on to suggest that house servants learned to make the candies from their mistresses and soon began to sell pralines on the streets of the Crescent City.  Many used the money they earned to buy their freedom.
   
3. This week in Louisiana.
   Cochon de Lait Festival
   May 7th, 2015 - May 10th, 2015
   Cochon de lait Pavilion
   1832 Leglise Street, Mansura, LA 71350
   318-964-2152
   Website  

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