Dispatches from the Culture War
My Favorite World always has a bit of New Orleans in the mix, even when it doesn’t, which isn’t often, and even then, it does. So for Ash Wednesday, this raw journal entry recounting the time Your Narrator marched as a member of Krewe du Mishigas in the Krewe du Vieux parade.
We pick up the journey as the Narrator and She Who Makes Me Better arrive at the staging warehouse in the Marigny on the afternoon of the parade, Feb 3, 2007.
Last week left us with a thought experiment, predicated on the proposition that, given two pieces of looming news, only one can possibly turn out well.1For me, that qualified as a burst of optimism.
Well imagine my surprise. The verdict on The Cancer is negative; the verdict on Daughter’s acceptance to first-pick U is positive. We have defied the odds. I will live long enough to be bankrupted by my childrens’ higher education expenses. And my allegedly data-based pessimism has taken yet another blow, maybe even enough to convert me into one of the smiling optimists of the world.
References
Life is busy and such, mostly in ways good. But one must never disregard the wisdom of Miss Latella Rosannadana.
(Ed Note: Eagle-eyed reader Popopopopovich correctly points out that it was in fact Rosanna Rosanadanna who made famous the “It’s always something” catchphrase. The management apologizes for any inconvenience and begs forbearance of the litigious demons of the Gilda Radner Estate.1Worse than Disney, I hear. The Writer has been put on a strict diet of gruel made from the ground up bones of our recently departed fact-checker. We regret the error.)
References
One of the most memorable movies of my lifetime is the 1990 version of Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Gerard Depardieu. It’s a grand epic, lushly staged and photographed. And Depardieu was, at the time, at the absolute top of his game.1He’s become something of a joke in recent years, but in this period, he was incroyable. With Cyrano, he’s one of a handful to earn an Oscar nomination for a non-English speaking role.
References
