Greetings, and welcome to the March 2010 Sampler essay. I hope that you enjoyed the first two sampler essays of 2010 – January and February – with my foray into trying to be someone I am not, which continues here and will for the next couple of months with intensity and continue in spurts for the next two years.
Saturday The 6th
Yes, I am sure that people who participate in bicycle pub crawls enjoy them, but it seems rather ridiculous to me.
What was more ridiculous was that I thought that chasing and photographing this pub crawl in various neighborhoods was a good use of my talent and several hours of my time on a Saturday in good-weather times, but, again, sometimes, you have to be something that you’re not to understand who you are, and, with the publication that I had just started, that is what I was doing.
Sunday The 7th
Here is the pumping station of the 17th Street Canal just south of the Norfolk Southern Railway crossing of that canal.
It’s all so much.
Saturday The 13th
The next weekend was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, and it was time for the big Irish Channel St. Patrick’s Day parade.
I guess partly due to my contrarian – or nontrarian – streak and partly due to smaller crowd sizes, I always liked attending this parade better than attending a Carnival parade; unlike with Carnival, there wasn’t some expectation – either locally or nationally – that you were “supposed to” attend such a parade in New Orleans.
Friday The 19th
It’s late on a Friday afternoon right before the spring equinox, and I am climbing the since-replaced Wisner Boulevard overpass to photograph the setting sun as it sets almost due west.
She who encountered my life the next month would say that my description of the equinoxes and seasonal changes due to the sunlight’s position in the sky was done in an “anti-pop-culture” sort of way.
Yes!
Saturday The 20th
The next morning at 07:48 CDT, which should actually be just 06:48 CST, I am back on the same overpass, looking in the same direction.
Contrary to the impression that the presence of the Union Pacific Railroad locomotives on the front end of the train might convey to you, this is not a UP train; this is the Norfolk Southern Railway’s morningly transfer run to and from the Canadian National Railway Mays Yard making its way back to NS Oliver Yard with the daily interchange cut from the CN.
Wednesday The 24th
It’s time for “Wednesday At The Square”, something that I enjoyed. I may have been a bit fake by covering the event as a news event, but enjoying a live performance from Mia Borders was an intrinsically good thing.
I wanted to be on that stage myself, performing, but various issues conspired to kill that dream, I am profoundly sad to say.
Saturday The 27th
On the last Saturday of the month, I went to the weekly Crescent City Farmers Market downtown.
I can’t remember if I bought anything there, but I did take several pictures, interviewed some of the vendors, and wrote and published an illustrated story that few people read. Five years later, as I was photographing action on the Cypremort Branch, I thought about how the constantly changing nature of the internet meant that I was already behind in the assumptions that led me to think that that old publication was a good use of my time and talent, as I wrote in the photo essay from that day.
Wednesday The 31st
On the last day of the month, I was once again at Wednesday At The Square, trying to be cool by taking pictures and writing a story, but Cowboy Mouth was good.
That is all.
Merci.
Jbx
