CAPTURING INDIANS
This letter is in response to Noé Cugny’s web post “LEH to host ‘Culture of Capture’” discussing fair usage rights for images and concerns with the changes of the digital age.
I attended Super Sunday as a tourist last year. It was a thrilling event. Since I discovered New Orleans for myself in 2010, I have been fascinated by the Indians. I was blessed to be vacationing at the right time in 2015 since vacation time relates to work schedule. That being said, I of course took snapshots. I found myself in the street between two spy boys. I took a video. While there, I saw lots of seemingly professional photographers also recording the event. I see photos of Indians on all kinds of promotional material every time I am in the city. I am glad the topic will be discussed because even I have questioned the ethics of this.
—Linda Estel, Duluth, Minnesota
TOUSSAINT
For Mardi Gras this year we went to our local Cajun dive restaurant/bar. Yes, we are so lucky to have such a thing up here. And the folks that run it are fun and funky and crazy and all things that should be in a joint like that. It’s like hanging out in your friends’ basement, with a live funk jazz band. We were having a fabulous semi-drunken time and I’d heard on the radio that day that Mr. Toussaint was coming to Chicago a few weeks later. So we bought the tickets to the show on the spot right there in the bar on the phone while wearing our Mardi Gras masks.
When the tickets came in the mail… crap, the show is on Holy Saturday.
We’re not devout by any stretch, but we do have our family traditions (that mainly involve eating and providing our own dialogue to The Ten Commandments) and this scheduling mishap was going to throw a monkey wrench into those activities.
Shoot. Guess we’ll have to sell the tickets. Which is okay, we’ll just catch him next time around, and he’s on tour all the time, right?
Nobody would take ’em. We tried to give them away for free. Nobody.
So we ended up cutting the family fun a little short and going to the show!
We’d not much been exposed to his music or him as a person, what a lovely treat that performance was! My breath was taken away by his poise and his grace and elegance. I only learned that night how his fingers were woven all through pretty much all the music I love. My husband Mark snagged a silly Mardi Gras Frisbee that Mr. Toussaint had tossed into the audience and when he unbelievably came back out after the show to sign autographs, he and I worked up the nerve to go have our silly souvenir signed. I think Allen Toussaint would’ve stayed there all night and spent time with his admirers; I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to meet him and interact with him and shake his gifted hand. I’d never met someone who possessed that kind of grace before. He took a full three minutes to script his name, which he then embellished with leaves and flowers and a treble clef. Not a lousy scribble and a beautiful drawing for cryin’ out loud and an actual conversation. I’d never experienced anything like that before, and I don’t expect to again.
And as it turns out, there’s not going to be a next time through Chicago for that lovely man.
So glad nobody wanted those tickets.
—Dawn Biller, Hammond, Indiana
WWOZ
This is in response to Sam D’Arcangelo’s post reporting on WWOZ Membership Director Dimitri Apessos’ open letter: A Way Forward for WWOZ.
I think it was ’08 when I was re-reading Dylan’s Chronicles for the 3rd time when he talked about OZ I thought “These days many radio stations are on the Internet. I wonder…” Voila! Love at first sight. Sunday mornings we’d drag the laptop onto the porch. My wife loved Hazel. So did I but Dimitri became my hero, despite his recent referring to my ilk as “eavesdroppers.” I prefer to think in terms of Dirty Coast’s “Be a New Orleanian wherever you are.” We soon became members and eventually too with Krewe of Roux. It was maddening and heartbreaking to read Dimitri’s letter in OffBeat. So I’ll be calling shortly to cancel my membership. My low level won’t be missed but it’s a principle thing. I’ll re-up the moment a new native General Manager is named.
—Mike Davis, Spring Hill, Florida
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