Arin

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Then and Now: Book Events Commemorate Katrina’s Five-Year Mark

by Arin August 22, 2010 Arts & Culture

Five years ago I put a photograph, a book from a French art exhibit I’d attended while studying art history in Paris, a pair of black and white chevron slingbacks, some running shoes, and my two dogs into a car and drove out onto the highway at three in the morning. I wasn’t alone. I had my friend Jen with …

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Words about Wormwood: SOFAB talks about the Green Fairy

by Arin August 17, 2010 Arts & Culture

Can you even imagine a world without art? A world where the doors between the readily accessible knowledge of living and the hidden, shadowed side of human understanding are kept shuttered; a world where individuals spend their days going to work and riding in cars and standing in lines, and where there is no contextualized beauty to mitigate the monotony …

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No Wilted Flowers: Getting Down and Dirty with the Arts in NOLA

by Arin August 10, 2010 Arts & Culture

If it weren’t for the tremendous, oppressive temperatures that failed to dip until well into the evening, the thousands of attendees at last Saturday’s White Linen Night on Julia might have been likened to snow. Patrons dressed in all variances of white converged on the NOLA arts district to drink, socialize, and steep in the city’s finest art offerings in …

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Do Good For NOLA with a Click of a Button

by Arin August 3, 2010 Arts & Culture

We all know how much the arts enrich our lives and how important they are to the cultural identity of this city. Events like the upcoming White and Dirty Linen nights, theater productions, art shows, music, and literature productions are what make the long, hot summers bearable and what make the New Orleanians swing.

Unfortunately, economic troubles and massive state …

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Roch and Roll: Explore The “Other” New Orleans Art Scene

by Arin July 27, 2010 Arts & Culture

While the Ogden, CAC, and NOMA undoubtedly offer a stellar array of new exhibitions – from the old masters to the latest national names in contemporary art, and Julia and Magazine streets proffer many great new voices on the scene, New Orleans’ art also seeps into some lesser-known corners of the city. Step outside the French Quarter and through the …

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First and Win: New Orleans Football Saint Signs Memoir

by Arin July 20, 2010 Arts & Culture

I must confess, I never really liked football. I don’t get it. All those giant men in shiny pants stopping and starting and stopping and starting and then intermittently hitting one another hard enough to knock a tooth loose. It seemed so boring. I prefer sports with more non-stop action like basketball or lacrosse. In fact, I’m so football averse …

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Get Real: New Orleans Independent Press Tells It Like It Is

by Arin July 13, 2010 Arts & Culture

New Orleans yields a number of great talents. No doubt, our parade-loving culture has produced some ultimate papier-mâché artists, and we’ve got cooks and jazz musicians and character galore. But New Orleans breeds another expert as well: the independent publisher. Maybe it’s the moxy that’s required to brave a string of hurricane seasons, or the gumption that comes from navigating …

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Run to Glory!

by Arin July 6, 2010 Arts & Culture

One of my favorite things to do on a steamy summer morning in New Orleans is to dress up in white (with a little red accent here and there), go down to the Quarter with thousands of my mostly drunken countrymen to run from bat-wielding women on roller-skates. That’s why I’m so excited that July is here. That means San …

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Wonderful Anomalies: New Show at CAC is Picture Perfect

by Arin June 29, 2010 Arts & Culture

I wonder if anyone else remembers when the circus came to town with a Unicorn?  Like so many young girls born in the shadow of the rainbow-colored, psychedelic 70s and reared in the excessive 80s, I was obsessed with unicorns. I plastered them on my walls and read books about the best way to actually find one. I planned trips …

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Instant Gratification: New Contests Allow you to Make your Mark

by Arin June 22, 2010 Arts & Culture

I have a friend who sold a book to a major publishing house. She was thrilled. After all, she’d spent several years crafting a novel she felt was heart-felt and well-rendered, and she found herself elated that the world would get to see it. But that’s where the waiting began. The book sold in 2009 and as is typical in …

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Behind Bars, Beyond Words: A Look Inside Louisiana’s Prisons

by Arin June 15, 2010 Arts & Culture

Unlike so many who flock to New Orleans for Jazz Fest or Mardi Gras and because of its breezy, insouciant airs decide to move here, I came to the city by different means. I came because of prison.

One of the more unusual aspects of my resume is that I once spent a summer living in a Winnebago and traveling …

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Juleps in June – Get In the Mix!

by Arin June 8, 2010 Arts & Culture

When I was in grad school at the University of New Orleans,  Gonzo journalist and all-around wild man, Hunter S. Thompson allegedly visited the liberal arts building and stole a typewriter.  The story goes thusly: my friend, Jennifer, was working in the English Department offices when Thompson burst into the room and in rapid-fire speech, explained how he absolutely needed …

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BACK TO SCHOOL

by Arin June 1, 2010 Arts & Culture

Although Summer is just beginning, now is the perfect time to get back to the books – or rather the pencil, paintbrush, or darkroom.

I’ve always been interested in art. As a child, I would entertain myself for hours by drawing pictures of dancing bananas and then making up elaborate narratives to go alongside the images, and although I won …

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Summer Discoveries

by Arin May 25, 2010 Arts & Culture

This weekend was one of those times that really felt like summer, and not just because of the liquid honey humidity that hung around us, but because there was a spontaneity and lightness all around. I’ve been working a lot, and haven’t had time to enjoy myself, but this weekend reminded me how great New Orleans can really be.

On …

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The Garden District Bookshop

by Arin May 18, 2010 Arts & Culture

I spent all weekend in the French Quarter at the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, a celebration of GLBT writers and writing where, despite the rain, spirits remained high. Now, I’m tired out from all the activity. I need to snuggle up with a good book and relax.

Unfortunately, I’m all out of new things to read – and while …

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TO MARKET. TO MARKET

by Arin May 11, 2010 Arts & Culture

New Orleans opens up to the arts

I don’t come from the most high-cultured of parents. My father’s idea of art extends as far as the inspirational quote posters he hangs on the walls, and Crystal Gale is his idea of classical music.  And my mother, a former pre-school teacher, tends toward a folksy, basic aesthetic.  Yet, somehow my sister …

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