Oh That Voodoo That You Do

Many thanks to Nancy Shepard for meeting with representatives of Voodoo Fest

 

City Park Festival Grounds and Track will be closed 10/13 through 11/3

Please use the contact information below if you have any issues with the Voodoo Festival

Click on the graphic for a larger view

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SOUND COMPLAINTS

SOUND@VOODOOFESTIVAL.COM

512-806-7924

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PUBLIC WORKS – TOWING

504-658-8100 (24 hrs)

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Information below courtesy neworleansonline.com

Like most festivals, here in New Orleans and elsewhere, the Voodoo Music + Arts Experience started out small and, over time, exploded into a mega-event spanning several days and drawing big names and even bigger numbers.

Voodoo has booked over 2,000 acts and has drawn more than a million people, along with some of the top acts on the contemporary popular music scene. It is now second only to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in annual attendance figures.

The Event

This year’s Voodoo will take place on Halloween weekend, from Friday, October 27th through Sunday, October 29th.

The festival, which invites attendees to “Worship the Music,” is held annually at the Festival Grounds in City Park. Four unique performance areas, each of which is enhanced by the use of interactive art, will feature top-tier and innovative artists from a variety of musical genres, all of which reflect the multitude of cultures that define the New Orleans demographic.

Music

This year’s lineup is as stellar as it has been in previous years. Voodoo 2017 headliners include Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, The Killers, and dozens more.

Other acts among those announced for 2017 include:

• LCD Soundsystem
• DJ Snake
• Galantis
• Dillon Francis
• The Head and the Heart
• Brand New
• Miguel
• Post Malone
• Cold War Kids
• Louis the Child

And many more! For a full lineup of musical acts by day, visit the Voodoo Official Musical Lineup.

Voodoo Fest also features a wide variety of food specialties, many of which can only be found in New Orleans and south Louisiana. Artwork and local crafts will also be on hand for display and sale.

The organizers of Voodoo have negotiated special discounted rates with some local hotels for visiting festivalgoers. To view a list of those hotels, along with rates and reservation information, click here.

Due to increased traffic and parking demands, it is highly recommended to take advantage of public transportation to get to and from the fest site. The North Carrollton Branch of the Canal Streetcar Line will take you from downtown right up to the main gates of City Park. You can catch the Canal Streetcar along any one of many stops downtown and ask the conductor for a transfer to the North Carrollton Line. Fares are $1.25 each way, transfers included.

City buses may also be running along Esplanade Avenue that will bring you close to City Park. Check out the streetcar and bus schedules on the Regional Transportation Authority website.

For more details and the most up-to-date information about Voodoo 2017, check out their website at www.voodoofestival.com.

For the most up-to-date information on Voodoo Fest, follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

NEIGHBORS TO REMOVE INVASIVE SPECIES FROM BAYOU ST. JOHN ON JUNE 20 and JUNE 24

by Sara Beth Howard

Kayakityat ( http://kayakitiyat.com/ ) is hosting two events on June 20th and June 24th to remove the invasive water hyacinths from the north end of Bayou St John.

Please join your neighbors for some fun and help make a difference on June 20 and June 24

Tuesday, June 20th 12PM to 2PM
https://www.facebook.com/events/487442778269543

Saturday, June 24th 9AM to 11AM
https://www.facebook.com/events/1790765734586521

For more information, please visit the facebook pages above or contact Sara at
info@kayakitiyat.com , or call 985-778-5034 or 512-964-9499

WATER HYACINTHS ARE SPREADING RAPIDLY IN BAYOU ST. JOHN AND NEED TO BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY

CLICK ON THE MAP FOR A LARGER VIEW OF THE SPREAD OF WATER HYACINTHS IN BAYOU ST. JOHN

Late last Fall, water hyacinths were introduced into the north end of Bayou St. John.
In just six months, it has multiplied many times. It now lines the west bank of Bayou St John from Robert E Lee Blvd to Filmore Ave.
It moves with the wind, so parts have broken off and made their way to other parts of the bayou, likely even beyond the Filmore Avenue bridge.

According to the University of Florida, one plant can grow to cover an acre in one growing season!

This is a very prolific and dangerous invasive aquatic plant that is now threatening the health of Bayou St John. We must carefully manually remove every piece. If one tiny portion of a plant is left, it’ll will become a whole new reproducing plant. We must dispose of it in a place where it dies completely and cannot re-enter any waterways including storm drains that lead back out to Lake Pontchartrain.

This does not only threaten the recreational use of Bayou St. John but, the ecological health we’ve worked so hard to improve.

Kayakityat is coordinating two removal days within a week to in order to ensure the most thorough removal, ideally eradication. It will be up to all of us individually to remove plants as we see them pop up through-out the future.

DAY 1: 12PM to 2PM Tuesday, June 20th. The Barman’s Fund has graciously offered their services.
It is specially scheduled to accommodate service industry folks. Anyone is welcome to join! This will be the bulk of the removal; we’ll get the big obvious patches.

DAY 2: 9AM to 11AM Saturday, June 24th. This removal will be a bit more meticulous.
We’ll have to spread out and look for hidden patches and individual plants along the banks.

Each event will be followed by a swim in Lake Pontchartrain and a bit of lakefront chillin’!

We need the following supplies; any donations are welcome!

2 Pick-Up Trucks that can handle some weight. We need to transport the plants to a composting sight; it may take multiple trips.

Canoes. If you have one, bring it with you. They can hold more plants than a kayak.

Pitch Forks. 3 to 6 at minimum for removal from banks.
Nets with short handles for removal from boats.

Dump Site. Ideally, all this vegetation should be composted. If anyone knows of a business that will take it, let us know.

Anyone with experience removing water hyacinth or taking on similar projects, please share suggestions and/or equipment.

Those interested can contact Sara at 512-964-9499 or info@kayakitiyat.com)

PIKACHU IN THE PARK

The character Pikachu was seen in Fortier Park this morning.
A character of a different kind was seen sleeping nearby.

Pikachu (Japanese: ピカチュウ?) are a species of Pokémon, fictional creatures that appear in an assortment of video games, animated television shows and movies, trading card games, and comic books licensed by The Pokémon Company, a Japanese corporation. The Pikachu design was conceived by Atsuko Nishida and finalized by Ken Sugimori. Pikachu first appeared in Pokémon Red and Green in Japan, and later in the first internationally released Pokémon video games, Pokémon Red and Blue, for the original Game Boy.

Like other species of Pokémon, Pikachu are often captured and groomed by humans to fight other Pokémon for sport. Pikachu are one of the most well-known varieties of Pokémon, largely because a Pikachu is a central character in the Pokémon anime series. Pikachu is regarded as a major character of the Pokémon franchise as well as its mascot, and has become an icon of Japanese pop culture in recent years.

courtesy Wikipedia

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NATIONAL LAZY DAY

Today there will not be much information regarding this annually celebrated holiday as we do not feel like doing any research. Actually, we do not feel like doing anything at all.  So we are in our hammocks with a couple of good books and glasses of lemonade and iced tea.  Yes, it is National Lazy Day, and we choose to be lazy rather than tell you that this holiday is observed each year on August 10th.

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WHAT IS POKEMON GO?

by John Davison at rollingstone.com

This weekend, you might have noticed some people – more people that usual – wandering around staring at their phones. To the untrained eye, it might have just looked like more tourists than usual were descending on your town, trying to follow a digital map to their next location. But those playing Pokémon Go could tell what was going on. Since its initial rollout on July 6th, the app already has more Android installs than Tinder, and will soon have more daily mobile users than Twitter. It’s already caused some skateboard spills, led a girl to find a dead body, and some not-so-clever teens allegedly even used it to lure in victims to rob. But WTF is it?

Developer of hottest mobile game ever is scrambling to deal with its popularity

Technically, it’s a free-to-play, location-based, augmented reality, multiplayer online mobile game that also supports its own custom wearable tech. Huh?
It’s still a Pokémon game, and has roughly the same principles as every other Pokémon from the past 20 years. You look for the critters, catch them, train them and battle with them. What’s different here is that it uses the real world to inform your game experience. The game uses your phone’s GPS sensors to track where you are, and makes use of a stylized Google map as the primary game board. Your character moves in the game as you walk around in real life, and events and objects – known as PokéStops – are associated with specific locations in the physical world. In order to interact with them, you need to actually walk to a particular place, like, in the real world. You can look at the game world through your phone’s display, which serves as a viewfinder that mixes reality with game objects. Hence the term “augmented reality.”

How does that actually play out?
For starters, Pokémon Go comes with no instruction manual, so you’ll have to rely on your intuition (or Google) to figure out just how to catch ’em all. The Pokémon will show up at random, but you will not have to compete with any other players for them. You may also notice certain Pokémon cluster in certain spots – for example, fire Pokémon tend to be found near gas stations, grass Pokémon in parks, and ghost Pokémon after dark. (Though law enforcement recommends that you stick to daylight hours.) The more Pokémon you catch, the more points you score as a trainer. You also score points when you rack up free items at Pokéstops, or when you evolve your Pokémon. Once you’ve accumulated enough experience points to reach Level 5, you can train your Pokémon at the nearest Gym, marked by a wacky-looking laser tower in your map. The Gym will usually be found near a local landmark. Where most people see a pack of weirdos circling a statue and thumbing at their phones, you will see a path to glory.

You mentioned wearable tech?
Walking around all day staring down at your phone may be something you’re used to doing anyway, but it’s not necessarily the safest option if you’re walking around a busy city. Don’t worry, though, your phone will vibrate whenever there is a Pokémon near you, so you won’t miss anything important. If you want to wear something that looks like a kid’s Pokéball watch, there will be an official Pokémon Go Plus wearable released any day now, which is a $35 wrist device that pairs with your phone via Bluetooth, buzzes when you’re near a Pokémon and lets you catch them with the push of a button.

How did all this get started?
The idea for the game was conceived in 2013 by the late Satoru Iwata, president and CEO of Nintendo, and Tsunekazu Ishihara of the Pokémon Company as an April Fools’ Day collaboration with Google called the Pokémon Challenge. Revealed with a slick trailer on YouTube (which has since been viewed over 17 million times), the “joke” launched a fake competition to find 150 Pokémon hidden in real world locations. The trailer showed participants holding up their phones to reveal the creatures through the device’s camera. Little did we know at the time that this would be the premise for the real game launched three years later.

How did it get so huge, so fast?
The game was originally supposed to be rolled out around the world starting in Australia on July 6th, and then it would launch in North America, before moving west to Europe and finally Asia. Things didn’t quite go according to plan though. By the time the game was turned on in North America, demand was so high that it made the game’s servers grind to a halt causing all kinds of problems. The game debuted at Number One on both iPhone and Android, and there were so many people trying to play it that the system struggled. Lots of players found that they couldn’t log in, or if they did, the game would freeze and crash. As a result, the global rollout was paused while things were fixed, which is on set for this week.

NOMA FRIDAY NIGHTS

Friday Nights at NOMA: Music by The Roamin’ Jasmine

July 29 from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM

This Friday night at NOMA, check out a cooking demonstration in Cafe NOMA, live music by The Roamin’ Jasmine, and a film screening on designers Ray and Charles Eames, whose work is featured in the current exhibition The Essence of Things – Design and the Art of Reduction: An Exhibition of the Vitra Design Museum.

• 5 – 8 pm: Art on the Spot
• 5:30 – 8:30 pm: Music by The Roamin’ Jasmine
• 6:30 pm: Artful Palate in Cafe NOMA: “Simplifying Sorbet” with Brett Gauthier, Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group corporate executive pastry chef
• 7:30 pm: Film: Eames: The Architect and the Painter

About The Roamin’ Jasmine

Forged out of the lively street music scene in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the members of Rhe Roamin’ Jasmine found one another busking under the swampy Louisiana sun, along the banks of the Mississippi, or after hours in storefronts on Royal, Frenchmen and Decatur Streets. Inspired by the city’s history of ethnic and musical diversity, and fresh out of music school at University of Miami, bassist, vocalist, and bandleader Taylor Smith began to collect some of his favorite old blues, jazz, and country tunes, while also composing some of his own songs.  Arranging this collection for a six piece jazz ensemble and giving them a healthy dose of New Orleans flavor, he decided to share his work with some like-minded colleagues, and bring it to the streets of New Orleans. The Roamin’ Jasmine repertoire explores 1920’s era speakeasy blues, vintage calypso from Trinidad, seminal 1950’s New Orleans rhythm & blues, and original compositions, all set to traditional jazz instrumentation with original arrangements.

About Café NOMA’s 2016 Artful Palate Summer Cooking Series

Chefs of the Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group will soon demonstrate their own culinary masterpieces at Café NOMA’s Artful Palate, the fifth annual summer cooking series featuring nine artfully inspired demonstrations at the historic New Orleans Museum of Art. Friday evenings are FREE for all café guests and patrons to partake in the presentation, and savor samples as each artful dish is created.

In conjunction with the launch of NOMA’s exhibition The Essence of Things: Design and the Art of Reduction, the talented executive chefs, sous chefs and mixologists of Café NOMA, Ralph’s on the Park, Red Fish Grill, Brennan’s, and Napoleon House will share their culinary vision inspired by the exhibits focus on the art and practice of minimalism. The Artful Palate demonstrations will take a minimalist approach to cooking; featuring local seafood, meats, fruits and vegetables with simplistic recipes highlighting the core of their natural essence.

The Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group is proud to operate Café NOMA, one of the “Best Museum Restaurants in America” according to Travel + Leisure and Food & Wine magazines. Artful Palate is held every Friday night at 6:30 pm from July 15 to September 9. It is free of charge and open on a first come, first served basis. Come early for an evening of enlightening art appreciation — in the very best of taste!

About Eames: The Architect and the Painter

The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely regarded as America’s most important designers. Perhaps best remembered for their mid-century plywood and fiberglass furniture, the Eames Office also created a mind-bending variety of other products, from splints for wounded military during World War II, to photography, interiors, multi-media exhibits, graphics, games, films and toys. But their personal lives and influence on significant events in American life – from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age – has been less widely understood. Narrated by James Franco, Eames: The Architect and the Painter is the first film since their death dedicated to these creative geniuses and their work.  (85 minutes)