Gambit Digital Edition: April 1, 2024

April 1-7

2024

Volume 45

Number 14

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ARTS + ENTERTAINMENT

World on a string

10th New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival has 30 shows, parades and more

JEGHETTO’S WORKSHOP FOUNDER TARISH PIPKINS WAS ALREADY A MURALIST, sculptor, musician and spoken word artist when he got turned onto puppetry. He was excited by the marionettes in the movie “Being John Malkovich,” which featured John Cusack as a busking puppeteer, retelling the scandalous medieval story of Abelard and Heloise in street performances.

pipkins strung together his own marionettes out of found materials, and in the 15 years since has become a master puppeteer, winning grants from the Jim Henson Foundation and now serving on its board. He previously visited New Orleans with his presentation on how he makes fantastically articulated animal and dinosaur marionettes.

For this year’s New Orleans Giant puppet Festival, he returns from his home in North Carolina to present “Spinokio” (stylized as “5p1N0K10”), in which he takes the classic tale of pinocchio and updates it as an Afrofuturist story. Instead of a wooden puppet, the rapping Spinokio is a robot dreaming of becoming a real boy in a dystopian world of AI and technology. pipkins’ two sons perform in the show, and it incorporates marionettes and video projections.

That’s one of 30 shows in the 10th annual New Orleans Giant puppet Festival, running at a dozen venues across the city April 4-7. There also are workshops, late-night puppet slams and both day and nighttime giant puppet parades. Visiting and local companies run the gamut in puppetry styles and shows for different audiences, from gleeful family-friendly presentations to content for mature audiences.

“We have more shows and venues than ever before,” festival founder pandora Gastelum says. “It’s something about turning 10. You hit double digits, and you blow up.”

“5p1N0K10” will be presented at the Contemporary Arts Center, which is a festival venue for the first time. Also at CAC is the innovative shadow puppetry company Night Shade, which presents “Exquisite Corpse,” about a resurrected dead punk and a necromancer.

The los Angeles company rasputin’s Marionettes previously brought “Sugarbitch Goulash” to New Orleans. Based on the true story of the Black Widow Murderers, it features two older women who meet at a fitness center and start a sordid partnership. rasputin returns with the next chapter

Rasputin’s Marionettes

PHOTO PROVIDED BY NEW ORLEANS GIANT PUPPET FESTIVAL

of his story about Helen and Olga, presented at Happyland Theater.

local artist and musician panacea Theriac, aka Miss pussycat, has presented her puppets in shows, videos and at the New Orleans Museum of Art and the CAC, as well as museums outside New Orleans. She’ll present a kinetic puppet workshop at the Spellcaster lodge.

The Spellcaster also is the venue for the renowned puppeteering duo of peter and Debbie lutzky Allen’s parasol puppets. The duo will present their version of a classic punch and Judy show, with one puppeteer controlling both clownish characters, and the other performer leading the audience through the show. It is suitable for all ages.

Harmonic Drift is based in Indonesian and Balinese shadow puppetry. Their show “Wayang Earth?!” features mythical creatures in a fantastic world, with Katie Harrell operating more than 20 shadow puppets and Dan Bales providing music on everything from a Balinese gamelan to improvised instruments. The all-ages show is at the New Orleans Healing Center.

Seattle’s Shadow Girls Cult has a cinematic style. Their “Unraveling: A Cinematic Shadow & live Animation Show” is a series of vignettes drawing on visual styles of film noir, sci-fi and surrealism. The show is at the New Orleans Healing Center.

Gastelum’s Mudlark puppeteers are premiering part of a new show about New Orleans’ Mother Catherine Seals,

by Will Coviello |

who created the Temple of Innocent Blood in the 9th Ward in the 1920s. She was a healer and spiritualist and took in the homeless, especially unwed mothers and their children.

“Because of Jim Crow, a lot of charitable institutions that took care of orphans had become segregated, even the religious ones,” Gastelum says. “You had all of these children of color who had nowhere to turn. Mother Catherine raised a generation of those kids.”

Jim Crow may also help explain why little is known of Seals. Some of her sermons only survived because they were recorded by author Zora Neale Hurston when she visited the temple in the 1920s.

The show is a musical exploration of Seals’ life and beliefs. It will be presented at The Temple, currently part of the home of John Cameron Mitchell. The full piece will premiere next year in a site-specific performance near where Seals’ church and center once stood.

The festival features two parades. The nighttime parade has grown in recent years as giant puppets have become more popular in the city. Groups like the Krewe of Monsters are past participants in workshops with Gastelum and the festival, she says.

This year, there is a parade at 10 p.m. Saturday and a new, more kid-friendly daytime parade at 1 p.m. Sunday. Both parades start on press Street at plessy park. The festival also has a cardboard workshop for those who want to build a giant puppet to join the parades.

The festival has more family-friendly content than usual because the Southwest region of the puppeteers of America is holding its conference at the festival. Many members of the Houston-based group focus on family-friendly shows.

The festival lineup also includes the performers Midnight radio Show, Mr. leo’s Wonder Bus, Jacqueline Wade, poose the puppet, Toybox Theatre, Cook y Doh, Velvet Effigy, Harry Mayronne, Flutterbug, abandoned ships, Cila puccadella, BreakFAST puppets, Esmerelda the puppet, Nate puppets and more.

For a schedule and tickets, visit neworleansgiantpuppetfest.com.

Hogs for the Cause

Band of Horses, Shane Smith & the Saints and The Record Company headline the two-day music and barbecue festival that raises funds to battle pediatric brain cancer. roughly 90 barbecue teams compete for awards for best whole hog, ribs, pork butt/ shoulder, sauce and creative categories for side dishes and more (see 3-course interview, page 20). Teams also offer a wide array of creative dishes to attendees. The music line-up is heavy on Americana and also includes Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Tanner Usrey, Eggy, The Mountain Grass Unit, Drayton Farley, Briscoe, Cole Chaney and more. In 16 years, the festival has raised more than $11 million for the cause. The festival is on the grounds outside the UNO lakefront Arena on Friday, April 5, and Saturday, April 6. Tickets and information are available at hogsfest.org.

Ledisi

New Orleans-born R&B singer Ledisi released her latest album, “Good life,” in early March, and its single “I Need to Know” hit the top of the Billboard charts. After a dozen nominations, she finally won an r&B Grammy in 2021 for Best Traditional r&B performance for “Anything for You.” She’s also made the jump to film and TV and played both Mahalia Jackson and Gladys Knight. raheem DeVaughn opens at 8 p.m. Friday, April 5, at Mahalia Jackson Theater. Tickets $45-$224.50 via mahaliajacksontheater.com.

Bob Dylan

It’s safe to say one has overachieved in a music career when one’s work garners a Nobel prize in literature, which Bob Dylan accepted in 2016. Dylan has never been one to just play his old hits, or even play any song the same way it was originally recorded. In his latest tour, he’s drawn on music from his latest albums, including last year’s “Shadow Kingdom,” which stems from an earlier project and touches on aging

presents the next chapter of ‘Sugarbitch Goulash.’

PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Jeff Landry is really tryna out Jindal Jindal, huh?

THUMBS UP/ THUMBS DOWN

Tulane University’s Innovation Institute awarded a total of $55,000 to four New Orleansbased startups at the $50K Demo Day pitch competition during the recent New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. Ten startups competed, and Informuta, a health care company that uses AI and machine learning for infectious disease detection and health data analysis, took first place and $25,000.

Jeff Landry task force calls for state-led takeover of New Orleans S&WB

THE COUNT #

45 THE NUMBER OF YEARS BELOVED METEOROLOGIST MARGARET ORR WORKED AT WDSU-TV.

Orr retired March 29, leaving an indelible mark on the city, not just for her critical weather updates, but also for her fun-loving nature and personal connection with viewers. She plans to garden, train for a triathlon, spend time with her grandkids and continue celebrating New Orleans culture well into her retirement.

New Orleans City Council passed a motion to rename the intersection of Jackson Avenue and Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in honor of the late Big Chief Bo Dollis Sr. The leader of the Wild Magnolias grew up in Central City on Jackson Avenue and first masked with the Golden Arrows before joining the Wild Magnolias in the 1960s. Joined by Monk Boudreaux, Dollis and the Wild Magnolias pioneered Mardi Gras Indian funk music and introduced it to the wider world on tour. Dollis died in 2015 at the age of 71.

A TASK FORCE APPOINTED BY NEWLY-ELECTED REPUBLICAN GOV. JEFF LANDRY is calling for a state takeover of the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, a drastic action that would yank oversight of the agency away from city officials and create a temporary “recovery district” to implement sweeping reforms.

The recommendation, contained in a report that suggests sweeping changes to the way the agency is governed, financed and managed, offered the clearest sign yet that landry is poised to take control of the utility from Democratic Mayor laToya Cantrell while the GOp holds a supermajority in the state legislature.

The recovery district would govern the agency for two years, according to the panel’s recommendations. It could then cede control of the utility, renamed the “New Orleans Sewerage, Water and Drainage Board” to the City Council or the public Service Commission. A third option would be to constitute the utility into a new municipal corporation modeled after one in louisville, Kentucky.

C’EST WHAT ?

How are you coping with Margaret Orr’s retirement?

St. Tammany Parish Coroner Christopher Tape

has said he will cut his office’s sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) program, which collects evidence and provides health care to survivors of sexual assault in five parishes. Tape has said he wants hospitals to take on those duties, which would be difficult for rural institutions. Tape faced charges of child sexual assault in 2002, and is now being called to step down.

Three of the 11 members of the proposed recovery district would report directly to landry as members of his cabinet. Another, the legislative auditor, is overseen by the legislature. The state’s attorney general and New Orleans delegations to both the state House and Senate would account for three more appointments.

The mayor and City Council would also get appointments, but they would be chosen from nominations by regional business groups — the Business Council of New Orleans and the river region and Greater New Orleans, Inc. The Government Finance Officers of louisiana would appoint the treasurer.

The new entity would then have the ability to raise the funds it needs to operate, or have standardized methods of requesting rate increases from regulators. At present, the utility is regulated by state lawmakers while its funding is controlled by the City Council.

In addition to the governance makeover, the task force says the S&WB should move to fixed bills until it finishes installing automated water meters across the city, a project that is currently set to finish up by the end of 2026. Until then, customers would be charged the average of their last 12 months of uncontested bills.

At the same time, an arbitration panel of retired to judges would resolve 4,500 existing account disputes. Those disputes involve $32 million in contested billings that are currently outstanding. — Ben Myers / The Times-Picayune

64% STOCKING UP ON MARGARET ORR PRAYER CANDLES FOR

SEASON

8%

Gov. Jeff Landry

PHOTO BY HILARY SCHEINUK / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

A failure to communicate

ON MARCH 22, GAMBIT PUBLISHED A STORY ON A FAILED AND POSSIBLY ILLEGAL deal New Orleans Mayor laToya Cantrell inked with an Ohio refrigerant company while on a junket to Dubai last year.

Based on hundreds of pages of internal emails and documents obtained under a public records request, our story on the city’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Zoetic Inc. provides a rare glimpse behind the curtain of the increasingly secretive Cantrell administration. And what it shows is disturbing.

First, and perhaps most distressing, the mayor appears to have made what should be a science-based, carefully vetted policy decision after getting an elevator pitch from someone she randomly met at a conference. She did so without consulting experts and despite a city ordinance explicitly requiring her to obtain the New Orleans City Council’s approval before signing any MOU.

Second, aside from Cantrell’s communications staff, most of her top aides were left in the dark about what the mayor was doing. Officials responsible for implementing the agreement were not consulted on its details in advance. In fact, they only learned about it days after it was signed — via an administration press release.

The idea that Cantrell could unilaterally, without even consulting her administration’s own experts — and in a matter of hours — assess the efficacy of Zoetic’s

technology, the city’s relative needs, and the appropriateness of using public resources in this manner is plainly absurd, and possibly even malfeasance.

Finally, the story also shows the mayor is starting to lose even her own advisors. For most of her second term, the mayor has been able to brush off public criticism as sour grapes or the result of political conspiracies orchestrated by her enemies.

In this case, internal emails showing aides joking about the Zoetic deal and repeatedly expressing concerns about its fundamental soundness make clear that alarm bells are now sounding inside the administration as well.

The story also raises some scary questions. Did Cantrell make other commitments binding the city without sufficient (or any) due diligence? If she has, how many of those deals have collapsed, as the Zoetic deal appears to have, and how much time and resources has she wasted as a result?

Getting answers to those questions was always difficult and has become even more so of late. As The

better with friends

PHOTO BY SOPHIA GERMER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Times-picayune noted March 24, Cantrell has basically abandoned her traditional weekly press conferences, opting instead to rely on her heavily curated social media feeds to communicate with the public.

Her communications office also increasingly ignores requests for comment or forces journalists to submit public records requests for basic information, a process which can take weeks or even months to produce results.

While that strategy may allow the mayor to pump out a steady stream of glowing press releases, it does a great disservice to residents. It leaves behind the many New Orleanians who rely on traditional news media outlets for their honest information, while also hampering the Fourth Estate’s ability to question her and her decisions in public.

At a minimum, Cantrell should immediately resume her public briefings — and answer questions about her deal with Zoetic.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell in November 2023

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Jeff Landry’s ‘ConCon 2024’ looks nothing like its 1973 predecessor

A HALF-CENTURY HAS PASSED SINCE LOUISIANA VOTERS ratified a new state constitution. Is it time to write a new one?

A lot of folks from across the political spectrum would respond “yes” to that question — including Gov. Jeff landry and some of his top supporters. louisiana’s current charter is bloated, having been amended more than 200 times since 1974.

There’s widespread disagreement, however, as to who should draft a proposed new constitution, how the drafters should proceed, and how much input average citizens should get during the drafting process.

Then there’s the difficult question of which provisions of the current constitution to keep and which to remove.

In the past decade, a handful of lawmakers and interest groups have floated the idea of rewriting part or all of louisiana’s constitution, but the idea never gained traction. That kind of heavy lift requires a governor’s muscle.

landry is giving it that. Though it wasn’t a centerpiece of his campaign last year, landry wants legislators to finish their current session two weeks early — on May 20 rather than June 3 — and immediately hold an eight-week constitutional convention.

landry supports republican state rep. Beau Beaullieu’s House Bill 800, which outlines the process for rewriting the current constitution by all 144 state lawmakers as well as 27 additional drafters chosen by landry.

Beaullieu’s bill requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate, which is never easy — even with a governor’s backing. Some of landry’s allies are already pushing back.

State Senate president Cameron Henry, r-Metairie, recently told The louisiana Illuminator he doesn’t like the idea of rushing the Senate’s work just to go headlong into a constitutional convention — and stay in Baton rouge till July 15.

PHOTO BY JAVIER GALLEGOS / THE ADVOCATE

lawmakers have already held two special sessions, and many (if not most) would prefer to spend the summer with their families — not arguing over what to leave in, what to take out.

Beaullieu’s HB 800 also has some troubling provisions, such as allowing private donors (read: special interests) to pay for convention activities, subject to public disclosure. His proposed eight-week convention also leaves little, if any, time for public input or even serious debate. The delegates who drafted the current constitution spent more than a year at their task — including five months of committee hearings and citizen input.

All that said, landry’s stated goal of creating a streamlined document has merit. The best constitutions include only the basics, giving lawmakers wide latitude to address challenges as they arise.

louisiana voters, however, have a longstanding mistrust of politicians, which is why the present charter protects K-12 education and other priorities. Beaullieu foresees converting many current constitutional provisions into statutes, which can be changed by a simple legislative majority every year.

Ultimately, voters will have the final say in November.

That may be the hardest sell of all, given the many special interests, priorities and constituencies protected in the current constitution — and voters’ inherent mistrust of their elected leaders.

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Gov. Jeff Landry in March

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@GambitBlake | askblake@gambitweekly.com

Hey Blake, A historical marker in the 1700 block of St. Charles Avenue is fading, so I thought I’d ask you to give a little more detail on what it honors: the former site of Higgins Industries. What was the company’s history at that spot?

Dear reader,

THE PIVOTAL ROLE THAT NEW ORLEANIAN ANDREW JACKSON HIGGINS and his business, Higgins Industries, played in World War II has been well-documented. president Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, famously told historian Stephen Ambrose that Higgins was “the man who won the war for us” because of the success of the “Higgins boats,” which allowed Allied soldiers to storm the beaches of Normandy, France at D-Day. From 1932 to 1945, Higgins’ offices were located at 1755 St. Charles Ave., now the site of Houston’s restaurant.

Higgins, born in Nebraska in 1886, moved to New Orleans to manage a lumber company. He also acquired a fleet of sailing ships and established a shipyard. By 1930, it was Higgins Industries, which built and supplied various boats, tugboats and barges. It’s best known for

BLAKE VIEW

designing a collection of amphibious boats, including pT (patrol Torpedo) boats and lCVps (landing Craft, Vehicle, personnel), the special craft designed to carry soldiers to shore.

According to the National World War II Museum, Higgins’ business expanded dramatically with government production contracts. In 1938, he operated a single boatyard employing fewer than 75 workers. By late 1943, he employed more than 25,000 at seven plants.

The Higgins workforce was the first in New Orleans to be racially integrated. The plants included ones in New Orleans East and on City park Avenue near Delgado Community College (site of another historical marker honoring Higgins Industries).

In all, the Higgins plants produced more than 20,000 boats during World War II. Higgins boats were used in every major American amphibious operation in the European and pacific theaters.

ALLEN TOUSSAINT, RONNIE KOLE, CHRIS OWENS AND THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND WERE AMONG THE PERFORMERS headlining the first French Quarter Festival 40 years ago this week.

In November 1983, Mayor Ernest “Dutch” Morial announced a free festival planned for the following spring, to celebrate the completion of $7.2 million in French Quarter street and sidewalk repairs. The work done in advance of the 1984 World’s Fair (scheduled to open that May) kept many locals away, negatively affecting Vieux Carre merchants.

“We want people to come back here and feel the charm and vibrancy that exist here,” Morial said in The Times-picayune.

The April 6-8, 1984, festival featured music at several locations, including on royal Street, Chartres Street, Bourbon Street and Wilkinson row. It began with a dedication of the newly resurfaced Bourbon Street pedestrian mall and a parade. There was a battle of the bands contest emceed by Ed McMahon of “The Tonight Show” and “Star Search.”

rain postponed the closing day of the festival to the following weekend. On April 13, there was a fashion show and an event billed as “the world’s largest jazz brunch,” with food from French Quarter restaurants. The fest ended with fireworks over the Mississippi river.

Attendance for the 1984 event numbered in just the hundreds, but it became a popular annual attraction. produced by French Quarter Festivals Inc. (which also organizes Satchmo SummerFest and the Holidays New Orleans Style campaign), the French Quarter Fest now has an economic impact of more than $190 million. This year’s event, April 11-14, will feature music on 21 stages and food from more than 60 vendors located throughout the French Quarter and along the riverfront. For more information, visit frenchquarterfest.org.

A torpedo boat for the U.S. Navy sits outside of the Higgins Industries location on St. Charles Avenue in this archive photo.

THE TIMES-PICAYUNE ARCHIVE PHOTO

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Margaret queen

After 45 years, WDSU’s Margaret Orr signs off for the last time

Fresh out of the U.S. Navy, he had just started a new job working at the station alongside the beloved meteorologist Margaret Orr — a figure he had grown up watching on TV.

Singleton had never worked on-camera before but was eager to share his scientific knowledge with the community.

“It was really hot, so I was talking about the difference between long-wave and short-wave heat,” he says. “And when I finished, Margaret said, ‘Don’t ever do that again.’ She said I sounded like a professor in a science class, instead of explaining it in a way people could understand.”

Singleton learned a valuable lesson that day that he still thinks about nearly two decades later: Instead of delving into the nerdier aspects of weather, he needed to use his time on screen to give people practical weather advice.

That’s something Orr herself perfected over her 45 years with the station, telling viewers when to wear sunscreen, pack an umbrella or evacuate ahead of a looming hurricane.

Orr — whose final broadcast was March 29 — has helped New Orleanians navigate all kinds of extreme weather events that have hit South Louisiana, from tornadoes and wildfires to hurricanes like Andrew, Katrina and Ida.

Through her conversational, enthusiastic reporting style, she’s become a largerthan-life local celebrity — characterized by her signature red hair and blazers as bright as her fun-loving personality.

Whether it was as a weather forecaster, a colleague or a friend, Orr has consistently

been there for her community with genuine care. It was not uncommon for Orr to become emotional as she urged viewers to heed her warnings.

“It became very personal to her,” says Norman Robinson, a former WDSU news anchor and longtime friend of Orr. “She was always concerned about whether people were taking her advice... She took her job as a meteorologist very seriously. It was the ultimate public service to her.”

Orr’s decades-long career as a meteorologist and chief positive mental attitude cheerleader of New Orleans was seemingly written in the stars.

Orr was born and raised in New Orleans, by a civil engineer father and a kindergarten teacher mother. Orr got some of her spunk and personality from her mother, who was skilled at “making really good friends.”

But Margaret was born with a sunny disposition. As a child, she says she would often wake up singing, “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning.”

“How corny was I?” she says with a laugh.

But that impossibly positive outlook stuck with her, even during the most difficult times.

In 1965, when Hurricane Betsy blew the roof off her childhood home, she was mesmerized by her view of the sky when the eye of the hurricane passed overhead.

That kicked off a lifelong obsession with weather events — and solidified a remarkable ability to always look for the positive in virtually any scenario.

WDSU METEOROLOGIST DAMON SINGLETON remembers some of the best career advice he ever got.

Margaret Orr at WDSU PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARGARET ORR

Margaret Orr in her Queen of Cotton Candy attire during Carnival season

PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARGARET ORR

Margaret Orr with her dog, Bleu

PHOTO BY SARAH RAVITS / GAMBIT

QUEEN MARGARET

its toughest times, including Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans City Council President Helena Moreno, who covered breaking news at the station with Orr before entering politics, remembers working with Orr covering the storm in August 2005.

While most of the station evacuated, a small skeleton crew, which included Roop Raj, Dan Thomas, Moreno and Orr, remained behind. As conditions worsened they were forced to leave the TV set and seek shelter at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel.

“Everything was leaking, and we were just trying to take care of each other,” Moreno says, adding, “the whole hotel was swaying.”

Orr, meanwhile, was desperate for the storm to blow over so she could get outside and start relaying what she saw to her viewers.

“She just really, really wanted to be out there,” Moreno says. “Margaret just has this very big sense of duty.”

Orr graduated from Louise S. McGehee School and then went to LSU. During one summer break, the way she tells it, she didn’t have anything to do, so she headed to Waco, Texas, to work at a TV station.

As a natural storyteller with innate charm, she was immediately hooked.

“I just went, ‘This is the most fun, ever,’ ” she says.

Officially bitten by the news bug, she graduated in 1975 with an English degree and an eye toward journalism.

From there, she moved up to Charleston, South Carolina, and got a job working at a TV station as a receptionist.

In the evenings, she tagged along with the news crew and learned how to use equipment so she could film segments. Eventually, a position opened up and she worked there for a few years before relocating to Baton Rouge. Then she got a call from WDSU.

At 25, with her “knees shaking,” she returned to New Orleans. It was 1979, and little did she know she would become a fixture at the TV station, especially after a daunting first week.

Orr spent her first day entirely outside in the rain, her red hair drenched.

“It was hard,” she says. “It was a different atmosphere — very professional, very demanding. I didn’t know if I was ready.”

“I was like, I’m not going to make it,” she says. “But I did.”

Over the years, she would become a trusted source of news and weather, helping guide the city through some of

Orr’s former colleagues also say she is a perfectionist when it comes to accuracy, a crucial trait for becoming a reliable source of information for people in times of crisis.

“She imparts in all of us the importance of getting it right,” Singleton says. “That translates to people who trust you watching you. People will come back to Channel 6 because they trust what we’re saying.”

As a woman working in news, Orr also broke barriers and paved the way for other young women to enter the profession.

A young Margaret Orr PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARGARET ORR

Margaret Orr with Al Hirt PHOTO PROVIDED BY MARGARET ORR

When she first started, there were few career options for women in TV journalism in New Orleans.

But she looked up to Angela Hill, who became the first female anchor at WWL-TV in 1975, and Barbara Walters, who became the first woman to co-anchor a national evening news program a year later.

Orr worked seven days a week to prove herself – all while raising three children with her husband.

“She kind of had to be in the wings for some time,” Moreno says. “Being a woman in the industry, particularly back when she started, isn’t easy. But she made her way to the top and she never quit.”

Orr also made it a mission to boost her female co-workers’ confidence and help them focus on their talents in the face of sexism or misogyny. Viewers would sometimes make rude comments to the women who worked at the station about their hair, makeup, weight and general physical appearance.

In those situations, Moreno says having Orr’s support was vital.

“That can be hard to take,” Moreno says. “But Margaret would be like, ‘Let it go. Who cares? Don’t listen to those people. Just do your thing. You’re talented.’ Sometimes you just need that other voice to take away the haters.”

The advice was personal for Orr. She had been there, having had similar feelings of insecurity herself early in her career.

For one, “I had too much personality,” she says. “Back then, you’re supposed to read the prompter and be straight and direct.”

She remembers telling a photographer, Dominic Martin, about her concerns.

“I’d say, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to be,’ ” she says. “He’d say, ‘You’re doing it. You’re a positive person, you’re a positive light.’ ”

After that, she understood her purpose: “to be a positive role model, and to be there when the weather is bad, to give people the information they need to stay safe.”

To do that, Orr knew she had to be herself.

“I always said, ‘Be yourself, in everything that you do. Be you. Each one of us is unique and special. Be yourself, but always strive to be better,’ ” she says.

Orr’s penchant for taking her younger co-workers under her wing has earned her the nickname “Mother Meg” among some of her colleagues, who say Orr’s caring personality is as genuine off-camera as it is on TV.

Randi Rousseau, a co-anchor on the morning news, said Orr put her at ease years ago when she was first hired as an intern from Ponchatoula. Orr took her

aside and immediately taught her how to use some of the station’s technology, without being asked.

“I was this young 20-something, with no family down here, and she just embraced me as one of her own,” Rousseau says. “She just wants to put you forth on a path of success, from Day 1. She has always just been such a mentor and an icon.”

WDSU anchor Travers Mackel says when he started at the station in 2003, “it was people like Margaret who made me feel comfortable, like I belonged.” He says her actions have inspired him to make the effort to reach out to new faces in the newsroom and welcome them.

“I try to talk to every intern, take them to lunch and make them feel comfortable,” he says.

It’s that personality, dedication to her craft and love of her community that has struck a chord with New Orleanians. Over the years she’s developed an almost cult-like following locally — with some local shops even selling prayer candles with her face on them.

Soon after she arrived at WDSU, a group of regulars at Good Friends bar in the French Quarter launched an Orr fan club. Eventually, they also formed the Barkus parade, where hundreds of dogs participate in a Carnival procession donning costumes.

Orr, a canine enthusiast herself, has been the longtime emcee of that.

Indeed, Orr loves Carnival, and it loves her back. One of her annual traditions is to dress up as the Queen of Cotton Candy, in an over-the-top pastel pink wig as a tribute to her favorite childhood treat. She wears it on Fat Tuesday, and often breaks out dance moves during the Zulu parade.

The Weather Girls, a dance troupe that choreographs routines with umbrellas and rain slickers, also pay tribute to her. And a sub-krewe, called the Margaret Orrs, dress in long red wigs with bangs and bright pantsuits, like Orr.

“They were all flailing and yelling ‘Margaret!’ It’s pretty crazy,” she says of tracking them down along the parade route.

Orr also earned the high distinction of serving as the official Honorary Muse in the Krewe of Muses this year. She rode majestically atop its famous, glittering shoe float, sporting sequins and a flowy chiffon robe gifted to her by a drag queen.

Orr engages with her audience through social media, where viewers often send her photos of their gardens — she’s an avid gardener — and pictures their young children have drawn. She always takes time to respond to individual questions about weather events.

That’s something she plans to continue into retirement, in between training for a triathlon, gardening, spending time

QUEEN MARGARET

with her husband and grown children and running through her sprinkler with her grandkids.

“One of the great things about my career is I’ve met so many wonderful people along the way,” Orr says. “You meet real, regular people, and I love them.”

As Mackel pointed out in a recent TV segment honoring his coworker, “Margaret was always at her best when people needed her the most.”

That has been true both on-screen and off. As much as she has been a guiding light for her viewers during weather events, she has also helped her colleagues deal with personal tragedies.

In 2019, Rousseau’s husband was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of bone cancer, and he died within five months, leaving her to raise two young children as a single parent.

She remembers sitting at home in a state of shock, trying to wrap her head around what had just happened.

And then suddenly there was a knock on her door.

There Orr was with a bougainvillea plant in hand and an “I love you.”

“She’s just so considerate,” Rousseau says. “She is someone you will always have as a friend.”

Robinson, too, remembers when Orr stepped up for him during his time of need. Dealing with alcoholism after Hurricane Katrina — a struggle that played out in the public eye — he put his career on hold to seek treatment.

“Margaret reached out to me as a friend and confidante to give me encouragement and solace,” he says. “She was just there for me to vent to and talk with. There are only a few people in your life that you just really feel comfortable with talking to and sharing your inner most feelings with, and she is that person for me and for many other people.”

He is still struck by her sincerity.

“There was nothing phony, she wasn’t being nosy,” he says. “She wasn’t prodding for info to regurgitate to some other audience. She was generally concerned about my well-being, and I love her and appreciate her for that.”

Mackel says he and many others are better people because of Orr.

“She’s passed the torch of just being a good person, a good citizen, a good journalist and a good coworker,” he says. “She probably doesn’t even realize that, but we all carry those traits because of  her.”

Dan Thomas, Dan Milham and Margaret Orr in 2004

PHOTO BY MATT ROSE / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Margaret Orr’s look is so iconic that people dress as her during Carnival season

PHOTO BY KAYLEE POCHE / GAMBIT

EAT + DRINK

Sweet memories

CROISSANTS AND DANISHES ARE TWO PASTRIES YOU CAN’T GET at

Jeremy Fogg’s new bakery, Mae’s Bakeshop — for one very good reason.

“We aren’t a French bakery,” says Fogg, who was the pastry chef at Emeril’s restaurant for six years before the pandemic. “We are a Southern American bakery. My grandmother was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina.”

Fogg does plan to broaden his approach to include other regional American specialties, like whoopie pies and sticky buns with nuts. He already bakes Key lime pie, a nod to his Florida upbringing.

“We have iconic dishes from every part of the U.S.,” he says. “This is part of our history. let’s showcase them.”

The bakery is located on Baronne Street near recent additions Zee’s pizzeria and lucy Boone Ice Cream. It takes its name from his late mother, whose middle name was Mae, a middle name she shared with both of her grandmothers. Fogg comes from a very close family, the kind that made sure the fridge was stocked with their grandson’s favorite treats.

Fogg went to culinary school in his native Orlando, where he started working in high volume resort kitchens. Mae’s Bakeshop is his first brick and mortar business, but it’s more than that. Fogg lost his mother and grandmothers between 2010 and 2012, which left him feeling unmoored.

“I needed to make a change,” he recalls. “So I moved to New Orleans on a whim.”

That was 10 years ago, during which time he started as a pastry chef at Bourbon House, before getting hired at the age of 26 to head Emeril’s pastry kitchen.

“When I look back on the last 10 years, it’s like, ‘Wow! Was this really my life?’ ” he says. “I learned so much at Emeril’s, had so many opportunities. It was stressful, but it was a place I could really be creative.”

His high-profile position landed him on Zagat’s list of “30 Under 30” New Orleans chefs in 2016, and he’s

competed on the Food Network shows “Best Baker in America,” “Chopped Sweets” and “Beat Bobby Flay” (which he did in that show’s 2018 season).

When he was furloughed during the pandemic, he created Mae’s, filling direct orders and popping up around town. As fancy as he’d been at Emeril’s, Fogg’s new path was a familiar one: to recreate family recipes with a pastry chef’s technique.

Some recipes haven’t changed a bit, like his grandma’s sour cream pound cake, available in mini-loaves and by the slice. Same for Nana’s cookie brittle.

Meanwhile, his banana cream pie looks like the family recipe, but with the upgrades of fresh pastry dough and house-made pudding instead of Jell-O’s banana pudding from a mix. But it’s still a single layer with sliced bananas fanning out around the crust.

“I was eating banana cream pie way before I was making Emeril’s recipe,” Fogg says.

Fogg bought the business from Beth Biundo, who closed her sweets shop over the summer and sold the business to him. Most of the equipment was in place, making the transition almost turnkey. Fogg did add a hutch from one grandmother’s house, along with some family photos, including pictures of his mom and both his grandmothers.

The pastry case is new, stocked with Southern-style biscuits, cinnamon rolls, pies sold whole and by the slice, cookies and muffins. Home-style cakes by the slice include chocolate

and vanilla with buttercream frosting, and he makes cakes to order. locally roasted coffee rotates between small batch suppliers like Baby’s or HEY Coffee.

On the savory side, there are breakfast hand pies, and a pastry roll with layers of ham, whole grain mustard and smoked Gouda. Fogg plans to offer breakfast sandwiches soon, along with plate lunches that can come together in his all-electric kitchen.

“I plan to serve our favorite birthday dishes that we grew up with for folks to eat here or take home by the pint or quart,” he says.

His sister’s favorite, sloppy joes, and Fogg’s go-to chicken and dumplings come from recipes that conjure memories of family and love on a plate.

FORK + CENTER

Email dining@gambitweekly.com

Toups feeds the hungry

AS THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND APPROACHED, TOUPS’ MEATERY PREPARED Easter dinner for free for about 1,000 people, including some 600 children. Amanda Toups, co-owner of the Mid-City restaurant along with her husband, Isaac Toups, is grateful for the support that’s helping their restaurant do this. She’s also fighting mad about the reason they’re compelled to do it.

The Easter dinner is the first step in reviving a community feeding program that the restaurant created in the darkest days of the pandemic. It’s coming back now after Gov. Jeff landry refused federal funds that would have provided poor families across the state with more money for groceries this summer.

Toups’ Meatery plans to resume its Family Meal feeding program for food-insecure families as soon as midMay and provide free meals every day through the summer.

To gauge demand, the restaurant is providing a free Easter dinner ahead of the holiday for families in need.

PHOTO BY IAN MCNULTY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

restaurant staff will assemble boxed meals portioned for four people, with food that can be prepared at home.

The restaurant started asking people to sign up for these boxes last week and swiftly generated a list of 1,000. About 600 of those are children, Amanda Toups says.

“The people we’re talking to, it’s the working poor, and those kids are going to go hungry this summer because of this,” she says. “We have the infrastructure; we know how to do this. We have to do it.”

The restaurant is relying on its resources, private fundraising (see @toupsmeatery on both Cashapp and Venmo), crowdsourcing and

Amanda and Isaac Toups at Toups’ Meatery

Mae’s Bakeshop owner Jeremy Fogg with photos of his mother and grandmothers

PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

Jeremy Fogg opens Mae’s Bakeshop in Uptown by Beth D’Addono |

contributions of food from other companies to fuel the effort.

Easter dinner boxes were distributed through the restaurant on March 29. At the same time, Toups says she’ll have volunteers gathering information to better prepare for the summer Family Meal campaign.

“We’ll be surveying folks to fully understand how many meals we are going to need to make to cover these kids as best we can,” she says.

The return of Family Meal comes in response to landry’s decision in February to refuse more than $70 million in federal aid for louisiana residents through the Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program, or Summer EBT.

This program, pushed by president Joe Biden’s Department of Agriculture, will give qualifying families $40 per month, per child (up to $120 per family) during the summer, a time when food-insecure children who rely on meal programs through schools typically need more support.

louisiana is among 15 states where families will not see this benefit, after officials opted out of the federal program.

As a result, food banks and advocates for nutritional programs around the state are preparing for more people seeking assistance.

landry’s secretary of the Department of Children & Family Services, David Matlock, said in a statement that accepting the added summer benefit would be a distraction from his agency’s mission.

“Every child deserves a safe home, first and foremost, and families deserve a pathway to self-sufficiency,” Matlock said in a statement. “Staying focused on that mission, without adding piecemeal programs that come with more strings than long-term solutions, is what will deliver the biggest impact for the children and families we serve.”

This response added more fuel to Toups’ fire to help locally.

“They’re refusing money that would’ve helped feed kids,” she says. “The cruelty of it, as a mother, it just makes me so upset.”

At restaurants, “family meal” normally refers to the meal cooked up for staff before a shift. It took on new meaning at Toups’ Meatery in the pandemic, with restaurants forced to close and many people suddenly out of work. Isaac Toups kept cooking for his staff and extended the offer to others. As word spread, it turned into a community feeding effort that was supplying up to 500 meals daily.

The pandemic’s economic toll was brutal for restaurants in particular. But Toups’ Meatery was an early

example of how local restaurants stepped up to help others, despite their own hardships.

reviving the Family Meal program again this summer will be a major lift for Toups’ Meatery.

The restaurant plans to close every day this summer between 3 and 5 p.m. to shift to meal distribution mode.

That’s normally the restaurant’s happy hour, and that means it will be a hit to business at a time of year that is typically the most difficult for local restaurants anyway.

But Toups’ says she’s determined to make it work.

“You can read about hardship, but when you’re standing in front of a mother saying, ‘Thank you for doing this,’ and you really understand their situation and their need, it moves you,” she says. “We’ve done this before; we’ll figure out how to do it again.”

— Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune

Flour Moon Uptown

NEW ORLEANS PEOPLE WHO LOVE

A GREAT BAGEL, THAT IS A BAGEL

PROPERLY DONE in the northeast style, once had to leave town to satisfy the craving. These days they just have to go to Flour Moon along the lafitte Greenway, just off North Broad Street.

Soon though, the best bagels in New Orleans also will have a presence along St. Charles Avenue inside the forthcoming Hotel Henrietta, slated to open April 1.

The 40-room hotel at 3500 St. Charles Ave. is a sister property to the nearby Columns hotel.

Open-faced tartine bagels at Flour Moon

PHOTO BY CHRISTINA FERRARI / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

This will not be a full-fledged second location for Flour Moon. Think of it more as an outlet than an outpost.

The hotel’s front desk doubles as a cafe, with an espresso bar, cocktails and a Flour Moon menu served in the lobby lounge from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.

That will include bagels and cream cheese, a few tartines (Flour Moon’s open-faced bagel sandwich creations) and a few items exclusive to the hotel.

It won’t offer bagels by the dozen and bagel sandwiches.

But as an outlet across town, and a partnership with another local hospitality brand, it is a big step for a bagel maker that started small and has swiftly won a local following.

last summer, it gained national attention when Bon Appetit included the shop on its round up of the best bagels in the U.S. found outside of New York.

Flour Moon was created by Breanne Kostyk, a fine-dining pastry chef who found herself suddenly out of work in the pandemic. She and her husband Jeff Hinson ran Flour Moon as a pop-up. They opened their own production facility and cafe in 2022.

Flour Moon bagels are hand rolled, kettle boiled after an overnight fermentation and then baked, creating a world class bagel here in New Orleans, including, soon, Uptown. — Ian McNulty / The Times-Picayune

WI NE OF THE WEEK

Jason Gonzalez

Barbecue pitmaster

by Will Coviello

This dry white winehas astraw yellowcolor.Its clean, intense aroma and bonedry taste(with an appealing flavorof Golden Delicious apples) makeSanta Margherita’s Pinot Grigio awine of greatpersonality and versatility

JASON GONZALEZ LEFT A CAREER IN THE OIL INDUSTRY TO FOCUS on barbecue. After mastering Texas-style brisket and adding his own louisiana twists, he started a pop-up. It later became his luling restaurant Gonzo’s Smokehouse, which is open Thursdays and Fridays only. After years of attending Hogs for the Cause, he launched his own team in 2022. His porkbelly Cartel will be at Hogs for the Cause this year, offering tacos filled with slow-cooked pork and beef. For information about Hogs for the Cause, visit hogsfest.com. For information about Gonzalez and Gonzo’s Smokehouse, see gonzosmokehouse.com.

Why did you change careers to get into barbecue?

JASON GONZALEZ: I grew up and went to school on the West Bank. I went into drafting and design straight out of high school. I was pursuing that for 16 plus years. I was working for Shell downtown, and then in 2014 the price of oil went to shit. They basically laid off the whole drafting and design department, downsized and moved to Houston.

So that’s around the time I started to ramp up on the barbecue. I started in the backyard, trying to nail down recipes. I got comfortable enough to start doing pop-ups in New Orleans. I always loved to cook. I got that from my grandma. She was an amazing cook in the kitchen. But barbecue, I have always been a fan. I took a trip out to Austin about the time I got laid off. I went to Franklin Barbecue and a couple of other spots. really had my first experience with Texas barbecue and it blew my mind. I came back and we didn’t have any type of barbecue like that around here. So I wanted to recreate that and put my spin on it.

I took my severance check I got from Shell. Before I was using a little electric box smoker. I took my check and bought a really good pellet smoker. It was good that I started on that and nailed down recipes, because it’s not easy to do that and learn how to manage a fire at the same time. I worked with a pellet smoker for about two or three years and then got a stick burner. That’s when it took off and you can definitely taste the difference when you’re cooking with wood.

What do you do at the restaurant?

G: We’re a small family operation. It’s basically me trimming all the meats. We roll into boudin making on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we start prepping to cook all the big proteins. We get the smokers ready and do a cold smoke on the boudin for Wednesday. Thursday is when we start smoking all the meats. The briskets will go a good 12-14 hours depending on the weather and if the wood is wet and all those variables. The seasoning is very simple. It’s just salt, pepper, garlic. The big thing is to have patience with the smoking, because that’s where the magic happens.

I gravitated toward the Texas style. They keep it simple. They’re using offset smokers, they’re doing brisket and making their own sausage. But we put our own twist on everything. We do dirty rice and our own boudin. We do a smoked chicken and andouille gumbo in wintertime, with our own andouille.

The main proteins we have every Friday are brisket, pulled pork, pork belly burnt ends and we always have some kind of boudin. We usually have brisket boudin, but sometimes we’ll mix it up and do a Tex-Mex boudin or a beef cheek barbacoa boudin.

We’ve gone through a lot of vendors to get the cuts we want. We don’t like to just do your basic brisket, pulled pork, ribs. Our menu gets kind of crazy sometimes. I think that’s what keeps people interested. We started doing oxtails. We always have pork jowls. We do a pork jowl crackling. Once a month we do pig cheeks.

We’re just open Thursdays and Fridays. We do smashburgers and sandwiches on Thursdays. The last

Thursday of every month we do tacos. Every Friday we do barbecue, sides and desserts. We’re going to keep it a small family operation and try to put out a good product every week.

How has your experience been with Hogs for the Cause?

G: I have always been a fan of Hogs. We used to go when they started. I finally encouraged some family and friends to get involved. I was like, “look, I think we will have a really good time, raise some money.”

In 2022 we entered our team, and it was a big-time learning experience. We’re porkbelly Cartel. It was a team of like 10, and every year we get bigger. To think about where we are right now in terms of fundraising and our plot size and our equipment, it was a big learning curve.

We have an open fire table — a live fire table we set up in front of our booth — and we cook all our tacos to order. We keep our menu simple with two or three tacos. This year, we’re doing a smoked beef cheek barbacoa taco, a smoked pork belly boudin taco, and Saturday we’ll have a smoked whole hog taco.

Barbacoa is a Mexican style. We’re adding our own Mexican spices and putting it on a taco. We’re going to also have Smoothie King Mangonadas at the booth.

Hogs is a long weekend. We load in Thursday and light the fires Friday. It’s me and a bunch of guys that can tend the fire, getting ready for Saturday. We’ll have two offset smokers out there. It’s a really good time. I wish it came more than once a year.

PROVIDED PHOTO BY BEN YANTO

Santa Margherita

PinotGrigio

Out 2 Eat is an index of Gambit contract advertisers. Unless noted, addresses are for New Orleans and all accept credit cards. Updates: Email willc@gambitweekly.com or call (504) 483-3106.

Angelo Brocato’s — 214 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-1465; angelobrocatoicecream. com — This sweet shop serves its own gelato, spumoni, Italian ice, cannolis, biscotti, fig cookies, tiramisu, macaroons and more. lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $

Annunciation — 1016 Annunciation St., (504) 568-0245; annunciationrestaurant.com

Gulf Drum Yvonne is served with brown butter sauce with mushrooms and artichoke hearts. reservations recommended. Dinner Thu.-Mon. $$$

Bamboula’s — 514 Frenchmen St.; bamboulasmusic.com — The live music venue’s kitchen offers a menu of traditional and creative Creole dishes, such as Creole crawfish crepes with goat cheese and chardonnay sauce. reservations accepted. lunch, dinner and late-night daily. $$

The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — 118 Harbor View Court, Slidell, (985) 315-7001; 7900 Lakeshore Drive, (504) 284-2898; thebluecrabnola.com — Basin barbecue shrimp are served over cheese grits with a cheese biscuit. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. lakeview: lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. Slidell: lunch Wed.-Fri., dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Sat.-Sun. $$

Broussard’s — 819 Conti St., (504) 581-3866; broussards.com — rainbow trout amandine is served with tasso and corn macque choux and Creole meuniere sauce. reservations recommended. Outdoor seating available. Dinner Wed.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$$

Cafe Normandie — Higgins Hotel, 480 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higginshotelnola.com/dining — The menu combines classic French dishes and louisiana items like crab beignets with herb aioli. No reservations. Breakfast and lunch daily. $$

The Commissary — 634 Orange St., (504) 274-1850; thecommissarynola.com — A smoked turkey sandwich is served with bacon, tomato jam, herbed cream cheese, arugula and herb vinaigrette on honey oat bread. No reservations. Outdoor seating available. lunch Tue.-Sat. $$

Curio — 301 Royal St., (504) 717-4198; curionola.com — The creative Creole menu includes blackened Gulf shrimp served with chicken and andouille jambalaya. reservations accepted. lunch and dinner daily. $$

Dahla — 611 O’Keefe Ave., (504) 766-6602; dahlarestaurant.com — The menu includes popular Thai dishes like pad thai, drunken noodles, curries and fried rice. Crispy skinned duck basil is prepared with vegetables and Thai basil. Delivery available. reservations accepted. lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$

Desire Oyster Bar — Royal Sonesta New Orleans, 300 Bourbon St., (504) 586-0300; sonesta.com/desireoysterbar — A menu full of Gulf seafood includes char-grilled oysters topped with parmesan and herbs. reservations recommended. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$

Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House — 144 Bourbon St., (504) 522-0111; bourbonhouse. com — There’s a seafood raw bar and dishes like redfish with lemon buerre blanc. reservations accepted. lunch and dinner daily. $$$

Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse — 716 Iberville St., (504) 522-2467; dickiebrennanssteakhouse.com — A 6-ounce filet mignon is

$ — average dinner entrée under $10 $$ $11-$20

$$$ — $20-up

served with fried oysters, creamed spinach, potatoes and bearnaise. reservations recommended. Dinner Mon.-Sat. $$$

El Pavo Real — 4401 S. Broad Ave., (504) 266-2022; elpavorealnola.com — The menu includes tacos, enchiladas and sauteed Gulf fish topped with tomatoes, olives, onion and capers, served with rice and string beans. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. lunch and early dinner Tue.-Sat. $$

Juan’s Flying Burrito — 515 Baronne St., (504) 529-5825; 2018 Magazine St., (504) 569-0000; 4724 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-9950; 8140 Oak St., (504) 897-4800; juansflyingburrito.com — The Flying Burrito includes steak, shrimp, chicken, cheddar jack cheese, black beans, rice, guacamole and salsa. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$

Katie’s Restaurant — 3701 Iberville St., (504) 488-6582; katiesinmidcity.com — The eclectic menu includes a Cajun Cuban with roasted pork, ham, cheese and pickles. Delivery available. reservations accepted for large parties. lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$

Kilroy’s Bar — Higgins Hotel, 480 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higginshotelnola.com/dining — The bar menu includes sandwiches, salads and flatbreads, including one topped with peach, prosciutto, stracciatella cheese, arugula and pecans. No reservations. Dinner Wed.-Sat. $$

Legacy Kitchen’s Craft Tavern — 700 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 613-2350; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes oysters, flatbreads, burgers, sandwiches, salads and a NOlA Style Grits Bowl topped with bacon, cheddar and a poached egg. reservations accepted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$

Legacy Kitchen Steak & Chop — 91 Westbank Expressway, Gretna, (504) 513-2606; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes filets mignons and bone-in rib-eyes, as well as burgers, salads and seafood dishes. reservations accepted. Outdoor seating available. lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$

Luzianne Cafe — 481 Girod St., (504) 2651972; luziannecafe.com — Cajun Sunshine Beignets are stuffed with eggs, bacon, cheese and hot sauce. No reservations. Delivery available. Breakfast and lunch Wed.-Sun. $$

Mikimoto — 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 488-1881; mikimotosushi.com — The South Carrollton roll includes tuna tataki, avocado and snow crab. The menu also has noodle dishes, teriyaki and more. reservations accepted. Delivery available. lunch Sun.Fri., dinner daily. $$

Mosca’s — 4137 Highway 90 West, Westwego, (504) 436-8950; moscasrestaurant.com — This family-style eatery serves Italian dishes and specialties including chicken a la grande and baked oysters Mosca. reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.-Sat. Cash only. $$$

Mother’s Restaurant — 401 Poydras St., (504) 523-9656; mothersrestaurant.net — This counter-service spot serves po-boys, jambalaya, crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice and more. Delivery available. No reservations. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$ New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Co. — 817 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504)

837-8580; 1005 S. Clearview Parkway, Jefferson, (504) 734-1122; 2515 B Manhattan Blvd., Harvey, (504) 684-6050; 4141 St. Charles Ave., (504) 247-9753; 6920 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 455-1272; nohsc.com — The menu of burgers, salads and Creole dishes includes thin-fried Catfish lafitte over rice pilaf. Delivery available. lunch and dinner daily. $$

Neyow’s Creole Cafe — 3332 Bienville St., (504) 827-5474; neyows.com — The menu includes red beans with fried chicken or pork chops, as well as seafood platters, po-boys, grilled oysters, salads and more. No reservations. lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$

Nice Guys Bar & Grill — 7910 Earhart Blvd., (504) 302-2404; niceguysbarandgrillnola. com — Char-grilled oysters are topped with cheese. The menu also includes wings, quesadillas, burgers, salads, seafood pasta and more. No reservations. lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat. $$$

The Original Italian Pie — 3629 Prytania St., (504) 766-8912; theoriginalitalianpieuptown.com — The Italian pie combo includes pepperoni, Italian sausage, ground beef, mushrooms, onions, bell pepper, black olives, mozzarella and house-made tomato sauce. No reservations. Dinner and latenight Tue.-Sat. $$

Orleans Grapevine Wine Bar & Bistro — 720 Orleans Ave., (504) 523-1930; orleansgrapevine.com — The wine bar’s menu includes Creole pasta with shrimp and andouille in tomato cream sauce. reservations accepted for large parties. Outdoor seating available. Dinner Thu.-Sun. $$

Palace Cafe — 605 Canal St., (504) 523-1661; palacecafe.com — The contemporary Creole menu includes crabmeat cheesecake with mushrooms and Creole meuniere sauce. Outdoor seating available. reservations recommended. Breakfast and lunch Wed.-Fri., dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Sat.-Sun. $$$

Parish Grill — 4650 W. Esplanade Ave., Suite 100, Metairie, (504) 345-2878; parishgrill.com — The menu includes burgers, sandwiches, pizza and sauteed andouille with fig dip, blue cheese and toast points. reservations accepted. lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $$

Peacock Room — Kimpton Hotel Fontenot, 501 Tchoupitoulas St., (504) 324-3073; peacockroomnola.com — Black lentil vadouvan curry comes with roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and basmati rice. reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.-Mon., brunch Sun. $$

PHOTO BY IAN MCNULTY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Rosie’s on the Roof — Higgins Hotel, 480 Andrew Higgins Blvd., (504) 528-1941; higginshotelnola.com/dining — The rooftop bar has a menu of sandwiches, burgers and small plates. No reservations. Dinner daily. $$

Tableau — 616 St. Peter St., (504) 9343463; tableaufrenchquarter.com — pasta bouillabaisse features squid ink mafaldine, littleneck clams, Gulf shrimp, squid, seafood broth, rouille and herbed breadcrumbs. Outdoor seating available. reservations recommended. Dinner Wed.-Sun., brunch Thu.-Sun. $$$

Tacklebox — 817 Common St., (504) 827-1651; legacykitchen.com — The menu includes oysters, and dishes like redfish St. Charles with garlic-herb butter, asparagus, mushrooms and crawfish cornbread. reservations accepted. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$

Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 1212 S. Clearview Parkway, Elmwood, (504) 733-3803; 2125 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 510-4282; 4024 Canal St., (504) 302-1133; 4218 Magazine St., (504) 894-8554; 70488 Highway 21, Covington, (985) 234-9420; theospizza.com — A Marilynn pota Supreme pie is topped with mozzarella, pepperoni, sausage, hamburger, mushrooms, bell peppers and onions. There also are salads, sandwiches and more. Delivery available. lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $

Tito’s Ceviche & Pisco — 1433 St. Charles Ave., (504) 354-1342; 5015 Magazine St., (504) 267-7612; titoscevichepisco.com — peruvian lomo saltado features sauteed beef, onions, tomatoes, soy sauce and pisco, served with potatoes and rice. Outdoor seating available on Magazine Street. Delivery available. reservations accepted. lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$$

The Vintage — 3121 Magazine St., (504) 324-7144; thevintagenola.com — The menu includes beignets, flatbreads and a veggie sandwich with avocado, onions, arugula, red pepper and pepper jack cheese. No reservations. Delivery and outdoor seating available. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$

Tableau (616 St. Peter St., 504-934-3463; tableaufrenchquarter.com) serves creative Creole dishes like a fried oyster salad.

gracefully. He performs at 7 p.m. Monday, April 1, at Saenger Theatre. Find tickets via saengernola.com.

Josh Gondelman

Comedian Josh Gondelman has written for “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and was the head writer for the late-night series “Desus & Mero.” He also can be frequently heard on Npr’s “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me.” Amid it all, he’s been an active stand-up and released his first special, “people pleaser,” in 2022. He comes through New Orleans on Friday, April 5, and Saturday, April 6, for shows at Junk Drawer Coffee. Sets are at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. both nights. Tickets are $20 or $100 for a table for four at eventbrite.com.

‘Sole 2 Soul’

Junebug Productions presents a show combining storytelling, movement and more to invoke a dream world celebrating Black liberation. The new piece draws inspiration from company founder John O’Neal’s “Junebug Jabbo Jones.” At 7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 4, though Saturday, April 6, at Ashe power House Theater. Tickets $10-$100 via junebugproductions.org.

Abita Springs Busker Fest

Abita Springs and the Abita Springs Opry present the daytime festival of bands more often found playing on the streets in New Orleans. The lineup includes Tuba Skinny, NOl A rhythm Makers, Jackson and the Janks, Zach Bryson, The Bad penny pleasure Makers, New Orleans rhythm Method and more. At 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at the Abita Springs park at 22044 Main St. Food and beverages are available from the nearby farmers’ market. Visit trailheadmuseum.org for details.

Sheer Mag

Philadelphia DIY rockers Sheer Mag find influence from 1970s hard rock and broke out with a trio of Eps in 2015. The band recently signed with Third Man records and released its third album, “playing Favorites,” in March. Sheer Mag is now on tour and plays Siberia at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 4. Tickets are $19.85 via siberianola.com.

April Fool’s Day Parade

A sort of Carnival relapse, the April Fool’s Day Parade is a costumed

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

street parade in Marigny. The Krewe du Fool organizes the parade, which starts at royal Street and Franklin Avenue at 7 p.m. Monday, April 1. There is a party at d.b.a., where the best dressed will be named king and queen, and there will be music by Tuba Skinny and the New Breed Brass Band. Find information about marching and ball tickets at krewedufool.com.

TBC Brass Band

Singer Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph joins the TBC Brass Band for a free Wednesday at the Square concert. The Jamal Batiste Band also performs, and there’s an art market and food and drink vendors. At 5-8 p.m. Wednesday, April 3, in lafayette Square. Find information at ylcwats.com.

BrechtFest

The celebration of the work of playwright Bertold Brecht features music, spoken word and puppetry from artists including Bertold’s granddaughter Sarah Brecht, Chris Beroes-Haigis, Mark Bingham, Stoo Odem, David Symons, Harry Mayronne, Yusa and more. “Orange is the New Black” star Julie lake also will perform. Shows are at 8:30 p.m. Monday, April 1, and Tuesday, April 2, at the AllWays lounge & Theatre. Tickets are $25 in advance via brechtfest.com, $30 at the door, and proceeds benefit Innocence project New Orleans.

New Orleans

Ragtime Festival

The festival celebrating the history and role of ragtime features performances by Tuba Skinny, The New leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, Seva Venet & The Storyville Stringband, Matt lemmler and Steve Masakowski at venues across New Orleans Thursday, April 4, through Sunday, April 7. Tickets for individual shows range form $20$35. Advance purchase tickets and information available via theneworleansragtimefestival.com.

Monacle Ensemble

In her Monacle Ensemble project, multi-instrumentalist Aurora Nealand incorporates accordion, saxophone, loop pedals, found objects, taped snippets and more. Sasha Masakowski performs a solo set in the double bill at The Broadside’s indoor stage. At 7 p.m. Monday, April 1. Tickets $15 via broadsidenola.com.

MUSIC

FO r COM pl ETE MUSIC l ISTINGS AND MO r E EVENTS TAKING pl ACE IN THE NEW O rl EANS A r EA, VISIT CALENDAR.GAMBITWEEKLY.COM

To learn more about adding your event to the music calendar, please email listingsedit@gambitweekly.com

MONDAY 1

BOURBON O BAR — Tiffany Hall And The Jazz Masters4, 4 pm; Kid Merv, 8 pm

BROADSIDE — Monocle Mondays: Aurora Nealand’s Monocole Ensemble and Sasha Masakowski (solo set), 7 pm

TUESDAY 2

BOURBON O BAR — Dr. Zach, 4 pm; Ingrid luccia, 8 pm

DEW DROP INN Comedy night with Marc Caesar, 7 pm

THE RABBIT HOLE — rebirth Brass Band, 7 pm

WEDNESDAY 3

BLUE NILE — New Breed Brass Band, 9:30 pm

BOURBON O BAR — Gary Brown, 4 pm; Serabee, 8 pm

BROADSIDE — Decline of Western Civilization pt II: The Metal Years, 7:30

CHICKIE WAH WAH — Astral project + Dominic Minix’s Yung vul, 8 pm

THURSDAY 4

BLUE NILE — Where Y'at Brass Band, 9 pm

BOURBON O BAR — Kimchisoop, 4 pm; Xcitement Band, 8 pm

BROADSIDE — Tin Men, 6 pm

CAPULET — Mia Borders Trio, 6:30 pm

CHURCH OF ARTS AND SCIENCES — Seva Venet & the Storyville String Band, 6 pm

PEACOCK ROOM, HOTEL FONTENOT — Da lovebirds with robin Barnes and pat Casey , 8 pm

ROCK 'N' BOWL — Mason Trail & Zydeco rhythm, 8 pm

SANTOS — The Hangmen, The Oxys and The pallbearers, 9 pm

THE HISTORIC BK HOUSE & GARDENS — The rumble, 6 pm

THE RABBIT HOLE — r.A.M. + Dj Shabbakano, 8 pm

FRIDAY 5

BLUE NILE — The Caesar Brothers Funk Box, 8 pm; Kermit ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers, 11 pm

BOURBON O BAR — Ellen Smith & April Spain, 4 pm; Mem Shannon Trio, 8 pm

BOURBON STREET HONKY TONK — The Bad Sandys, 8 pm

BUFFA'S BAR & RESTAURANT — Cole Williams, 8 pm

BROADSIDE — Happy Time Healing

Sheaux: Comedy for the Community, 5 pm; Kumasi (Afrobeat Orchestra) with Jp Urbano (reaggaeton), 7 pm

CHICKIE WAH WAH — last Dance: A Tribute to Donna Summer featuring Anaïs St. John, 9 pm

CHURCH OF ARTS AND SCIENCES — Tuba Skinny, 6 pm

PUBLIC BELT AT HILTON NEW ORLEANS

RIVERSIDE — phil Melancon, 8 pm

ROCK 'N' BOWL — After party Band, 8:30 pm

TIPITINA'S — Naughty professor with Erica Falls & Vintage Soul, 8 pm

SATURDAY 6

BLUE NILE — George Brown Band, 8 pm; ram from Haiti, 11 pm

BOURBON O BAR — Tiffany Hall And The Jazz Masters4, 4 pm; The Blues Masters, 8 pm

BROADSIDE — Boils at Broadside: NOlA pride Center Grand Opening with Mia Borders and more, 2 pm

CHICKIE WAH WAH Marc Stone with Marilyn Barbarin, papa Mali and reggie Scanalan, 9 pm

CHURCH OF ARTS AND SCIENCES — The New leviathan Oriental Fox Trot Orchestra, 7 pm

HOUSE OF BLUES — Daphne parker powel, 6 pm

KERRY IRISH PUB — Crescent & Clover, 5 pm

PUBLIC BELT AT HILTON NEW ORLEANS

RIVERSIDE — phil Melancon, 8 pm

ROCK 'N' BOWL — lost in the Sixties , 8:30 pm

SANTOS — pansy Division with Dog park Dissidents and Atomic Broad, 9 pm

THE BROADSIDE — NOlA pride Center Grand Opening party, 2 pm

TOULOUSE — Club Closet, 9 pm

SUNDAY 7

BLUE NILE — The Baked potatoes, 8 pm; Street legends Brass Band, 10:30 pm

BOURBON O BAR — Marc Stone, 4 pm; Kenny Brown & the KB Express, 8 pm

BROADSIDE — Boils At Broadside: Washboard Chaz Blues Trio, 2 pm

BOURBON STREET HONKY TONK — The Bad Sandys, 8 pm

JILLIAN MAC FINE ART — Matt lemmler & Steve Masakowski, 12 pm

THE RABBIT HOLE — Helen Gillet, 6 pm

SCAN FOR THE COMPLETE GAMBIT CALENDAR

Aurora Neeland’s Monocole Ensemble plays Broadside April 1

PROVIDED PHOTO BY MELISSA CARDONA

Youth movement

by Jake Clapp

LAST YEAR, AS PANSY DIVISION PLAYED SHOWS AROUND THE COUNTRY MARKING 30 YEARS of its first full-length album, “Undressed,” the pioneering gay punk band noticed more young people in the crowd than they had expected.

people of different ages have always come to their shows, says singer and guitarist Jon Ginoli, but three decades in, he was expecting the crowds to trend a little older.

“During the pandemic, we seemed to have gained a new set of young followers,” he says. “Seeing people in their late teens and 20s coming to see us after really not having had that for maybe a decade — there seems to be a lot of people who have discovered us.”

A major reason is the band’s frank, sex-positive music and legacy as a pioneering group of openly gay musicians is as relevant as ever in a time when hard-won rights are being attacked.

“I felt like our band was evidence of progress and gay rights,” Ginoli says, “and that is true, but then the amount of right-wing attacks on queer people has made it so suddenly some of the things we were singing about, that we can kind of take for granted, are suddenly relevant again.” pansy Division is this year celebrating the 30th anniversary of its breakthrough second album, “Deflowered,” and play New Orleans at 10 p.m. Saturday, April 6, at Santos Bar.

Ginoli and bassist-vocalist Chris Freeman co-founded pansy Division in San Francisco in 1991, and it is one of the earliest queercore bands. Today, the band also includes drummer luis Illades and guitarist Joel reader.

By 1993, pansy Division was signed to lookout! records, released “Undressed,” and was becoming popular for its fun sound — a mix of indie and alt-rock and pop-punk — and open, joyful approach to gay culture and sex. The band wanted to fight back against attacks made by anti-gay politicians and people using the HIV and AIDS epidemic as a cudgel.

“We felt we’re going to be a pro-sex, pro-gay band and we’re going to go out and instead of talking about how bad things are, we’re going to celebrate what we like and what’s good and hopefully make people feel better,” Ginoli says.

The members of pansy Division were in their early 30s at the time, but as they began working on their next album, “Deflowered,” they realized they had a lot of fans in their teens and early 20s. So “some of the second album was written with the idea that we need to speak to people that are younger and not people who have had the experiences we’ve had,” Ginoli says.

With “Deflowered” in hand, pansy Division went on tour with former lookout! labelmates Green Day right as they were breaking out following the release of “Dookie.” The tour exposed pansy Division to a wider, relatively more mainstream audience.

When pansy Division started, the band was aiming for a gay male audience, Ginoli says. They knew they’d have all kinds of people listening, but that was a community they felt was missing from rock music. Today, many more openly lGBTQ artists are recording and performing, and Ginoli has noticed gender identity is a more prominent topic.

“punk is the thing that will never die,” he says. “It mutates, not so much musically, but in terms of who is able to take on the mantle of punk rock and say, ‘Hey, this applies to me.’ It’s much broader than it used to be … I see more and more queer bands, and it seems very logical to me.”

Pansy Division plays at 10 p.m. Saturday, April 6, at Santos Bar with Dog Park Dissidents and Atomic Broad. Tickets are $15 via ticketweb.com.

by Will Coviello

THOUGH IT TOOK INSPIRATION FOR ITS NAME AND ORIGINAL LOCATION FROM “THE SHINING” — Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s mountain lodge horror story — the Overlook Film Festival found a home in New Orleans, which it embraces as “America’s most haunted city.”

The 2024 edition pays homage to New Orleans’ film and vampire lore with an opening night Vampire Ball and a nod to the 30th anniversary of the film adaptation of Anne rice’s “Interview with the Vampire.”

While the festival embraces plenty of local lore in its films and live events, as well as New Orleans as a filming location, its program delves into all sorts of horror niches and dark corners. The festival screens 28 features and 24 short films from a dozen countries at The prytania Theatres on April 4-7, and April 8 is a bonus day with extra screenings of many films. Here are some of this year’s highlights.

last year, the festival screened “renfield,” shot in New Orleans and starring Nicolas Cage as a narcissistic Dracula. This year, Cage stars in the survivalist horror “Arcadian,” which just premiered at South by Southwest. Cage plays a father trying to protect his sons in a post-apocalyptic world they are desperately trying to understand, as they scrounge and salvage during the daytime and lock down at night, when predators roam the landscape.

The currently highest grossing Korean film of the year is “Exhuma,” a supernatural thriller from writer/director Jang Jae-hyun. A wealthy family believes its baby is suffering under a generational curse, so they enlist shamans to appease an ancestral spirit, but nothing bodes well when they find the grave.

Nick Kroll and Andrew rannells star as a gay couple who go on a 10th anniversary vacation in Italy while waiting to adopt a baby in the horror comedy

“I Don’t Understand You.” Their luxury trip goes off the rails when a side excursion into the countryside leaves them stranded where the language barrier is the least of their problems.

There are several vampire films, including “Abigail,” which is set in the world of organized crime as kidnappers target the daughter of a powerful figure. The French-Canadian film “Humanist

Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal person” is about the friendship found between a teen vampire and a boy contemplating suicide.

The slate includes many twists on horror classics and subjects. “Blackout” is a sort of werewolf story about a painter who haunts his small town. Scott Cummings, creator of “Buffalo Juggalos,” paints a portrait of the Church of Satan and its members in “realm of Satan,” which premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival. “In a Violent Nature” is a slasher flick about teens stalked by a silent brute but seen from the killer’s point of view.

The festival is presenting several classic films, including a screening of “Creature from the Black lagoon 3-D” on its 70th anniversary. Italian director lucio Fulci filmed “The Beyond” in and around New Orleans. In the restored 1981 horror film, a woman inherits a hotel in rural louisiana that may conceal a gate to hell. paul Williams starred in and composed the music for the now cult classic rock musical “phantom of the paradise,” directed by Brian De palma. Williams will attend a screening and do a Q&A, moderated by John Cameron Mitchell.

The festival also has several immersive experiences, including an escape room with a story about a popular and suspect New Orleans medium. There’s a workshop on working with 16mm film and a live recording of the podcast Scream Dreams. Other horror-themed events include a trivia night, a Spooky Swap Meet and more. The closing night party has a Halloween theme. For tickets and information, visit overlookfilmfest.com.

‘Exhuma’ PHOTO PROVIDED BY OVERLOOK FILM FESTIVAL

301

Michael Styles (504)777-1773 nolastyles.com

5

PREMIER CROSSWORD PUZZLE

U.K. PLAY

By Frank A. Longo

ACROSS

1 Give a right to

8 Eye narrowly

14 Choir songs

20 Dog collar attachments

21 Ends of bridal paths

22 See 1-Down

23 Refrigerator, stove or dryer

25 Warship fleet

26 Over yonder

27 Designer Gucci

28 Lhasa -- (little dogs)

29 Mega Stuf cookies

33 This second

35 Legendary figure in a 1999 horror film

39 Azaleas are members of it

43 Not quite

44 Dutch beer

45 -- the line (obeyed)

47 Sturdy tree

48 Slimy gunk

51 Shaft of light

52 Common allergy trigger

55 Condiment spicier than its yellow cousin

59 On -- with (similar to)

61 Big name in dog food

63 Born

64 TV announcer Don

65 Riddle

68 Strep-treating doc

69 Person giving out prizes

71 Eight of their last names are featured in this puzzle

76 Egg-hiding holidays

77 Gridiron stats

78 Punctual

79 Sominex or Unisom rival

80 Passing vote

81 As many as

82 Big lamb cut

86 Common weed of North America

90 Universal donor blood type, in brief

93 Shark feature

94 Ending for alp or salt

95 Architect I.M. --

96 Red Sea canal

98 Get there

100 Hive house

103 Suburb of Minneapolis

106 June bugs, by another name

110 Poetic “always”

111 Yule songs

112 Post-teen

113 Squeaks (out)

116 Ticked (off)

118 Spring back

120 Kentucky Derby venue

126 “Little Women” author

127 Wanness

128 Cry upon getting there

129 Joined (up)

130 Baby hooters

131 Vain person’s lack

DOWN

1 With 22-Across, film “nightmare” locale

2 Teachers’ gp.

3 -- Mahal

4 Equal: Prefix

5 Walloped

6 Foliage bit

7 Barcelona’s land, to natives

8 Bud

9 Director Kazan

10 Plus others: Abbr.

11 Music genre for TLC

12 Chachi’s last name on “Happy Days”

13 Mao -- -tung

14 Free TV ad, for short 15 Drink inserts

16 Target of antiperspirant

17 Minimal

18 Bordeaux wine

19 Secret store

32

36 Solo

40 Viral misery

41 Soft throws

42 “-- out!” (ump’s call)

46 “Death Be Not Proud” poet

48 Avant- --

49 Mandate

50 Smells

53 Exhales wistfully

54 Pack firmly

56 Cleaning tool in a bucket

57 Muscle jerk

58 More citrusy, say

60 Mary Lou of gymnastics

62 One suffering for a belief

66 Atom studier Bohr

67 Leb. neighbor

68 911 gp.

69 Susan of “Spring Fever”

70 Nintendo console

71 1974 dog film

72 Artificial silk

73 “Orange -- New Black”

74 Thoughts

75 Taken with

80 “Two Guys and --”

81 Operated

83 In flames

84 Courteous

85 Midleg joints

87 Sheriff Taylor’s tyke

88 Mess-free

89 Take to court

91 Jug handle

92 Pa’s pa

97 Last letter

99 ‘16 Olympics site

100 Flowering

101 Small dress size

102 Cowboy’s whoop

104 -- pot (sinus cleaner)

105 Early tourney round

106 Safin who won tennis’ 2000 U.S. Open

107 She sang the hit “Hello”

108 New Mexico’s state flower

109 Brain protector

114 -- Stanley Gardner

115 “Nae” sayer

117 Red Muppet

119 Inc., abroad

120 U.S. Navy noncom

121 Divs. of days

122 Lyric verse

123 Film director Craven

124 Little peeve

125 Hog hangout