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G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E W O R L E A N S . C O M > N OV E M B E R 3 0 - D E C E M B E R 6 > 2 0 2 1

10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY

NOVEMBER 3 0 — DECEMBER 6, 2021 VOLUME 42 || NUMBER 47

CONTENTS

NEWS

STOREWIDE

ALL FRAMES ON FLOOR

Opening Gambit ...............................7

BLOWOUT

Commentary...................................10 Clancy DuBos ..................................11 Blake Pontchartrain.....................13

FEATURES

» 20% » 30% » 40% & » 50% OFF

Arts & Entertainment ....................5 D I S C O U N T S VA L I D B L A C K F R I D AY T H R O U G H CH R I STM AS EVE

Eat + Drink...................................... 26 Music Calendar...............................31 Stage................................................. 32

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y ANSOM STEVENS-BOLLEM

New Normal is Normalized Censorship

Puzzles............................................. 35

Top 10 Censored Stories of 2021 Show Old Patterns Are Alive and Well

S TA F F

COVER ART ANSOM STEVENS-BOLLEM COVER DESIGN BY DOR A SISON

Publisher | JEANNE EXNICIOS FOSTER

EDITORIAL (504) 483-3105// response@ gambitweekly.com Editor | JOHN STANTON Political Editor | CLANCY DUBOS Arts & Entertainment Editor | WILL COVIELLO

INDY EYEWEAR LIKE NOWHERE ELSE

Film ................................................... 34

BUSINESS & OPERATIONS Billing Inquiries 1 (225) 388-0185 Administrative Assistant | LINDA LACHIN

ADVERTISING

Advertising Inquiries (504) 483-3150 Advertising Director | SANDY STEIN BRONDUM

Staff Writers | JAKE CLAPP,

KAYLEE POCHE, SARAH RAVITS

(504) 483-3150 [sstein@gambitweekly.com]

Intern | RAE WALBERG

Sales Representatives

Contributing Writers | IAN MCNULTY

KELLY SONNIER (504) 483-3143

PRODUCTION Creative Director | DORA SISON Traffic Manager | JASON WHITTAKER Web & Classifieds Designer |

MARIA VIDACOVICH BOUÉ

[ksonnier@gambitweekly.com]

CHARLIE THOMAS (504) 636-7438

[cthomas@gambitweekly.com] Sales and Marketing Coordinator

ABIGAIL SCORSONE

[ascorsone@gambitweekly.com]

Art Director |

CATHERINE FLOTTE

Senior Graphic Designer |

3708 MAGAZINE STREET (504) 891-4494 ARTANDEYESNEWORLEANSLA.COM

SCOTT FORSYTHE

Graphic Designers |

EMMA VEITH, TIANA WATTS

@The_Gambit @gambitneworleans @GambitNewOrleans

Gambit (ISSN 1089-3520) is published weekly by Capital City Press, LLC, 840 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70130. (504) 486-5900. We cannot be held responsible for the return of unsolicited manuscripts even if accompanied by a SASE. All material published in Gambit is copyrighted: Copyright 2021 Capital City Press, LLC. All rights reserved.

Radio Waves

Leyla McCalla debuts Radio Haiti-focused program at Contemporary Arts Center

by JAKE CLAPP Krampus’ ‘Alpine Dreams’

LEYLA MCCALLA RELISHES THE PROCESS OF DOING RESEARCH. The Haitian-

American songwriter, who lives in New Orleans, regularly draws inspiration from the things she reads, and she has explored Haitian culture in her music along with Creole and Cajun influences. When she was invited by Duke Performances, an arts organization at Duke University, to explore the university’s Radio Haiti-Inter archives, she found “the opportunity to do research in a different way and listen,” McCalla says. Radio Haiti began broadcasting in the late-1950s and was not only the country’s first independent radio station, it also was the first to broadcast in Creole, spoken by most Haitians, when other media was broadcast in French. Led by journalists Jean Dominique and Michèle Montas, the station was a staunch promoter of democracy and human rights and celebrated Haitian life and culture. The station closed in 2003, and in 2014, Montas donated the Radio Haiti archives — more than 30 years’ worth of material — to the Human Rights Archive at Duke University’s Rubenstein Library. A few years later, Duke Performances, along with the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans and Miami Dade College’s MDC Live Arts, commissioned McCalla to dig into the archive and create new works influenced by what she found. McCalla asked New Orleansbased artist Kiyoko McCrae to produce and co-direct the project with her. In late-February and early-March 2020, McCalla and McCrae premiered “Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever” in Durham, North Carolina. The performances took place a month before the 20th anniversary of the political assassination of Dominique. This weekend, McCalla and McCrae bring “Breaking the Thermometer to Hide the Fever” to the CAC, which hosted production residencies for the project between 2018 and 2020. Performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3, and Saturday, Dec. 4, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 5. “I’m Haitian-American, born in the United States, and I grew up with a lot of people speaking Creole around me, but not really to me. And so, then I’m faced with listening to these recordings, much of them

THE KREWE OF KRAMPUS TYPICALLY HOLDS ITS NOLAUF PARADE OF HOLIDAY FRIGHTS in Bywater. The

PROVIDED PHOTO BY RUSH JAGOE

in French and Creole,” McCalla says. “It’s been a huge learning experience, understanding Radio Haiti in the context of Haitian history, and then in the context of the world we live in today. Making connections over the last four or five years of working on this has been a really big education.” “Breaking the Thermometer” combines new music — both originals and arrangements of traditional Haitian songs — by McCalla with storytelling, dance, video projection and audio pulled from the Radio Haiti archive. The piece also incorporates video from “The Agronomist,” a documentary about Radio Haiti and Dominique. The title alludes to Dominique’s former profession — during which he also worked with Haitian farmers to protect their land rights — before joining Radio Haiti in the 1960s and becoming a journalist. Haitian-American artist Sheila Anozier choreographed and will perform the dance pieces in “Breaking the Thermometer,” and Zuri Obi, also of Haitian descent, developed the sound and projection design for the show along with Kyle Sheehan. The project also contains contributions from percussionists Shawn Myers and Markus Schwartz, set designer Jebney Lewis and dramaturg Laura Wagner. The performance explores the history and importance of Radio Haiti and the work of journalists like Dominique and Montas, but it also frames Haiti through McCalla’s perspective.

Choreographer and dancer Sheila Anozier and musician Leyla McCalla. “We’ve been kind of talking about it as like a live documentary,” McCrae says. “Documentary in a sense that it’s also about Leyla’s life and her journey.” Dominique and Montas used Radio Haiti to passionately speak out against corruption and abuses perpetrated by Haitian administrations, and the station became a target of government-backed attacks. In April 2000, Dominique was assassinated while entering the radio station, an attack that also killed station employee Jean-Claude Louissaint. Montas continued Radio Haiti broadcasts for another three years but closed the station in 2003 following more death threats and an attack on her home that killed a security guard. There’s an old history between Haiti and New Orleans. Following the Haitian Revolution, more than 10,000 Haitians arrived in New Orleans within the first decade of the 19th century. And the country’s influence can be seen in New Orleans’ culture. “New Orleans for me has been a huge place of connecting more deeply with Haiti,” McCalla says. “There’s been a lot of conversation over the last 10 years about connections between New Orleans and Haiti and how much of our culture here comes from Haiti. It feels particularly meaningful to be bringing this to our community here.”

adaptation of the European tradition features a horror-show version of Saint Nicholas seeking the naughty, joined by New Orleans versions of the Alpine spirits including the Yule Cat, Sisters of Shhh and Dance of the Edelweiss. The krewe is joined by local dance krewes for its second Krampus Lane drive-through event, titled “Alpine Dreams,” on the horseshow drive at NORD offices in Gentilly. The attraction is open from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4. Find tickets and information on eventbrite.com.

PHOTO BY DOUG MACCASH / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

Johnny Sketch and the Dirty Notes

JOHNNY SKETCH AND THE DIRTY NOTES

celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary with special guests, including the Electric Yat Quartet, vocalists Darcy Malone and Debbie Davis and more. The setlist includes songs from across the band’s two decades of music. At 9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, at Tipitina’s. Tickets $18 at tipitinas.com.

Silver Godling

PIANIST AND VOCALIST EMILY MCWILLIAMS just released,

“Witness, Unweave,” her third fulllength album as Silver Godling. As the pandemic set in, McWilliams recorded the album alone, relying on piano, layered vocals, drum machine and electronic effects, and creating a gorgeous, spectral reflection on mental health and the ways trauma lingers in the body. Silver Godling plays a seated, PAGE 34

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A R T S + E N T E R TA I N M E N T

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NEW ORLEANS NEWS + VIEWS

Every Time Jeff Landry Files a Frivolous Lawsuit, an Angel Gets Their Wings

T H U M B S U P/ THUMBS DOWN

0/10

THE RATING LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF LANDRY RECEIVED FROM ROOM RATERS REGARDING HIS TASTE IN OFFICE DECOR (AND POLITICS).

Around 220“sleepers” raised

more than $700,000 for Covenant House New Orleans last week during the organization’s Sleep Out fundraiser. The volunteers spent the night of Nov. 18 on the sidewalk with a sleeping bag and a cardboard box to raise awareness about youth homelessness and raise money for Covenant House’s mission to provide a safe haven for young people. More information can be found at neworleans.sleepout.org.

DillardUniversity will use a $5

million gift from the Kirkland & Ellis law firm for paid internships at civil rights and public interest groups. Kirkland & Ellis for years offered pro bono representation to four Maryland historically Black colleges and universities in their fight for equal funding. After winning a large settlement for the universities, Kirkland & Ellis decided to donate its share to HBCUs and nonprofits, including the gift to Dillard’s Center for Racial Justice.

ToddMorrell, a New Orleans

police sergeant and brother of recently elected City Councilmember-at-Large JP Morrell, was caught by WVUE-TV repeatedly racing sports cars on the West Bank while he was supposed to be working. Sgt. Morrell is one of the highest-paid officers on the force. NOPD has since suspended 26 officers, including Morrell and his brother Nicholas, from off-duty security work while it investigates.

THE COUNT

P H O T O B Y B E N M Y E R S / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

Inspector General Ed Michel poses with Ethics and Review Board Chair Elizabeth Livingston de Calderon (Photo taken from New Orleans OIG Twitter account).

Mock the New Orleans Inspector General on Twitter? Your boss might get a phone call NEW ORLEANS’ TOP GOVERNMENT WATCHDOG is potentially in hot

water after a series of tweets mocking his office prompted him to call the online critic’s employer and complain about him. According to a formal complaint to the Ethics and Review Board, the independent commission that oversees the New Orleans Office of Inspector General, interim Inspector General Ed Michel contacted the human resources department at the LSU Health Sciences Center on Oct. 1 because one of its employees had posted critical replies to the official Office of Inspector General Twitter account. Jeremy Walton, a former inspector general’s office staffer who now works as an LSU compliance auditor, said he learned that Michel had called his HR department the day after his last post questioning a former IG’s spending of public money and raising other concerns. Emails attached to Walton’s complaint show that Michel called an LSU human-resources employee, identified himself as the city’s inspector general, and allegedly suggested the institution should put a stop to Walton’s posts. “Edward believes they are not representative of what the

LSUHSC would want to emulate,” the HR employee wrote in a summary of the call, adding that Walton’s posts were of no concern because they did not mention the institution and there was no social media policy for employees. Walton said in an interview there had been no repercussions from his employer. Still, he filed the complaint because he viewed Michel’s call as an abuse of his position. “He is in a position of public trust. He is the interim inspector general for the city. He has many important things to do. None of them include calling the HR department of people who criticize him on Twitter,” said Walton. Last week, the ethics board, which is currently weighing whether Michel or one of five other finalists should be tapped to replace former IG Derry Harper to permanently lead the agency, voted to open a formal inquiry into whether Michel acted improperly. Neither Walton nor Michel was publicly identified at the meeting, and the contents of the complaint were not discussed in open session. Walton’s complaint is listed among other complaints on the Ethics and Review Board’s website as one regarding a “public official’s call to employer about public tweets.” PAGE 9

@Ratemyskyperoom offers Twitter commentary on the home and office decor of various politicians, talking heads and celebrities during pandemic-era video and TV appearances. Gambit asked the account to rate a recent appearance by Landry, in which he expounded on his unscientific opposition to vaccine mandates in schools. Room Raters commended Landry’s ’70s style wood paneling but docked all points due to his anti-public health rhetoric, noting Landry “opposes vaccines for kids because stupid always gets a vote.”

C’EST W H AT

Now that holiday music is everywhere, what’s the greatest Christmas song of all time?

33.7%

LOUIS ARMSTRONG’S “CHRISTMAS IN NEW ORLEANS”

21%

BIG FREEDIA’S “SANTA IS A GAY MAN”

31.6%

MARIAH CAREY’S “ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU”

13.7%

DONNY HATHAWAY’S “THIS CHRISTMAS”

Vote on “C’est What?” at www.bestofneworleans.com

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G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M > N OV E M B E R 3 0 - D E C E M B E R 6 > 2 0 2 1

PAGE 7

On Monday, Dane Ciolino, the board’s administrator and general counsel, said that the subject of that complaint had provided a response, but that it was confidential. He said he would distribute the response to the board for consideration at “an upcoming meeting.” Walton claims Michel violated the city’s code of ethics for public officials, specifically a requirement to “discharge faithfully the duties of their office regardless of personal considerations.” Michel confirmed a report had been filed but declined further comment on the matter. Walton’s Twitter posts criticized both the ethics board and the inspector general’s office, including one on Sept. 30 mocking a photo of Ethics and Review Board Chairwoman Elizabeth Livingston de Calderon administering an oath of office to IG staff members. “Why didn’t she do it at that fancy press area Quatrevaux installed?” Walton wrote, referring to former IG Ed Quatrevaux, who Walton worked under from 2013 to 2015, according to his LinkedIn page. “How much did that cost by the way? And congrats to the new hires! Wonder if the ERB will have their back.” Walton said he was shocked the next day when he learned Michel had complained, especially since he only had three followers of his account. “I didn’t expect any sort of response, because who would respond?” Walton said. “Who would react to someone criticizing them on Twitter with three followers?” — BEN MEYERS / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Advocacy groups fire back at Gusman as sheriff race heads to run-off

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM ADVOCATES TODAY FIRED BACK at Sheriff Marlin

Gusman, alleging the incumbent is stealing credit for their work in order to position himself as a jail reformer worthy of another term. “He’s trying to take credit for downsizing the jail, but we know that was the work of advocates,” said Orleans Parish Prison Reform Coalition Executive Director Sade Dumas during a news conference outside the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. “He has been pushing for jail expansion. As sheriff he has pushed to over-jail our citizens ... and has not provided constitutional care.” Dumas was also critical of the conditions in the jail under Gusman’s watch, saying “It’s not safe for deputies, and it’s not safe for community members who are there, and we need change.” Dozens of attorneys, reform advocates and formerly incarcerated

explore new

people also dismissed Gusman’s effort to paint supporters of his opponent Susan Hutson as “radical extremists” while claiming throughout the election season that he’d made the city and its jail safer during his 17 years as sheriff. Another topic of contention discussed was the proposed jail expansion. Gusman in October said the facility was needed to care for those with difficult health problems. Opponents argue that it would result in harm to vulnerable populations and increase the population of the jail by keeping sick people behind bars under the guise of getting medical attention. Hutson, a former independent police monitor, has said throughout her campaign that Gusman failed to prevent deaths of people incarcerated under his watch and reduce deputy turnover, according to The Times-Picayune. Gusman also has been targeting the PAC for Justice, the Louisianabased political action committee pushing for a Hutson win — and accusing Hutson of taking in “dark money.” Gambit reported last week this group is not a “dark money” organization since it reports its contributors, which include significant amounts of money from progressive donors outside the state, including $50,000 contributions from Oklahoma oil heiress Stacy Schusterman and the DC-based Sixteen Thirty Fund. The Sixteen Thirty Fund is what’s known as a 501c4 organization, and as such does not have to report its donors, and therefore falls under the umbrella of “dark money.” (Other similarly organized groups that also qualify for the “dark money” title include the Miss America Organization and the American Association of Retired Persons.) Bruce Reilly, deputy director of Voice of the Experience, meanwhile, questioned Gusman’s own fundraising, which was detailed in a TimesPicayune story over the weekend. “Who are his ‘friends’ in Dallas — who are actually from hedge funds and big capital organizations?” said Reilly, pointing out that some of them have ties to Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. “Why do they want to donate to the small-town sheriff race?” Gusman’s campaign finance reports show he has a significant number of donors outside the city limits, particularly from vendors in more conservative areas. For instance, three recent donors are from Supreme car dealerships in Gonzales, Slidell and Hammond, which all made identical contributions of $1,250 on Nov. 5. — SARAH RAVITS

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in the (thankfully) final election of the year. Voter turnout tends to be pitifully low in December elections, even when the stakes are high. This year’s election will set the stage for the post-pandemic era in New Orleans, making it a particularly important contest. We urge readers to take the few minutes required to fulfill their civic duty and go vote. Below you will find our runoff ballot, which includes Gambit’s endorsements for sheriff and City Council seats in Districts B, C, D and E. We have taken no position in the Criminal District Court clerk race. In addition to the runoffs, the Dec. 11 election also presents voters with a choice of whether to approve millage renewals for the library and affordable housing. We strongly endorse a yes vote on the first initiative, which would renew the existing 4-mill property tax millage for public libraries for another 20 years. Despite the mayor’s misinformation campaign last year, voters wisely rejected her bid to cut the library millage significantly. In the wake of that defeat, the

City Council moved forward with a clean extension of the existing millage, keeping intact a primary source of funding for the city’s libraries. This is not a tax increase; it merely renews an existing millage for a vital city service. We have chosen to remain neutral on the second ballot initiative, which proposes to renew the existing millage rate for the Neighborhood Housing Improvement Fund. The stated purpose of the renewal is of course laudable. But we have concerns about how the funds have been managed in the past. As the Bureau of Government Research recently pointed out, the city still does not have a plan laying out how the funds would be used for affordable housing and neighborhood improvement projects. Additionally, we are deeply concerned about BGR’s finding of “unexplained decreases in the Housing Fund’s tax revenue in 2020 and 2021.” Without more accountability, it is impossible for us to be confident the funds will be used appropriately.

TheGambitBallot SHERIFF

Susan Hutson

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In the Slug Fest for Sheriff, Beatings Will Continue AS EXPECTED, THE GLOVES CAME OFF QUICKLY in the

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Susan Hutson, left, and incumbent Marlin Gusman, right, are battling for the position of sheriff in the run-off. Hutson said Williams’ election last December turned a corner in the local criminal justice system. “He showed that we are sick and tired of a broken system that continued to lock up our own and pretend that the strategy was improving safety in our neighborhoods, when we knew it wasn’t,” she said. In the runoff, Gusman has pivoted from touting jail improvements made during his 17-year tenure to casting Hutson as a “radical” whose campaign is driven by “dark money” political action committees that don’t report the source of their funding. The primary independent committee promoting Hutson is not a dark money entity, though some of its contributors are. The challenger and her progressive supporters blast Gusman for running an unsafe, unconstitutional jail and for taking thousands in campaign donations from vendors to the sheriff’s office. They also claim Gusman has lied about his record by taking credit for jail improvements sought by prison reform advocates; they say the sheriff fought some of the reforms he now embraces as his own. The outcome of this slug fest will likely hinge on turnout. The low (28.2%) turnout on Nov. 13 probably hurt Gusman — and turnout in December could be even lower. But, as turnout declines, “who votes” matters more than anything. Progressives have an outsized impact when turnout is very low — but so do super-chronic voters, who tend to be older and more conservative.

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Dec. 11 runoff for Orleans Parish Sheriff. Challenger Susan Hutson and 17-year incumbent Marlin Gusman traded rhetorical body blows in the run-up to early voting, which began Nov. 27 and runs through Dec. 4. The attacks and counterattacks will intensify as Election Day approaches. Hutson and three other candidates forced Gusman into a runoff by holding him to 48% of the vote in the Nov. 13 primary. Hutson got 35%, and the also-rans split the remaining 17%. Gusman fired the first runoff volley days after the primary, accusing Hutson of aligning her campaign with “people whose real interests are to defund law enforcement and abolish jail and arrests. This is a dangerous message. It puts us all at risk.” “I ran against a network of radical extremists who have invaded our city,” Gusman said in an online statement. “These people are funding and owning my opponent, an individual who has never managed more than a dozen people.” He added, “This is not a job for the inexperienced.” Days later, both candidates trotted out endorsements — Gusman from third and fourth place finishers Christopher Williams and J anet Hays, Hutson from fifth place candidate Quentin Brown and, more importantly, from District Attorney Jason Williams, who won the DA’s race a year ago with solid support from local and national progressives. “This Dec. 11 runoff will impact generations,” Williams said when announcing his endorsement of Hutson. “When it comes to safety and justice and what we spend our limited municipal dollars on, the role of sheriff cannot be overstated. The people and I are with Susan for sheriff because we agree that after 17 years with no significant improvements, it is time for a fresh and innovative approach.”

G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M >

CL ANCY DUBOS

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PRESENTS THE

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Send your favorite pet photo to vip@gambitweekly.com for the chance to have your pet published in the Dec. 14 Pets issue inside Gambit.

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@GambitBlake | askblake@gambitweekly.com

Hey Blake,

I’m trying to figure out where the City Park swimming pool was. Do you have any intel on this? What is there now? —EMILY

Dear Emily,

THE 1.5-MILLION-GALLON CITY PARK SWIMMING POOL opened in 1925

near the Marconi Drive-Dreyfous Drive corner of the park. It was built with a $60,000 gift from philanthropist William Ratcliffe Irby. When Irby died the next year, the street bordering the pool was renamed Irby Avenue in his honor. According to City Park historians Sally and William Reeves, the pool opened on April 14, 1925. Admission was 25 cents. The architectural firm of Favrot and Livaudais designed the pool and its shelter building. The Sewerage and Water Board provided free water. In 1958 — the same year federal courts called for desegregation of park facilities — the City Park pool was closed. Swimming pools at Audubon Park, Lincoln Beach, Pontchartrain Beach and 17 NORD facilities also closed.

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COINTREAU The City Park pool was converted into a sea lion pool surrounding a monkey island. In 1967, it was replaced by a sunken garden-style miniature golf course. That attraction later closed. The pool and its accompanying buildings sat dormant for years and were even used as part of former Orleans Parish Sheriff Charles Foti’s Haunted House in the 1980s and ‘90s. They have since been demolished and the spot is now green space.

BL AKEVIE W EARLIER THIS MONTH, BRITNEY SPEARS MADE HEADLINES as the painful battle

to end her court-ordered conservatorship came to an end. This week we focus on the pop princess’ Louisiana roots and wish her a happy 40th birthday. Born Dec. 2, 1981, in McComb, Mississippi, Britney Jean Spears was raised in nearby Kentwood, Louisiana. Her talents as a singer, dancer and actress were evident early on — dancing since she was age two and singing since she was five. She won dozens of beauty pageants, talent shows and gymnastics competitions. In 1992, the 11-year-old was selected for a Disney Channel reboot of “The Mickey Mouse Club.” She first auditioned for the show when she was eight, but was deemed too young. But she caught the eye of a casting director, who referred her to an agent, landing her a spot on the talent competition “Star Search” and a starring role in an off-Broadway play. She tried out again for Disney the next year and joined “The Mickey Mouse Club.” She signed her first record contract at 15, releasing her first two albums, “…Baby One More Time” and “Oops!...I Did It Again,” in 1999 and 2000. The title song from the first album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, while the second album set a record for first-week sales at more than 1.3 million copies. Since then, the Grammy winner has sold more than 100 million records, making her one of the world’s best-selling music artists. As her success and international stardom grew, she also made tabloid headlines for her relationships and personal problems — challenges detailed in the recent court fight over the 14-year-long conservatorship under which she was involuntarily placed in 2008. In often-painful testimony, Spears accused her management team and family of abuse. We’ll leave the details of that to other media outlets, but there’s no denying the power of the #FreeBritney movement and the support Spears’ fans gave her during her battle. It ended earlier this month when a judge agreed to terminate the conservatorship.

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The Times-Picayune Doll & Toy Fund helps make Christmas dreams come true for children in our six-parish area. Your donation is used to buy what they want more than anything else for Christmas – the magic of dolls and toys, games and gifts – presents these children would never find under the tree without your generosity. Your contribution, large or small, brings the joy of Christmas to some very special children. The Times-Picayune Doll & Toy Fund P.O. Box 61065 NOLA, 70161-9979

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Project Censored

Top 10 Stories Show Old Patterns Alive and Well BY PAUL ROSENBERG SENIOR EDITOR OF PROJECT CENSORED ILLUSTRATIONS BY

ANSOM STEVENS-BOLLEM PROJECT CENSORED’S CO-DIRECTORS, MICKEY HUFF AND ANDY LEE ROTH, title their introduction to

this year’s edition of State of the Free Press, “A Return to News Normalcy?” drawing a direct parallel between our world today to that of post-World War I America, “when the United States faced another raging pandemic and economic recession,” with other sources of tumult as well: “The United States then had experienced a crackdown on civil liberties and free speech in the form of Espionage and Sedition Acts; racial tensions flared during the Red Summer of 1919 as violence erupted from Chicago to Tulsa; Prohibition was the law of the land; and the first wave of US feminism ended with the passage of the 19th Amendment.” At the time, they noted, “People yearned for a return to ‘normalcy,’ as then–presidential hopeful Warren G. Harding proclaimed.” Day-to-day news stories perpetuate the fantasy that normal has already returned. In one sense they’re right: The normal patterns of exclusion and suppression that Project Censored has been tracking for over 40 years continue to dominate, with even the latest wrinkles fitting into well-established, if evolving, broad patterns that are depressingly familiar. These patterns are reflected in Project Censored’s top 10 list, with two stories each about labor struggles, racism, threats to health, the environment and free speech. Yes, that’s 12 stories, not 10, because some stories fit into more than one pattern — and some readers will surely find more patterns as well. The point of Project Censored has never been just to expose significant stories that have been ignored, but rather to expose them as portals to a wider landscape of understanding and action. In that spirit, here is our summary of this year’s top 10 censored stories:

1 Prescription Drug Costs Set to Become a Leading Cause of Death for Elderly Americans

SOARING PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS have been widely reported by corporate news outlets

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New Normal Is Normalized Censorship

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()&% ! #" " $ '(

Project Censored

but they’ve utterly ignored the staggering resulting cost in human lives. More than 1.1 million seniors enrolled in Medicare programs could die prematurely in the next decade due to unaffordable prescription drugs, according to a November 2020 study reported on by Kenny Stancil for Common Dreams. “As medicines become increasingly expensive, patients skip doses, ration prescriptions, or quit treatment altogether,” Project Censored explained. This will become “a leading cause of death in the U.S., ahead of diabetes, influenza, pneumonia, and kidney disease” by 2030, according to the study by the nonprofit West Health Policy Center and Xcenda, drug distributor Amerisource-Bergen’s research arm. The study modeled how lowering drug prices would impact lives by focusing on five treatable medical conditions that affect seniors, including three types of heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and type B diabetes. “The good news is that policy changes can curb the power of Big Pharma, resulting in far fewer avoidable deaths,” Stancil reported. The study stated, “Medicare negotiation is projected to reduce drug prices and seniors’ cost-sharing, which could prevent nearly 94,000 seniors’ deaths annually and save $475.9 billion.” The study also pointed to the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, which passed the House in December 2019 but died in the Senate, as a model for policymakers. The act has been reintroduced. Project Censored said discussions of legislation to control drug prices should involve information on what will happen if the status quo continues. If the media

doesn’t inform the public of the issue, “the consequences could turn out to be deadly for millions of seniors,” it said.

2 Journalists Investigating Financial Crimes Threatened by Global Elites FINANCIAL CRIMES OF GLOBAL ELITES,

involving the flow of dirty money through some of the world’s most powerful banks, have made major headlines in recent years. But we’d know a great deal more if not for the flood of threats faced by journalists doing this work — a major story that hasn’t been told in America’s corporate media, despite a detailed report from Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), “Unsafe for Scrutiny,” released in November 2020. The report was based on a survey of 63 investigative journalists from 41 countries, which found that 71% had experienced threats and/or harassment while doing their investigations, with a large portion of those (73%) experiencing legal threats as well. Its findings were described by Spencer Woodman in an article for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Woodman wrote that legal threats “seek to exploit a skewed balance of power between often-underfunded reporting enterprises and the legal might of attorneys hired by the world’s wealthiest people and corporations.” Physical threats and online harassment were also a concern, but they were geographically uneven. “While no journalists surveyed in North America reported physical threats, 60% of respondents working in sub-Saharan Africa, and 50% of respondents from

Project Censored

3 Historic Wave of Wildcat Strikes for Workers’ Rights AFTER MILLIONS WERE DESIGNATED ‘ESSENTIAL WORKERS’ when the

U.S. went into lockdown in March 2020, thousands of wildcat strikes erupted to challenge dangerous working conditions and chronic low wages, exacerbated by a refusal to protect wokers against COVID-19 and cutting or sharply increasing the cost of medical insurance, for those who had it. A further strike surge was driven by “Black and Brown workers using digital technologies to organize collective actions as a way to press some of the demands for racial justice raised by Black Lives Matter and George Floyd protestors,” Project Censored noted. The nation’s fourth busiest port, Charleston, South Carolina, shut down during Floyd’s funeral on June 9, for example. At the labor news website Payday Report, Mike Elk created

a continuously updated COVID-19 Strike Wave Interactive Map, which had identified “1,100 wildcat strikes as of March 24, 2021, many of which the corporate media have chosen to ignore,” according to Project Censored. According to Elk, that included “more than 600 strikes or work stoppages by workers in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement,” in June 2020 alone. “While local and regional newspapers and broadcast news outlets have reported on particular local actions, corporate news coverage has failed to report the strike wave as a wave, at no time connecting the dots of all the individual, seemingly isolated work stoppages and walkouts to create a picture of the overarching trend,” Project Censored reported. The exception where there was national coverage was in August 2020 when highly paid baseball and basketball pro athletes walked out in violation of their contracts to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake by Wisconsin police. The coverage ended quickly once they returned a few days later. Wildcat strikes occur when workers simply stop working, often in response to a specific incident, such as employer actions putting lives at risk by skimping on protective gear or attempting to cut workers’ health care. The situation was exacerbated by the Donald Trump administration’s failure to issue mandates requiring specific safety measures, as reported by Michael Sainato at The Guardian. Furthermore, Elk noted the 600 strikes in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement “is likely a severe underestimation as many non-union Black and Brown

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North Africa and the Middle East region reported threats of physical attack,” Woodman noted, adding that assassination is a “crime committed after a pattern of escalating threats.” Project Censored said, “according to FPC’s report, an additional thirty reporters from Brazil, Russia, India, Ukraine, Mexico, and other countries who were researching financial corruption have been murdered since 2017.” As for legal threats, “Unlike Canada, Australia, and certain US states, the United Kingdom has not passed anti-SLAPP legislation, making its courts an attractive venue for elites seeking to use the law to bully journalists into silence,” Project Censored noted.

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Project Censored

4 “Climate Debtor” Nations Have “Colonized” the Atmosphere

THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER DEVELOPED COUNTRIES in the Global

North are responsible for 92% of all the excess carbon dioxide emissions driving global warming, according to a study in the September issue of The Lancet Planetary Health. The U.S. alone was responsible for 40%, followed by Russia and Germany (8% each), the United Kingdom (7%), and Japan (5%). The study’s author, economic anthropologist Jason Hickel, told Sarah Lazare of In These Times, that his research began from the premises that “the atmosphere is a common resource” and “all people should have equal access” to a fair share of it. He calculated each nation’s fair share of a sustainable global carbon budget, based on the population, along with an analysis of emissions dating from 1850 to 2015. He then used this to cal-

culate “the extent to which each country has overshot or undershot its fair share.” The results, he said, show “the countries of the Global North have ‘stolen’ a big chunk of the atmospheric fair-shares of poorer countries” and have “effectively colonized the global atmospheric commons for the sake of their own industrial growth.” In contrast, the study found that most Southern countries were “within their boundary fair shares, including India and China (although China will overshoot soon).” The leading climate creditors to date are India (34% of global “undershoots”), China (11%), Bangladesh and Indonesia (5% each) and Nigeria (4%). “High-income countries must not only reduce emissions to zero more quickly than other countries, but they must also pay down their climate debts,” the study said, adding that the consequences “harm the Global South disproportionately.” “Corporate news outlets appear to have entirely ignored the findings of Jason Hickel’s Lancet study,” Project Censored noted.

5 Microplastics and Toxic Chemicals Increasingly Prevalent in World’s Oceans ACCORDING TO TWO STUDIES PUBLISHED IN 2020, microplastic

particles and a family of toxic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS have become more widespread and have begun to contaminate the global seafood supply. The problems are related because PFAS — a family of highly stable “forever chemicals” — can occur

between the University of Exeter and the University of Queensland. They examined microplastics in crabs, oysters, prawns, squid, and sardines sold in Australian seafood markets. According to the study, as reported by Robby Berman in Medical News Today, a seafood eater with an average serving “could be exposed to … up to 30 milligrams of plastic when eating sardines,” about as much as a grain of rice.

6 Canary Mission Blacklists Pro Palestinian Activists, Chilling Free Speech Rights

A WELL-FUNDED, SECRETLY RUN BLACKLIST WEBSITE known as Ca-

nary Mission has targeted thousands of individuals — overwhelmingly students — with dossiers intended to ruin their careers before they even begin, and which “have been used in interrogations by Israeli security officials,” according to the Forward. They’ve also been used by the FBI, as reported by The Intercept. The website, established in 2015 seeks to publicly discredit critics of Israel as terrorists and anti-Semites. Its careless style of accusation has caused a backlash, even among pro-Israeli Jews. “While some of those listed on the site are prominent activists, others are students who attended a single event, or even student government representatives suspected of voting for resolutions that are critical of Israel,”

G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M > N OV E M B E R 3 0 - D E C E M B E R 6 > 2 0 2 1

workers are now calling out en masse to attend Black Lives Matter protests without it ever being reported in the press or on social media.” That threat empowers even solitary individual workers, Tulsa-based Black filmmaker and activist Marq Lewis told Elk. Lewis said he knew multiple instances of local Black workers successfully getting their bosses to make changes in the workplace. “A lot of people may say this is not a strike, well, you tell that to these workers now who are getting their grievances heard,” Lewis told Elk. That’s the censored story within the story within the story.

as microplastics, can stick to microplastic particles in water, and are involved in the production of plastics. A German-American study published in scholarly journal Environmental Science & Technology revealed that PFAS — which are used in a range of products including carpets, furniture, clothing, food packaging and nonstick coatings — were found in the Arctic Ocean. “This discovery worries scientists,” Project Censored explained, “because it means that PFAS can reach any body of water anywhere in the world and that such chemicals are likely present in our water supply.” As Daniel Ross reported for Truthout, there are “known human health impacts ... [which] include certain cancers, liver damage, thyroid problems and increased risk of asthma,” chemicals that have been linked increased risk of COVID-19. Ross cited other studies, noting, “Emerging research suggests that one important pathway [for PFAS spreading] is through the air and in rainwater.” “PFASs are probably detectable in ‘all major water supplies’ in the U.S.,” according to an Environmental Working Group study. “What’s more, over 200 million Americans could be drinking water containing PFAS above a level EWG scientists believe is safe, according to the organization’s most recent findings.” The second study, also published in Environmental Science & Technology, came from researchers at the QUEX Institute, a partnership

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the Forward reported. The outlet also reported examples of Canary Mission retaliating against critics, including Jews. Main targets are Palestinian activists involved with the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions or BDS movement that works to peacefully pressure Israel — similarly to South Africa in the 1980s — to obey international law and respect Palestinians’ human rights. As The Intercept reported in 2018, “While Canary Mission promotes itself as a group working against anti-Semitism, the blacklist’s effective goal is to clamp down on growing support for Palestine in the United States by intimidating and tarnishing Palestinian rights advocates with the brush of bigotry.” The FBI told The Intercept that it “only investigates activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security,” but this didn’t match up with its actions. “If the FBI was concerned about criminal activity among the student activists, its agents made no indication of that in the interviews,” The Intercept reported. The list itself has had a chilling effect on First Amendment rights. “For many otherwise unknown activists, a Canary Mission profile is their most visible online presence,” Project Censored reported. “Heightened violence in Israel/ Palestine in May 2021 has focused attention on powerful pro-Israel media biases in US news coverage, but Canary Mission and legal efforts to suppress pro-Palestinian activism have nonetheless received minimal corporate news coverage,” Project Censored summarized, citing a handful of exceptions. “Aside from this coverage, major establishment news outlets have provided no substantive reports on the role played by Canary Mission and other pro-Israel organizations in stifling the First

Amendment rights of pro-Palestinian activists.”

7 Google’s Union-Busting Methods Revealed

IN 2018, GOOGLE DROPPED ITS LONGTIME SLOGAN, “Don’t be evil” from

its code of conduct. In 2019, Google hired IRI Consultants, a union avoidance firm, “amid a wave of unprecedented worker organizing at the company,” as Vice’s Motherboard put it in January 2021, while reporting on leaked files from IRI that provided a disturbing picture of how far Google may have strayed in its willingness to sabotage its workers’ rights. The 1935 National Labor Relations Act makes it illegal for companies to spy on employees and guarantees workers the right to organize and engage in collective bargaining. Nevertheless companies like Google attempt to circumvent the law by hiring union avoidance firms like IRI Consultants as independent contractors to engage in surveillance and intimidation on their behalf. “Employers in the United States spend roughly $340 million on union avoidance consultants each year,” Lauren Kaori Gurley reported for Motherboard, but their practices are apparently so disreputable that IRI doesn’t identify its clients on its website “beyond saying the firm has been hired by universities, renewable energy companies, auto-makers, ‘the nation’s largest food manufacturers,’ and ‘several top 10 worldwide retailers,’” she reported. “Consultants specialize in operating in the grey areas of the law,” John Logan, a Professor of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State told Gurley. “They’re not quite illegal but they’re sort of bending the law if they’re not breaking it.”

Project Censored

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“[Leaked] documents show that the firm collected incredibly detailed information on 83 Seattle hospital employees, including their ‘personality, temperament, motivations, ethnicity, family background, spouses’ employment, finances, health issues, work ethic, job performance, disciplinary history, and involvement in union activity in the lead-up to a union election,’” Project Censored noted, “including descriptions of workers as ‘lazy,’ ‘impressionable,’ ‘money oriented,’ and ‘a single mother.’” Documents Motherboard reported on came from two Seattle-based hospitals owned by Conifer Health Solutions, which hired IRI on the sly — a common practice. “Tracking the union avoidance firms behind anti-union campaigns is intentionally made difficult by firms that subcontract out work to other firms that hire independent contractors to avoid federal reporting requirements laid out by the Department of Labor and shield themselves from public scrutiny,” Motherboard explained. The union organizing the workers had no idea of IRI’s involvement. And Google is not the only Big Tech company to enlist union avoidance consultants in recent years. In fall 2020 and spring 2021, employees at Amazon’s fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama launched a much-publicized unionization effort. As Logan detailed in a lengthy article for LaborOnline, Amazon responded to the Bessemer drive by spending at least $3,200 per day on anti-union consultants Russ

Brown and Rebecca Smith and by bringing in a second union-busting consulting firm, as well as hiring “one of the largest law firms in the country specializing in union avoidance.” There has been some establishment press coverage of large corporations hiring union-avoidance firms to undermine workplace organizing, mostly focusing on tech giants like Google and Amazon. However, there has been no corporate news coverage whatsoever of the sensational leaks that Motherboard released in January, and there has been little in-depth corporate media reporting on the use of union-busting consultants in general.

8 Pfizer Bullies South American Governments over COVID-19 Vaccine

“PFIZER HAS ESSENTIALLY HELD LATIN AMERICAN GOVERNMENTS TO RANSOM for access to its lifesaving

COVID-19 vaccine,” Project Censored reports, the latest example of how it’s exerted undue influence to enrich itself at the expense of low- and middle-income nations going back to the 1980s, when it helped shape the intellectual property rules it’s now taking advantage of. “Pfizer has been accused of ‘bullying’ Latin American governments in Covid vaccine negotiations and has asked some countries to put up sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings and military bases, as a guarantee against the cost of any future legal cases,” according to

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Project Censored

reporters at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. In one case it resulted in a three-month delay in reaching a deal. “For Argentina and Brazil, no national deals were agreed [to] at all,” BIJ reported. “Any hold-up in countries receiving vaccines means more people contracting COVID-19 and potentially dying.” It’s normal for governments to provide some indemnity. But, “Pfizer asked for additional indemnity from civil cases, meaning that the company would not be held liable for rare adverse effects or for its own acts of negligence, fraud or malice,” BIJ reported. “This includes those linked to company practices – say if Pfizer sent the wrong vaccine or made errors during manufacturing.” “Some liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud, gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing practices,” the World Health Organization’s director of the Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, Lawrence Gostin, told BIJ. “Companies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things.” During negotiations, which began in June 2020, “the Argentinian government believed that, at the least, Pfizer ought to be accountable for acts of negligence on its part in the delivery and distribution of the vaccine, but instead of offering any compromise, Pfizer ‘demanded more and more,’ according to one government negotiator,” Project Censored summarized. “That was when Pfizer called for Argentina to put up sovereign assets as collateral. Argentina broke off negotiations with Pfizer, leaving the nation’s leaders at that time without a vaccine supply for its people,” in December.

“It is difficult to think of a clearer case for suspending intellectual property laws than a global pandemic,” and “a swath of global activists, mainstream human rights groups and UN human rights experts have added their voices to the demand for a suspension of patent laws,” Sarah Lazare noted in In These Times. But Pfizer was joined in its opposition by pharmaceutical trade groups and individual companies, such as Moderna, another COVID-19 vaccinemaker. As a result, “One could make a map of global poverty, lay it over a map of vaccine access, and it would be a virtual one-to-one match,” she wrote.

“Pfizer’s dealings in South America are not exactly secret,” Project Censored noted, but “As of May 2021, there has been no corporate media coverage of Pfizer’s actual dealings in South America or how the pharmaceutical giant helped establish the global intellectual property standards it now invokes to protect its control over access to the vaccine.”

9 Police Use Dogs as Instruments of Violence, Targeting People of Color

AN INVESTIGATIVE SERIES OF 13 LINKED REPORTS, “Mauled: When

Police Dogs are Weapons,” coordinated by the Marshall Project in partnership with AL.com, IndyStar, and the Invisible Institute shows disproportionate use of police dogs against people of color, often resulting in serious injury, with little or no justification. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a majority-Black city of 220,000, is the dog-bite capital of America, with a bite rate more than double the nextranked city, Indianapolis. According to Bryn Stole and Grace Toohey’s February 2021 report in The Advocate: Between 2017 and 2019, Baton Rouge police dogs bit at least 146 people... Of those, 53 were 17 years old or younger; the youngest were just 13. Almost all of the people bitten were Black, and most were unarmed and suspect-

ed by police of nonviolent crimes. Approximately 3,600 Americans annually are sent to emergency rooms for injuries resulting from police dog attacks. These bites “can be more like shark attacks than nips from a family pet, according to experts and medical researchers,” reporters wrote in October 2020, as part of a summary of their research. Other highlights from the series included: “Though our data shows dog bites in nearly every state, some cities use biting dogs far more often than others.” This ranged from just one incident in Chicago from 2017 to 2019 to more than 200 in Los Angeles and more than 220 in Indianapolis. “Most bite victims are men, and studies suggest that in some places, they have been disproportionately Black.” This includes the Ferguson, Missouri police department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, where it’s been found that “dogs bit nonwhite people almost exclusively.” “Bites can cause life-altering injuries, even death. Dogs used in arrests are bred and trained to have a bite strong enough to punch through sheet metal.” “Many people bitten were unarmed, accused of non-violent crimes or weren’t suspects at all.” “Some dogs won’t stop biting and must be pulled off by a handler, worsening injuries.” “There’s little accountability or compensation for many bite vic-

Project Censored

10 Activists Call Out Legacy of Racism and Sexism in Forced Sterilization

FORCED STERILIZATION WAS DEEMED CONSTITUTIONAL in a 1927 Supreme

Court decision, Buck v. Bell, after which forced sterilizations increased dramatically, to at least 60,000 forced sterilizations in some 32 states during the 20th century, predominantly targeting women of color. State laws have since been changed, but it’s still constitutional, and still happening today — with at least five cases of women in ICE custody in Georgia in 2019. And thousands of victims await restitution, according to reports from the Conversation and YES! Magazine.

“Organizations such as Project South, California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, and the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab are actively working to document the extent of this underreported problem — and to bring an end to it,” Project Censored noted. But their work is even more underreported than the problem itself. “During the height of this wave of eugenics by means of sterilization in the U.S., forced hysterectomies were so common in the Deep South that activist Fannie Lou Hamer coined the term ‘Mississippi Appendectomy’ to describe them,” Ray Levy Uyeda wrote for a YES! Magazine article, “How Or-

ganizers are Fighting an American Legacy of Forced Sterilization,” which begins with the story of Kelli Dillon. Dillon was incarcerated in California in 2001 when she underwent surgery to remove a potentially cancerous growth. The surgeon simultaneously performed an unauthorized hysterectomy, one of 148 forced sterilizations that year in California prisons, and one of 1,400 carried out between 1997 and 2010. Dillon began organizing inside the prison, gathering testimonials from other victimized prisoners “and provided the personal accounts to staff at Justice Now that was laying the groundwork to petition for legislation that would ban the procedures in prisons,” Uyeda reported. She eventually sued the state of California for damages, and helped shape legislation to compensate victims (finally passed this year). It’s also a story told in the 2020 documentary film, “Belly of the Beast.” “All forced sterilization campaigns...involve dehumanizing a particular subset of the population deemed less worthy of reproduction and family formation,” Alexandra Minna Stern wrote at the Conversation. Stern directs the Sterilization and Social Justice Lab, which explores the history of eugenics and sterilization in the U.S. using data and stories— 35,000 of them so far captured from historical records from

North Carolina, California, Iowa and Michigan. The history is complicated. “At first, sterilization programs targeted white men, expanding by the 1920s to affect the same number of women as men,” Stern wrote. The laws used broad and ever-changing disability labels like ‘feeblemindedness’ and ‘mental defective.’ Over time, though, women and people of color increasingly became the target, as eugenics amplified sexism and racism ... It is no coincidence that sterilization rates for Black women rose as desegregation got underway.” “California Latinas for Reproductive Justice is working to secure legislative change for victims of the state’s sterilization efforts between 1909 and 1979,” Uyeda wrote. It was signed into law after Project Censored’s book went to print, making California the third state with such legislation, following North Carolina and Virginia, in 2013 and 2015, respectively. There was some coverage after the ICE forced sterilization stories emerged, but generally without “mention of the activists resisting the practice … Some establishment press articles on the topic of forced sterilization include comments from members of these organizations to provide context on the issue, but few spotlight the groups’ tireless organizing and record of accomplishments.”

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tims,” for a wide range of reasons. “Even when victims can bring cases, lawyers say they struggle because jurors tend to love police dogs,” what’s known as “the Lassie effect.” Though the Black Lives Matter movement significantly raised public awareness of police using disproportionate force against people of color, police K-9 violence has received strikingly little attention from corporate news media. There were exceptions: In October 2020, USA Today published a Marshall Project story simultaneously with the project; the next month the Washington Post ran a front-page story citing the Marshall Project’s reporting. Plus, NBC News covered Salt Lake City’s suspension of its K-9 program, “after a video circulated of a police dog biting a Black man who was kneeling on the ground with his hands held up.” But most coverage appears to have been limited to local news outlets.

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Gifting Local

504 King Cake Infused Rum

$39.99 from Happy Raptor Distilling (1512 Carondelet St., 504-654-6516; www. happyraptor.com). Festive rum handcrafted in New Orleans. Infused with real pecans, orange peel, vanilla, cinnamon, and whole spices. Pre-sale begins Black Friday. Bottles available on Epiphany.

This holiday season spend your money where your home is.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY HAPPY RAPTOR DISTILLING.

Diamond Pendant from Doves by Doron Paloma

$4,100 from Wellington & Co. Fine Jewelry (505 Royal St., 504-525-4855; store.wcjewelry.com). Nineteen center diamonds weigh .32 carats total and are surrounded by twenty eight round brilliant cut diamonds weigh .27 carats total, 18kt. PHOTO PROVIDED BY WELLINGTON & CO. FINE JEWELRY

“Urban Outﬁtter Tanks”

$10.50 each from gae-tana’s (7732 Maple St., 504-865-9625; @gaetanasnola). PHOTO PROVIDED BY GAE-TANA’S

Spiced Demerara

Wall Platter

14.95 from Cocktail & Sons (cocktailandsons.com). A syrup with baking spices and toasted peppercorns, wild cherry bark, and orange peel. Perfect for an Old Fashioned, Sazerac and beyond. Available at Martin Wine, Dorignac’s, Rouse’s, and most local retailers.

$375 from The Shop at The Collection (520 Royal St., 504-598-7147; shophnoc.com). Measures approx. 16’ x 16’. Locally made handcrafted pottery by Rachael DePauw. All work is lead-free and food safe. PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE SHOP AT THE COLLECTION

PHOTO PROVIDED BY COCKTAIL & SONS

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$55 from Mignon Faget (3801 Magazine St., 504-891-2005; and Lakeside Shopping Center, 3301 Veterans Blvd., 504-835-2244; mignonfaget.com). Featuring handcrafted red Vegan Leather exterior with Croc embossed texture and gold tone metal zipper closure & hardware.

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E AT + D R I N K

Latin Quarter

FORK + CENTER Email dining@gambitweekly.com

Palace Renovations

Besame serves Latin dishes in the CBD

THE DOORS AT PALACE CAFE HAVE BEEN CLOSED SINCE THE CANAL STREET RESTAURANT TOOK ROOF DAMAGE

by Beth D’Addono DEALING WITH THE CHALLENGES posed by the pandemic is scary enough for a chef opening his first restaurant. But for Nanyo Dominguez, that wasn’t even the half of it. He opened Besame, which means “kiss me” in Spanish, on Sept. 25 at 110 S. Rampart St. — just a half-block from the site of the collapsed Hard Rock Hotel. “When I first looked at the space back in April, Canal Street was still closed,” Dominguez says. “There was no traffic, the block felt abandoned — with a graffiti covered wall across the street. It was rough.” Yet he still saw potential with the site’s proximity to the Saenger, Joy and Orpheum theaters as well as the French Quarter and many hotels. “If things progress in New Orleans as I hope they do, two or three years from now, all my investment and hard work will pay off,” he says. “I’m 45, and I don’t want to wait until I’m too old and don’t have the energy to start my own business.” He was ready on the cooking side of the equation. Dominguez spent 16 years working in New York before coming to New Orleans in 2015 to work at Johnny Sanchez with chef Aaron Sanchez. From there, he moved to Tito’s Ceviche and Pisco in Uptown and most recently helped open Espiritu Mezcaleria. Born in Pueblo and raised in Mexico City, his forte is all things Latin American, which is reflected on the Besame menu. The first section features ceviches, offering five takes on the citrus-cured seafood dish. All use locally sourced seasonal seafood, like the small chunks of sheepshead and Gulf shrimp in the Caribbean style ceviche, which combines coconut milk with pineapple and

PHOTO BY CHERYL GERBER

Chef Nanyo Dominguez serves paella, ceviche and Latin American dishes. habanero for sweetness and heat. A version with salmon uses citrus and passion fruit to cut the richness of the fish and adds depth of flavor with soy sauce, avocado and chili oil. Mezcal highlights the Oaxacan ceviche, made with Gulf fish, roasted guajillo peppers and diced cucumber and tomato. In the tapas section, there’s guacamole with the option to add bits of fried pork rind, Mexico City style. Queso gets a crawfish upgrade, there’s a vegan empanada made with sweet potato, beans and soy, and sandwich choices include steak asada and al pastor marinated pork. Tacos are filled with tempura-battered fish or shrimp or roasted cauliflower with a cashew habanero cream, which is one of the menu’s vegan options. The bar features South American wines and brandies such as pisco as well as Latin American spirits, including mezcal. The Besame space formerly housed a fast-casual eatery called TaCreole — a tapas-meets-Creole-cuisine concept connected to the new HI New Orleans Hostel on Canal Street. It was the first location in the international nonprofit network with its own restaurant. “They wanted to make a change, and when I saw the space, I felt ready to take on the challenge,” Dominguez says. “I feel good about

being connected to them.” “I worked with a great mentor with the (Small Business Association) who helped me do the first business plan in my life,” he adds. “That helped me secure the loan. After four banks said, ‘Nah, too risky,’ the fifth one took a chance on me.” He transformed the restaurant’s two dining rooms with bold shades of teal, red and gold, adding linens, art, cushions and comfy chairs. One wall is dominated by artist Kristen Downing’s mural paying homage to the Canal Street lunch counter sit-ins, which happened at both The Woolworth’s and McCrory’s during the movement to end segregation. The hostel commissioned the work in 2019 to commemorate the events that happened steps from its door. Although the restaurant is short staffed and business was initially slow after Hurricane Ida, Halloween weekend turned the tide, Dominguez says. It’s currently open for dinner Thursday through Monday, but the chef is putting in long days, arriving at 8 a.m. each day. It’s starting to pay off. “We did 175 covers on Friday, so business is picking up,” he says. “Now at least when I drive home to my house in Algiers, I feel more relaxed. I can sleep at night.”

? WHAT

Besame

WHERE

110 S. Rampart St., (504) 308-0880 besame-nola.com

WHEN

5 p.m. - 9 p.m. Thursday - Monday

HOW

Dine-in

CHECK IT OUT

Ceviche, tacos and Latin dishes in a new CBD cafe

during Hurricane Ida. But it has not been idle. The wheels are turning here for a significant revamp, both to the look and feel of the interior and its modern Creole menu. Right now, it’s on track to reopen in mid-February. Palace Cafe was supposed to mark its 30th anniversary in 2021, but the surging pandemic over the summer and then the hurricane scuttled those plans. Now, the restaurant is planning for a fresh start after the overhaul. “The silver lining is we’re taking time to reimagine the menu,” says sales and marketing director Lindsay Ross. “We’re excited to revisit the restaurant’s history and get back to our New Orleans brasserie roots.”

P H O T O B Y D AV I D G R U N F E L D / T H E T I M E S - P I C AY U N E

Chefs across the restaurant’s parent company are working with old and new versions of signature dishes for the reopening. Palace Cafe is part of the Dickie Brennan & Co. restaurant group, run by Dickie Brennan, his sister Lauren Brower and their partner Steve Pettus. Brennan and Brower both grew up working at their family’s landmark restaurant Commander’s Palace, which their late father, Dick Brennan Sr., co-founded.

FORK & CENTER

King Cake Hubbub

THE WHEELS ARE IN MOTION FOR THE UPCOMING CARNIVAL SEASON and

there is good news from King Cake Hub after the family behind this unique New Orleans creation endured a heartrending loss this year. King Cake Hub collects king cakes from many different bakeries and restaurants and offers them for sale in one spot. Customers easily can sample and

compare the range of traditional and creative king cakes through the season. It was created in 2019 by Will Samuels, who was well known for his earlier endeavors in New Orleans food and music and his community leadership roles. Samuels died Sept. 7 from cancer at age 52. The news arrived as the community was still reeling from Hurricane Ida. His wife, Jennifer Samuels, said at the time that King Cake Hub would return, following her husband’s wishes. Now she’s laid out how that will happen this year, with an expansion and a new location. King Cake Hub will be located at Zony Mash Beer Project, the craft brewery built in the vintage cinema at the crossroads of neighborhoods along South Broad Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. In 2021, King Cake Hub was located at the Broad Theater, a mile and a half down the street. There will be a Carnival kickoff party on Jan. 6, when King Cake Hub opens for the season. That event will double as the debut for a new king cake stout from Zony Mash. In addition, King Cake Hub will have a second location at the Historic New Orleans Collection in the French Quarter, set up inside the museum in the cultural center’s gift shop on Royal Street. This will coincide with the upcoming exhibit at the museum called Making Mardi Gras, which opens Jan. 6. The bakeries represented as King Cake Hub include wellknown names around the metro area and some further afield, such as Cannata’s Market in Houma. There also are some collaborative offerings. While the Marigny bakery Cake Cafe closed in 2020, baker Steve Himelfarb still makes his goat cheese king cake and other editions with students from the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Other returning bakers include Caluda’s King Cake, Caywood & Randazzo’s Bakery, Joe Gambino’s Bakery, Hi-Do Bakery, Bywater Bakery, Breads on Oak, Gracious Bakery, Bittersweet Confections, Sugar Love and Big Boy’s Gooey Cakes. — IAN McNULTY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

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Palace Cafe opened in 1991 as the next generation’s read on the Creole dining experience. Crabmeat cheesecake, catfish pecan meuniere and white chocolate bread pudding are among its signatures. When Palace Cafe debuted, it marked a rebirth of a historic building, with its Beaux Arts facade and architectural details. The building, at 605 Canal St., had been the home of Werlein’s Music, where for generations New Orleanians bought instruments and sheet music. The restaurant also was an early adopter of outdoor dining downtown, adding a sidewalk cafe to help spruce up its block of Canal Street. It underwent a major overhaul in 2015 to mark its 25th anniversary, which added a new lounge and its Black Duck Bar on the second floor. The post-Ida work entails much more than storm repairs, and will extend across the dining rooms, bars and event spaces on all four floors. The restaurant will still have its sweeping central staircase and cozy nooks around the dining room. But Pettus says the company is taking the opportunity of its storm closure to build in new amenities and features that will elevate the restaurant’s look and operations. “We want to pay respect to the level of quality that went into it from the start,” he says. “It will look better than it’s looked in decades.” The same company runs Bourbon House, Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse, Tableau and Acorn, a cafe at the Louisiana Children’s Museum in City Park, which are all open. It also runs the Commissary, though the market and restaurant part of this multi-faceted concept also are closed for renovation. Still, the Commissary will serve its Thanksgiving meal kits and takeout for home. — IAN McNULTY / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE

Have your Cake and drink it too

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WINE OF THE

WEEK

3 COURSE INTERVIEW

Breanna Fletcher Baker

by Will Coviello BREANNA FLETCHER DISCOVERED AN INTEREST IN COOKING while in high

school and won a scholarship to the Louisiana Culinary Institute in Baton Rouge. While there, she fell in love with baking and started making cakes and cookies for friends and family. During the pandemic, she and her fiancée Gerardo Membreno started B&G Foods and sold their baked goods at farmers markets. Now, they’re transitioning the bakery to a fully vegan operation. They sell baked goods at Crescent City Farmers Markets at the Lafitte Greenway on Thursdays and at City Park on Sundays, and at the Downtown Hammond Farmers Market on Saturdays. Visit facebook.com/ bassypastries or bandgfoods. square.site for more information.

How did you start a baking business?

Francis Coppola Director’s Cabernet Sauvignon

The Director’s Cabernet Sauvignon oﬀers a ripe core of fruits that include blackberry, cherry and cassis as well as warm spice nuances. Dark and succulent with medium density, a balanced palate and a nice integration of wood, this wine is very fragrant and captures the essence of the vintage. DISTRIBUTED BY

BREANNA FLETCHER: When I was in culinary school, I started making cakes for friends and families and bringing them to family events. I posted pictures of them on social media and people started messaging me and wanting to order. I started with birthday cakes, and I’ve done two or three wedding cakes. I did small cookie orders or a dozen cupcakes for a family event. Then it started to grow, because people were sharing things on social media. But I have gotten away from cakes and do more bread. During Covid, I couldn’t really find the job I wanted in a bakery, but I was getting lots of cake orders. I have friends at the farmers markets, and they encouraged me to do it. Now it’s our full-time job. Our first farmers market was the Hammond market. I brought some simple yeast breads, like brioche rolls and table loaves. And then I started the journey with sourdough this year, like a lot of people during the pandemic. The pandemic was a blessing for us. I was looking for a way to survive everything going on, and (the bakery) worked out.

What do you sell at the markets?

F: Now I am bringing lots of bread. Focaccia, baguettes and

PHOTO PROVIDED BY BREANNA FLETCHER

table loaves are our staple breads. Our staple sweet is our sourdough cookie. It’s a chocolate chip cookie with brown butter sourdough starter, so it has a tangy caramel flavor. Right now, since it’s cool, I am bringing cake slices, and they’re the first things to go. They’re in everyday flavors like chocolate and vanilla. The fun part about being at the market is people are excited for the weekly changing stuff. They want to see different stuff every week. Usually when we bring something new, it’s the first thing to go. We don’t bring bagels every week, but they go quickly. We’ve been doing cool things with cookies. We made a mocha espresso cookie. We made pumpkin cookies. Seasonal things — during the summer, we were doing a lot of veggie pizza with things from the market. People bring them home and reheat it. The sweet potato turmeric boule was like a science experiment. I was on Facebook and looking at all these cool colors of things with sourdough. I was like, “What can I find at the farmers market?” We take sweet potato and puree it and mix it into the dough. Then we take turmeric we got at the market and make almost a juice out of it and used it to give the bread a bright orange color. I have been making a flaky pie crust and putting caramelized onions on the crust. Then I make what looks like a rose out of potatoes and put it on the pie and pour herb butter on top of it. It tastes like Thanksgiving in a pie. We’re a cottage bakery right now, but we’re doing really well at the markets. There’s a cutoff for a cottage baker — you can’t make

over a certain amount before you have to move to a commercial kitchen. We hope to be in a commercial kitchen by spring and have our LLC and paperwork. We’ll still be able to sell at markets, but the commercial kitchen opens the door to sell to restaurants. Eventually, if we can secure grants and loans, we’ll open our own restaurant.

How is the transition to veganism going? F: Me and my husband are pescatarians, and we’ve decided that our New Year’s resolution is to go vegan completely, so we’re going to take the bakery with us. All of our breads are vegan. We have vegan satsuma and lemon cakes. We just made sourdough cookies and oatmeal cream pie cookies. It’s all normal ingredients except for egg replacer and plantbased butter. That was super easy to switch over, because the plantbased butters today are delicious. A lot of our New Orleans customers were asking for vegan options. Now I am in the process of taking all of my recipes for things people seem to like and finding a way to veganize them without losing flavor. We have vegan things at the market, but not everything is vegan while we transition. There’s a dish called baleada. It’s a big Honduran dish. He’s trying to make a vegan version of that. Once we’re in the commercial kitchen, that’s going to be one of the things we bring to the markets. He does all the sales. He does the shopping for products and helps in the kitchen, but he is a big cook. He never went to culinary school, but he’s always been in the kitchen.

C O M P L E T E L I S T I N G S A T W W W. B E S T O F N E W O R L E A N S . C O M 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.

CBD

Juan’s Flying Burrito — 515 Baronne St., (504) 529-5825; juansflyingburrito.com — See Uptown section for restaurant description. Outdoor dining available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.Tue. $$

CARROLLTON

Mid City Pizza — 6307 S. Miro St., (504) 509-6224; midcitypizza.com — See MidCity section for restaurant description. Delivery available. Lunch Thu.-Sun., dinner Thu.-Mon. $$ Mikimoto — 3301 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 488-1881; mikimotosushi.com — The South Carrollton roll includes tuna tataki, avocado and snow crab. Delivery available. Lunch Sun.-Fri., dinner daily. $$

CITYWIDE

Breaux Mart — Citywide; breauxmart. com — The deli counter’s changing specials include dishes such as baked catfish and red beans and rice. Lunch and dinner daily. $

FRENCH QUARTER

Desire Oyster Bar — Royal Sonesta New Orleans, 300 Bourbon St., (504) 586-0300; sonesta.com/desireoysterbar — The menu features Gulf seafood in traditional and contemporary Creole dishes, po-boys char-grilled oysters and more. Reservations recommended. Breakfast, lunch and dinner daily. $$

JEFFERSON/RIVER RIDGE

The Rivershack Tavern — 3449 River Road, (504) 834-4938; therivershacktavern.com — This bar and music spot serves burgers, sandwiches and lunch specials. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner daily. $ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 1212 S. Clearview Parkway, Elmwood, (504) 733-3803; theospizza.com — Choose from specialty pies, salads, sandwiches and more. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $

LAKEVIEW

The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — 7900 Lakeshore Drive, (504) 2842898; thebluecrabnola.com — The menu includes sandwiches, fried seafood platters, boiled seafood, shrimp and grits and more. Outdoor seating available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$ Lakeview Brew Coffee Cafe — 5606 Canal Blvd., (504) 483-7001; lakeviewbrew.com — This casual cafe offers coffee, pastries, desserts, sandwiches and salads. Delivery are available. Breakfast and lunch daily. $

METAIRIE

Andrea’s Restaurant — 3100 N. 19th St., Metairie, (504) 834-8583; andreasrestaurant.com — Chef Andrea Apuzzo’s speckled trout royale is topped with crabmeat and lemon-cream sauce.

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

Delivery available. Lunch and dinner daily, brunch Sun. $$$ Chef Ron’s Gumbo Stop — 2309 N. Causeway Blvd., Metairie, (504) 835-2022; gumbostop.com — The Seafood Platter includes fried catfish, shrimp, oysters, crab balls fries and a side. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sat. $$ Kosher Cajun New York Deli & Grocery — 3519 Severn Ave., Metairie, (504) 8882010; koshercajun.com — This New Yorkstyle deli specializes in sandwiches, including corned beef and pastrami. Lunch Sun.-Thu., dinner Mon.-Thu. $ Martin Wine Cellar — 714 Elmeer Ave., Metairie, (504) 896-7350; martinwine. com — See Uptown section for restaurant description. No reservations. Lunch daily. $$ Nephew’s Ristorante — 4445 W. Metairie Ave., Metairie, (504) 533-9998; nephewsristorante.com — The CreoleItalian menu features dishes like veal, eggplant or chicken parmigiana, and Mama’s Eggplant with red gravy and Romano cheese. Reservations required. Dinner Tue.-Sat. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 2125 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Metairie, (504) 510-4282; theospizza.com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $ Short Stop Po-Boys — 119 Transcontinental Drive, Metairie, (504) 885-4572; shortstoppoboysno.com — Fried Louisiana oysters and Gulf shrimp are served on a Leidenheimer loaf with lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles. No reservations. Breakfast, lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat. $

MID-CITY/TREME

Angelo Brocato’s — 214 N. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-1465; angelobrocatoicecream.com — Try house-made gelato, spumoni, Italian ice, cannolis, fig cookies and other treats. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $ Juan’s Flying Burrito — 4724 S. Carrollton Ave., (504) 486-9950; juansflyingburrito.com — See Uptown section for restaurant description. Outdoor dining available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$ Katie’s Restaurant — 3701 Iberville St., (504) 488-6582; katiesinmidcity.com — The Boudreaux pizza is topped with cochon de lait, spinach, red onions, roasted garlic and scallions. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner Tue.-Sun. $$ Mid City Pizza — 4400 Banks St., (504) 483-8609; midcitypizza.com — Shrimp remoulade pizza includes spinach, red onion, garlic, basil and green onions on an garlic-olive oil brushed curst. Delivery available. Lunch Thu.-Sun., dinner Thu.-Mon. $$ Neyow’s Creole Cafe — 3332 Bienville St., (504) 827-5474; neyows.com — The menu includes red beans with fried chicken or pork chops, as well as grilled or fried seafood plates, po-boys, raw or char-grilled oysters, pasta, salads and more. Lunch daily, dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 4024 Canal St., (504) 302-1133; theospizza. com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $

NORTHSHORE

The Blue Crab Restaurant and Oyster Bar — 118 Harbor View Court, Slidell, (985) 315-7001; thebluecrabnola.com — See Lakeview section for restaurant description. No reservations. Lunch Fri.Sat., dinner Wed.-Sun. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 70488 Highway 21, Covington, (985) 234-9420; theospizza.com — See Harahan/Jefferson section for restaurant description. $

UPTOWN

Joey K’s — 3001 Magazine St., (504) 891-0997; joeyksrestaurant.com — Sauteed trout Tchoupitoulas is topped with shrimp and crabmeat and served with vegetables and potatoes. Delivery available. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$ Juan’s Flying Burrito — 2018 Magazine St., (504) 569-0000; 5538 Magazine St., (504) 897-4800; juansflyingburrito.com — The Flying Burrito includes grilled steak, shrimp, chicken, cheddar-jack cheese, black beans, yellow rice, salsa la fonda, guacamole and sour cream. Outdoor seating available. No reservations. Lunch and dinner Thu.-Tue. $$ Martin Wine Cellar — 3827 Baronne St., (504) 894-7444; martinwine.com — The Sena salad includes pulled roasted chicken, golden raisins, blue cheese, pecans and field greens tossed with Tobasco pepperjelly vinaigrette. No reservations. Lunch daily. $$ Red Gravy — 4206 Magazine St., (504) 561-8844; redgravycafe.com — Thin cannoli pancakes are filled with cannoli cream and topped with chocolate. Reservations accepted. Dinner Wed.Sat., brunch Sun. $$ Theo’s Neighborhood Pizza — 4218 Magazine St., (504) 894-8554; theospizza.com — See Harahan/ Jefferson section for restaurant description. $ Tito’s Ceviche & Pisco — 5015 Magazine St., (504) 267-7612; titoscevichepisco. com — Peruvian mlomo saltado features beef tenderloin tips sauteed with onions, tomatoes, cilantro, soy sauce and pisco, and served with fried potatoes and rice. Outdoor seating and delivery available. Lunch and dinner Mon.-Sat., brunch Sun. $$$

WAREHOUSE DISTRICT

Annunciation — 1016 Annunciation St., (504) 568-0245; annunciationrestaurant.com — The menu highlights Gulf seafood in Creole, Cajun and Southern dishes. Fried oysters and skewered bacon are served with meuniere sauce and toasted French bread. Reservations required. Dinner Thu.-Sun. $$$

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Asia — Boomtown Casino & Hotel, 4132 Peters Road, Harvey, (504) 364- 8812; boomtownneworleans.com — Restaurateur Tri La’s menu serves Chinese and Vietnamese dishes, including a Lau Hot Pot with a choice of scallops, snow crab or shrimp. Reservations accepted. Dinner Fri.-Sun. $$ Mosca’s — 4137 Highway 90 West, Westwego, (504) 436-8950; moscasrestaurant.com — This family-style eatery serves shrimp Mosca, chicken a la grande and baked oysters Mosca. Dinner Wed.-Sat. Cash only. $$$

ADVERTISE WITH US Call Sandy Stein (504) 483-3150 or sstein@gambitweekly.com

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Sullivan | Gallery ART OPENING DEC 4TH 5 - 8 PM | EXHIBIT DEC 4TH - JAN 22ND, 2022

DAVID GAMBLE

ROBERT A. SCHAEFER, JR.

O P E N W E D - S AT 12 - 5 P M

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3 8 2 7 M A G A Z I N E ST

THURSDAY

BIG 6 BRASS BAND

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5 0 4 . 8 9 5 . 6 72 0

open at 7pm 9pm showtime

FRIDAY

HOOKAH & HENNESSY MARGARITA HOUR

Bring that k r o w foot

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Treme Hideaway Live Music Hall 1234 N Claiborne Ave, NOLA (N Claiborne Avenue & Esplanade Avenue)

SUNDAY

TBC BRASS BAND

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4pm-8pm

Nightl y Charg On-site rilled Ch with A uthen ef tic New O rleans Cuisin e

F O R C O M P L E T E M U S I C L I S T I N G S A N D M O R E E V E N T S TA K I N G P L AC E I N T H E N E W O R L E A N S A R E A , V I S I T C A L E N D A R . G A M B I T W E E K LY. C O M To learn more about adding your event to the music calendar, please email listingsedit@gambitweekly.com Note: Due to COVID-19, events may have certain restrictions or may be postponed; we recommend checking out a venues social media sites or call before you go for the most up to dateinformation.

TUESDAY 30 BAYOU BAR AT THE PONTCHARTRAIN HOTEL — Peter Harris Quartet, 7 pm CHICKIE WAH WAH — Joe Krown, 7 pm DOS JEFES — Tom Hook, Wendell Brunious, 8:30 pm KITCHEN TABLE CAFÉ — Kitchen Table Cafe Trio, 6:30 pm SIDNEY'S SALOON — Steve Detroy, 9 pm

WEDNESDAY 1 D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Tin Men, 6 pm; Brother Tyrone & the Roadmasters, 9 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 8 pm ORPHEUM THEATER — Khruangbin and Nick Hakim, 9 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Palm Court Jazz Band with Lars Edegran, 7:30 pm SANTOS — Swamp Moves with Russell Welch, 8 pm ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL — Susan Cowsill, 6 pm TIPITINA'S — Shakey Graves + Sun June, 9 pm

THURSDAY 2 FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Doyle Cooper Trio, 2:30 pm; John Saavedra Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 8 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Leroy Jones and Crescent City Joymakers, 7:30 pm PEACOCK ROOM, HOTEL FONTENOT — Da Lovebirds with Robin Barnes, 8 pm SIDNEY'S SALOON — DarkLounge Ministries, 6 pm SOUTHPORT HALL LIVE MUSIC & PARTY HALL — Exhorder - Performing "Slaughter In the Vatican", 6 pm

FRIDAY 3 ACE HOTEL NEW ORLEANS — Water Seed's Wild Nights, 9 pm CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Butte/Epic Reflexes/Lisbon Girls, 9 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Soul Rebels, 10 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Sam Friend Trio, 2:30 pm; Lee “Plink” Floyd, 6 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 9 pm NEW ORLEANS FRENCH MARKET — Patrice Fisher and Arpa Latin Jazz with Alejandro Junco Romero, 11:30 am NEW ORLEANS FRENCH MARKET — Patrice Fisher and Arpa with Alejandro Junco Romero and Juan Soto Bown, 11:30 am PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Kevin Louis & Topsy Chapman with Palm Court Jazz Band, 7:30 pm

REPUBLIC NOLA — Ivy Lab + OAKK, Saka, Balan, 11 pm TIPITINA'S — Flow Tribe + Jank Setup, 9 pm ZONY MASH BEER PROJECT — Iko Allstars at Zony Mash Beer Project, 7 pm

SATURDAY 4 CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Tiffany Pollack & Co., 6 pm; The Essentials, 9 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Kermit Ruffins & the BBQ Swingers, 8 pm; Dwayne Dopsie & The Zydeco Hellraisers, 11 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Joe Kennedy Trio, 2:30 pm; Lee “Plink” Floyd Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 9 pm GEORGE AND JOYCE WEIN JAZZ & HERITAGE CENTER — New Orleans Jazz Vipers, 7 pm HISTORIC ALGIERS POINT — Algiers Bonfire and Concert, 5:30 pm PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Will Smith with Palm Court Jazz Band, 7:30 pm REPUBLIC NOLA — Getter , 11 pm ST. ANNA'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH — Louis Ford and His New Orleans Flairs, 4 pm TIPITINA'S — Johnny Sketch & The Dirty Notes, 9 pm

SUNDAY 5 CARNAVAL LOUNGE — Ever More Nest, 6 pm D.B.A. NEW ORLEANS — Palmetto Bug Stompers, 4 pm; Treme Brass Band, 9 pm FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Richard “Piano” Scott, 12:30 pm; Joe Kennedy Trio, 2:30 pm; Marla Dixon Trio, 6 pm; Fritzel’s All Star Band, 8 pm LE BON TEMPS ROULE — Doctor Lo, 8 pm NEW ORLEANS FRENCH MARKET — Patrice Fisher and Arpa Yusa and Juan Soto Bown, 11:30 am PALM COURT JAZZ CAFE — Mark Braud and Sunday Night Swingsters, 7:30 pm PEACOCK ROOM, HOTEL FONTENOT — Jordan Anderson, 6 pm SOUTHERN HOTEL — NOLA String Kings with John Rankin, Matt Rhody and Don Vappie, 5:30 pm ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL — The Zion Harmonizers, 6 pm THE TOULOUSE THEATRE — Charley Crockett, 8 pm TIPITINA'S — Fais Do Do With Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band, 5:15 pm ZONY MASH BEER PROJECT — Layla Musselwhite, 2 pm

MONDAY 6 FRITZEL'S EUROPEAN JAZZ CLUB — Twisty River Band, 8 pm ST. LOUIS CATHEDRAL — Wanda Rouzan and Friends, 6 pm

ADD YOUR EVENTS FOR FREE TO THE

NEW GAMBIT CALENDAR

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MUSIC

GA M B IT > B E STO F N E WO R LE A N S .CO M >

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VOTE SUSAN HUTSON FOR SHERIFF

S TA G E

VOTE ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11

Experienced and Committed to Progressive Reform

• TULANE UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF LAW - JD (1992) • ACTING POLICE MONITOR - AUSTIN, TX (2006-2007) • ASST. INSPECTOR GENERAL OF LAPD - LOS ANGELES, CA (2007-2010) • INDEPENDENT POLICE MONITOR - NEW ORLEANS, LA (2010-2021) • NATIONALLY RECOGNIZED EXPERT ON FEDERAL CONSENT DECREES

“WE CAN AND WE MUST DO BETTER” PROUDLY ENDORSED BY DISTRICT ATTORNEY JASON WILLIAMS “The people and I are with Susan for Sheriff because we agree that we can have a safe and constitutional jail that truly rehabilitates. We also agree that the Sheriff can be an important partner to help increase safety in our neighborhoods by committing to using qualified deputies for visibility patrols in high crime areas to deter crime. I was elected District Attorney to help usher in a new era of justice in New Orleans. A new era dedicated to making families safer, correcting the sins of the past, and transforming how the criminal legal system operates to get better results. That is why I could not stay silent and am endorsing Susan Hutson for Sheriff.” FORMER CANDIDATE FOR U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 2ND CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT GARY CHAMBERS “The criminal legal system in this country is deeply flawed. Susan has spent her career working to correct what’s wrong with the system and that’s the type of leader we need right now. Susan has demonstrated a commitment to justice and equity for all people. Susan’s plans to diversify the department, increase its presence in the community to help address crime, and not use the jail as a tax pit are just a few reasons she’s earned my support. I’m proud to endorse Susan Hutson. It’s time for a new Sheriff in town, one who will be committed to making positive changes in the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s department.” FORMER COUNCILWOMAN DISTRICT A SUSAN GUIDRY “As Chair of the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee, I spent years working toward reform of our system. I believe Susan Hutson is the right person to serve our city as Sheriff. Susan has been a crucial part of reforming the New Orleans Police Department by working with the Community and NOPD alike - and we need her to keep fighting to bring real, progressive change to the Orleans parish sheriff’s office and criminal justice system.” Proudly Endorsed by IWO • NEW ORLEANS COALITION FORUM FOR EQUALITY NOLA DEFENDERS FOR EQUAL JUSTICE VOTERS ORGANIZED TO EDUCATE GAMBIT ELECT BLACK WOMEN

WWW.SUSANFORSHERIFF.COM Paid for by Committee to Elect Susan Hutson

Renovated Victorian by Will Coviello

DAVE HURLBERT, CO-FOUNDER OF THE MARIGNY OPERA HOUSE and its bal-

let company, has seen more than his fair share of holiday performances of “The Nutcracker.” He says he has a love/hate relationship with Tchaikovsky’s score. “I played piano for the San Francisco Ballet,” Hurlbert says. “I played ‘Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ 47 times a season.” The ballet has a singular place in American dance, with regular professional presentations, dance school productions, and even a Barbie Nutcracker film. “Most cities have their own local nutcracker,” Hurlbert says. “It doesn’t make a difference where it’s set, because it’s always this Victorian mansion with this little girl having her party.” Now, Marigny Opera Ballet is doing the show, but with a more substantial adaptation. “New Orleans Jazz Nutcracker” has a new score and an altered story. “Instead of a teenage girl, Clara is a young woman who wanders into Jackson Square on Christmas Eve,” Hurlbert says. “She decided to go out and try to have some fun. She comes to Jackson Square and sits on a bench. The activity, which is usually an upper-class party, is people in Jackson Square: a drag queen, a fortune teller, tourists, a couple of celebrities, a very odd family.” Since it’s in Jackson Square, there are some big French Quarter rats as well. The Marigny Opera Ballet’s version uses a score composed for the company by Lawrence Sieberth. “It’s magnificent,” says Hurlbert. “It’s a jazz take on (Tchaikovsky’s) ‘Nutcracker.’ Larry’s score is difficult. It’s very sophisticated.” The production will use a 10-piece ensemble made up of jazz and classical musicians. Sieberth incorporated rhythms that one would hear in New Orleans, including swing and Latin rhythms, says Jarina Carvalho, who choreographed the show. Carvalho grew up in Brazil and is a veteran of Dance Theater of Harlem. She has been in a couple of “Nutcracker” productions presented by New Orleans Ballet Theatre since moving to New Orleans in 2004. She and Hurlbert hung out in Jackson Square to capture the scene and its movement. The show’s movement is grounded in ballet, and Carvalho has accented it in step with

PHOTO BY BOBBY BONSEY

Sieberth’s rhythms and the diverse crowd in Jackson Square. The production is just over an hour, and removing some of the traditional elements has let them create a more joyous show, Carvalho says. There are many dance solos in the show, including by Clara, as well as the drag queen and the fortune teller. But the show is the largest cast for a Marigny Opera Ballet production. It uses 10 company dancers as well as 11 young dancers, mostly cast as the rats. The Marigny Opera House stage is compact, so the production preserves as much space as possible for the dancers. Besides a Jackson Square bench, props are minimal. The show gets fancier where it can, with costumes and lighting, including projections to depict the square. “New Orleans Jazz Nutcracker” originally was slated to premiere last year. Instead, it’s the company’s return from Covid shutdowns. Marigny Opera Ballet has been shut down for productions since it canceled a run of its original show “Follies of 1915” in March 2020, but it has maintained a schedule of classes. Hurlbert expects to present “Jazz Nutcracker” again, though not necessarily annually. The Marigny Opera House has been open for weekly concerts, mostly featuring jazz works, since September. “New Orleans Jazz Nutcracker” runs Dec. 3-5 & 10-12 at Marigny Opera House. Tickets are $35-$50 at marignyoperahouse.org.

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HAPPY HOUR

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FILM

A R T S & E N T E R TA I N M E N T PAGE 5

outdoor show with Ex Specter in the courtyard of Gasa Gasa to celebrate the release on Saturday, Dec. 4. The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10. Facebook.com/ gasagasaonfreret.

Acro-Cats’ ‘Meowy Catmas’

THE AMAZING ACRO-CATS RETURN to

New Orleans for a regular holiday stint at the AllWays Lounge. The troupe of rescued felines performs tricks such as jumping through wreaths, riding skateboards and starring in the Rock Cats band. Shows run Thursday, Dec. 2, through Dec. 20. Find more information at rockcatsrescue.org and tickets at brownpapertickets.com.

‘Elf’

AFTER MISTAKENLY BEING TAKEN TO THE NORTH POLE and growing up

with Santa Claus and his elves, Buddy travels to New York and tries to reunite with his family in the musical version of the holiday movie. The show opens Friday, Dec. 3, and runs at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, plus 2 p.m. weekend matinees, through Dec. 19 at Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts. Tickets $36-$40 on rivertowntheaters.com.

Khruangbin

THE HOUSTON TRIO TAKES ITS NAME FOR THE THAI WORD FOR AIRPLANE,

but its mostly instrumental music has a much more mellow vibe and blends musical influences. Soul and R&B singer Nick Hakim opens at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, at Orpheum Theater. Tickets $40$75 on ticketmaster.com.

Bert Kreischer

THE FLORIDA STATE PARTY GUY TURNED SHIRTLESS COMEDIAN TURNED “MAN CAVE” DENIZEN AND PODCASTER takes the stage in New

Orleans. At 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, at Saenger Theatre. Find tickets at ticketmaster.com.

Billy Strings

GUITAR PHENOM BILLY STRINGS

released his latest album, “Renewal,” in September and it promptly topped the bluegrass charts. On its 16 tracks, he incorporates metal, psychedelia and more. He performs at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30, and Wednesday, Dec. 1, at Civic Theatre.

Oktoberfest in Dezember

THE GERMAN-AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER IN DOWNTOWN GRETNA hosts

an Oktoberfest event featuring pretzels, brats, sauerkraut and German foods, German beer and music by the Bayou Bavarians. Oktoberfest is from 10 a.m. to 3

p.m. Saturday, Dec. 4, and it overlaps with the farmers market on Huey P. Long Avenue. Visit gaccnola.org for information.

Le Petit Salon

PIANIST AND LOYOLA UNIVERSITY NEW ORLEANS PROFESSOR BRIAN KENG-LUN HSU has won numerous

competitions and performed with symphonies around the world. He performs music by Franz Liszt and more in this show presented by the Musical Arts Society of New Orleans. There is limited in-person seating, but the livestream is free. At 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1. Visit masno.org for details.

New Orleans Chateau Flamenco Festival

SPANISH FLAMENCO STAR AND DANCER JOAQUIN GRILO is joined by

guitarist Diego del Morao, singer Carmen Grilo and percussionist Luis de la Tota. At 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30, at Roussel Hall at Loyola University New Orleans. Find tickets and information at flamenconola.com.

Matt Owens

COMIC MATT OWENS HAS A TWONIGHT STAND, joined by Bobbi-

Jeanne Misick and host Alex Cureau. At 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3, and Saturday, Dec. 4, at Comedy House New Orleans. Tickets $25 and up on eventbrite.com.

‘Rex: 150 Years of the School of Design’

THE REX ORGANIZATION MARKS ITS 150TH ANNIVERSARY with the book

“Rex: 150 Years of the School of Design,” by Rex historian and archivist Stephen Hales. It chronicles the group’s parades and royalty and includes more than 800 illustrations. Garden District Book Shop and The Rink will host a book release celebration at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30. Tickets are $75-$85 and include a copy of the book. Visit gardendistrictbookshop.com for information.

Paradigm Gardens Holiday Market

THERE ARE VENDORS, FOOD AND MUSIC AT THE PARADIGM GARDENS HOLIDAY MARKET. Find crafts,

plants, a massage chair, food, fresh squeezed juices and more at the urban garden. Fermin Ceballos performs. The market is from noon to 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5, at 1131 S. Rampart St. Visit paradigmgardensnola.com for information.

Off the Wall

by Will Coviello

THE FRENCH ARTIST JR STILL GOES BY THE INITIALS he used as

a tag in his days as a graffiti artist. He’s never confirmed a name, though now his massive paper works have covered buildings around the world, from the Louvre and the skyline of Rio de Janeiro during the Olympics to installations at Egyptian pyramids. In many of his projects, he photographs people in communities that are disenfranchised, impoverished or forgotten and makes their faces visible to the world — especially letting their eyes look back. Some of those projects are used to illustrate his inspiring vision in “Paper & Glue,” a documentary that opens at Zeitgeist Theatre & Lounge on Dec. 3. JR got his start in Paris tagging walls and hard to reach spaces. Eventually, he got a camera and started taking photos, which he printed on paper and glued on walls in public spaces. It was a highly disposable and temporal street art that still was treated as vandalism, and he was arrested many times. In an area on the outskirts of Paris known as Les Bosquets, a housing development had been abandoned by developers and left to the poor. JR and Ladj Ly, a collaborator and friend who had grown up in the area, posted large-scale portraits of the residents on the decrepit buildings. Les Bosquets was one of many sites that erupted in violence as police and immigrants and poor people faced off during nationwide unrest in France in 2005. The portraits brought attention to the residents of an area where few outsiders wanted to go. “Paper & Glue” details JR and Ly’s portraits and subsequent projects there, including an art and film school. But it spends more time on a few other installations initiated by JR. He went to meet prisoners in the maximum-security prison in Tehachapi, California. He was struck by the fact many of them had been teenagers when they began life sentences behind bars due to

PROVIDED PHOTO BY ABROMOR AMA / MSNBC

California’s three strikes laws. He enlisted them in a portrait project to call attention to the men separated from society. (JR posted clips of a recent visit to the prison to his Instagram page, @jr.) JR also wanted to explore the so-called border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. What he found was a fence and close surveillance from the U.S. border patrol. It was much easier to work on the Mexican side, though he wanted to do a project that straddled the border. The wall couldn’t keep his volunteers from passing tacos through the fence, and his portrait of a Mexican boy peering over the wall was seen around the world. A project in Brazil is one of the most stunning ones included in the documentary. Following violence in a poor neighborhood far from the beaches of Rio, he took portraits of the residents and set out to show them to the rest of Brazil and the world. But he also stayed involved with the community and left a more permanent installation behind. As an artist, JR has a gift for perspective and finding the most advantageous canvas for his work. It’s easy to call him an activist, though his mission is not to change policy as much as to entice the world to see the people who live in places that are often neglected or hidden from view. “Paper & Glue” is full of visually stunning projects, and it feels uplifting, as JR makes it look like art can change the world.

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34 Shouts of discovery 35 Is wearing 37 Kept posted 39 Hair salon job 41 Growth theory subj. 42 Accumulate 44 Hdqrs. where officers work 46 Red-carpet-walking type 50 Liquid filling la mer 51 Fend off 52 Title detective of 1970s TV 55 Give the boot 56 Prepared to do some grilling 58 Tier 59 “I’m not that impressed”

60 Egg-shaped 61 Musical ornaments 64 Place to play pool or table tennis 66 Do the task flawlessly 69 Alternative to a 401(k) 71 Hogs’ home 72 Eye-irritating cleanser 74 1963 Johnny Cash smash 76 Gush forth 77 Be in arrears 79 U.S. med. research agcy. 80 Final toast of a meal 84 In the style of 85 Law-of-motion subject 87 Glistened 88 Historic span

DOWN 1 Part of UAE 2 “Othello” foe 3 Makes one’s views known 4 Jar cover 5 Enter by sidling 6 Watch faces 7 Missile paths 8 97-Down insect 9 Foamed up 10 Honolulu palace name 11 Amusement, to texters 12 “Give this a whirl” 13 Low-end cigar 14 Radar sound 15 Put a new border around 16 Basketball great — Thomas 17 Mozart’s “Rondo Alla —” 18 Fencing blades 20 Get in a stew 24 Sends via phone line 29 Streaming music service 31 Prefix with disclosure 32 Give the boot

35 Boot part 36 Brazilian palm berry 37 Line of work 38 “Morning Edition” airer 40 HDTV maker 42 Pilot’s skill 43 Old Cougar carmaker, in brief 45 FDR and HST’s party 47 Volcanic outflows 48 Praise heavily 49 Stomach 51 Decongestant brand 52 Gulf of — (arm of the Baltic) 53 Just free of the bottom, as an anchor 54 Film for which Holly Hunter won an Oscar 57 Luminous 58 Spiral-shaped pasta 60 “Well, golly!” 62 Hide-hair link 63 “No seats left” abbr. 65 “Odyssey” temptress 66 Like twangy voices 67 Adequate 68 “That is ...” 70 Warm blanket 73 Jaw-dropping 75 As of

78 Prior to, in verse 81 Heavenly 82 River of Russia 83 Cooking vessels 85 Tiny particle 86 Road gunk 87 Six, in Seville 90 As surplus 92 Plains tent 93 Hogs’ home 95 Wyoming mountains 97 Collection of hives 98 Round shape 99 Corp. shuffles 100 “That is ...,” to Caesar 101 Head for hurriedly 102 Cry to a battlefield medic 104 Impulses 106 Grammy winner Gorme 107 Scott in an 1857 court case 109 Slender 110 Brothers’ group, in brief 111 Chew like a beaver 113 Kind of whale 114 British noble 117 Operate 118 Bushy hairdo, for short

ANSWERS FOR LAST ISSUE’S PUZZLE: P 2

PUZZLES

89 Slowly, to a maestro 91 Island setting 92 “I love you,” in Spanish 93 Course of action 94 Hip about 96 Enter quickly 99 Film spools 100 Pupil’s place 103 Very big bird 105 Domino spots 106 Unsullied places 108 Complete disaster, in slang 111 Spinner in a compass 112 Spinner in a kid’s room 115 Surround with a nimbus 116 1990s sitcom ... and what literally appears six times in this puzzle 119 Add to the mix, maybe 120 British noble 121 Prayed before partaking 122 Pole carvings 123 Eye irritation 124 Ovine female 125 Sun-related

G A M B I T > B E S T O F N E WO R L E A N S . C O M > N OV E M B E R 3 0 - D E C E M B E R 6 > 2 0 2 1

NEAR THE BAYOU

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