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• PSYCHO How to manipulate an au

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    PSYCHO Hitchcock USA 1960

     

     

     

     

     

    "My main satisfaction is that the film had an effect on the audiences;...[it] made the audience scream. I feel it's tremendously satisfying for us to be able to use the cinematic art to achieve something of a mass emotion. And with PSYCHO we most definitely achieved this. It wasn't a message that stirred the audiences, nor was it a great performance or their enjoyment of the novel. They were aroused by pure film ." 

     

    That’s Alfred Hitchcock talking to Francois Truffaut about PSYCHO, in the latter’s book-length interview with the British-turned-American director. Hitchcock is famously dubbed “the Master of Suspense.” Fair enough. But it would be a more accurate label to add “and Manipulation.”

    Hitchcock had developed a style of manipulating audiences, but never to the degree he did in PSYCHO.

    "I was directing the viewers," the director told Truffaut. "You might say I was playing them, like an organ."

    It was, in 1960, the most shocking film its original audiences had ever seen. I know. I was in one of those audiences. My parents were Hitchcock fans, having seen “North by Northwest”, “Rear Window” and “Vertigo.”

    On a very cold Sunday afternoon, after church and Sunday dinner, they were going to see PSYCHO. Like millions of other Americans, they had no idea that it was probably not what you would or should take a 10-year-old to see. But I already loved movies, I wanted to go and they didn’t refuse my request.

    Fortunately--because it was so cold on that Tennessee Sunday--I was wearing a car-coat as millions of kids did in those days. Luckily for me, the hood had a drawstring. When PSYCHO’s violins began to shriek during the infamous shower scene, I pulled the hood almost shut, leaving myself just enough peephole to see the center of the screen. If things got worse, I could always pull the hood completely shut—or close my eyes altogether, which, by the way, I never did. (Fascinated by film even at that age, I knew I was in the presence of something remarkable. I just didn't know what. And even if I had, I wouldn't have been able to express it.)

    ( SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU

    DON’T WANT TO KNOW

    KEY

    PLOT

    DEVELOPMENTS,

    STOP…READING… NOW !)

    Good grief! I couldn’t believe what was happening to this poor woman. Yes, she had stolen $40,000 from the bank where she worked. But hadn’t she made up her mind to return the money the next day? But even if she hadn’t, nobody deserves to be sliced to death in a shower—or anywhere—like a cantaloupe!

    Hitchcock intentionally made PSYCHO look like a cheap exploitation film. He shot it not with his usual expensive crew (which had just finished the expensive “North by Northwest"). Instead he used the crew that filmed his weekly television show. Even by 1960 standards, his budget was cheap—a mere $800,000. The Bates Motel and aging Victorian-style Bates house on the hill behind it were built on Universal’s back lot. Also, to give it that quickie, exploitation look, he shot in black-and-white. This was not going to be—nor was it supposed to be—another elegant Hitchcock thriller a la “Rear Window” or “Vertigo.”

    Yet, to this day—almost half a century after it was made—no other Hitchcock film has had a greater impact, on moviegoers or on filmmakers, than PSYCHO.

    First, Hitchcock sets up the movie in such a way that we root for Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) to successfully get away with theft. We want to see her wind up with the man she loves, Sam Loomis (John Gavin). We root for her when a policeman stops her on her way to her lover’s hometown. We pray that he won’t see the envelope full of stolen money by her side in the front seat.

    Hitchcock has thus made her sympathetic. When she pulls off the road in a heavy rainstorm to spend the night at the off-the-beaten-path Bates Motel, then begins her association with Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins).

    Norman brings her supper, which she eats in his motel office. Their late-night conversation makes them both sympathetic characters. We think their relationship will be developed during the remainder of the two-hour film.

    But no. Less than forty minutes into PSYCHO, Hitchcock throws a curve-ball at the audience, something you simply don’t see coming: he kills off his heroine. Hitchcock not only kills her off, he does so in what was—and remains today—the granddaddy of all slasher-movie sequences. Movie directors have tried to top it, but no amount of gore, of up-close-and-in-your-face graphic detail has ever come close. Hitchcock doesn’t use gore. (He filmed in black-and-white, thinking audiences would be too squeamish to withstand so much blood in color.) The era, of course, would not have allowed it. But this master filmmaker didn't need gore. He used artistry to make us "think" we were seeing more than he was actually showing us.

    We never see the knifepoint pierce the skin * —although people will swear they do. That’s the power of montage: with quick-cut editing—and Bernard Hermann’s shrieking violins—our mind “completes” what is merely suggested. Is Hitchcock making us see what perhaps we want to see? (Again, “manipulation.”)

    Once Marion Crane is dead, Hitchcock shifts our sympathy. Right before our eyes, he shifts our sympathies for her to sympathy for Norman, whom Hitchcock has already established as a kind, if a bit odd, young man. We’ve sensed from the beginning there is something not quite right about Norman . But during the motel office conversation, when he elicits the sympathy of Marion--with whom we have already identified--he elicits ours as well.

    Employing a sort of bait-and-switch sleight of hand, Hitchcock has now transferred our attention—and sympathy—from Marion to Norman . So--when Norman starts mopping up the blood from the murder, we feel sorry for him now having to protect his mother who, at this point, we think is the killer.

    With no one else to care about, we pull for Norman. We root for him to mop up all the blood (actually, chocolate syrup), to leave no trace of evidence. When he puts Marion’s corpse in the trunk of her car, we pray it will sink into the pond. For a moment, the sinking car stops, half of it still above water. Our hearts stop. We’re as nervous as Norman as he nervously chews on candy-corn (a nice piece of business Perkins himself suggested and which Hitchcock allowed the actor to incorporate into his performance). Finally—thankfully—the car sinks below the pond’s surface. Whew! Norman is safe.

    Once again, we’ve been manipulated.

    All this manipulation, of course, has a single purpose: Hitchcock wants to shock us again. And he does when it is ultimately revealed that Marion Crane’s killer wasn’t Norman’s mother, but Norman himself; that Norman is a matricidal maniac who not only killed his mother but has kept her corpse stuffed like one of the taxidermied birds mounted on his motel office walls.

    Hitchcock, indeed, played us “like an organ.” I remember adults literally screaming--"Oh, no!", "Oh, God"--during the brutal shower sequence. I never screamed. But I sure as heck stayed hunkered down in that car-coat every time those violins began to screech.

    In theaters across 1960 America, Hitchcock reduced us to our last nerves and wickedly sawed away on those nerves like a violin bow scraping--staccato--on a very taut string. ---Hoyt Harris

     

    * The popular "myth" about the PSYCHO shower scene is that the knife is never seen to penetrate the flesh. This is not true. A frame-by-frame examination of the shower scene shows that the knife point disappears against the actress' torso just below her navel for the last three frames of one eight-frame sequence. But In order to see the penetration, the movie must be run in slow-motion, but it actually happens, albeit only once and briefly. Because film runs at 24 frames-per-second, a mere three frames (one-eighth of a second) is brief, indeed. ----H.H.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

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• PECAN ISLAND HOLLY BEACH

  • From: nadineguidry
  • Description:

    ANYONE HAVE ANY PICS FROM HOLLY BEACH OR PECAN I LAND BRAND CHENIERE OR CREOLE AREA?

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• REAR WINDOW: A nation of voyeu

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    REAR WINDOW

    Hitchcock/USA/1954

     

    REAR WINDOW is about the very act of watching movies. Like Jeff (Jimmy Stewart)—a man laid up in a body cast in a wheelchair—we, too, sit, as if trapped in the theater.

     

    REAR WINDOW is about watching.

     

    Have we become a nation of voyeurs, as Stella (Thelma Ritter) asks Jeff? (How else can one explain the phenomenon of reality television?)

     

    When it was released in 1954, REAR WINDOW caused at least one critic to complain that James Stewart's character was nothing but a “peeping Tom.”

    Director Alfred Hitchcock responded:  "Sure, he's a snooper, but aren't we all? I'll bet you that nine out of 10 people, if they see a woman across the courtyard undressing for bed, or even a man puttering around in his room, will stay and look."

     

    That is the point of Hitchcock’s movie: We may not care to admit it, but we've always been a nation of peeping Toms. To prove it, Hitchcock makes us all voyeurs along with Stewart's housebound character.

     

     We know it's wrong to "spy on" others, but when Jeff believes he has discovered that a murder has taken place, we feel complicit in the discovery which assuages at least some of our guilt. When the killer spies Jeff spying on him--and comes after Jeff--we are as trapped in the darkened theater as Jeff is in the wheelchair. (This is just one reason why movies--at least great movies--are meant to be seen on big, theater screens. Only when the screen is big enough to obliterate everything else, and when the theater borders on pitch black, are you seeing the movie as the filmmaker meant it to be seen. At the moment of watching a film, that film and that film only should be your universe. No phones. No fools. No pets. No cigarettes—unless, of course, it’s the exquisite face of a Grace Kelly doing the smoking.)

     

    In the 1980 serio-comic BEING THERE, the Peter Sellers character--"Chance"--constantly speaks the line, "I like to watch." Having spent most of his adult life watching television—his only window on the world—he is referring, of course, to television; but his line is misconstrued by others in the movie, leading to some hilarious situations.

     

    In REAR WINDOW, Jimmy Stewart's "Jeff", a globe-trotting professional photographer, has made a career out of "watching", "looking" at life through the telephoto lens on his camera.

     

    So obsessed with the world he sees through the lens, poor Jeff seems to have, in today's terminology, "commitment issues." He would rather watch the world through his camera than hold the flesh-and-blood Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), who does everything in her power to pull his focus. 

     

    The great supporting actress Thelma Ritter, as home-health nurse Stella, provides her typical comic relief, but more importantly in REAR WINDOW, she also plays Jiminy Cricket to Stewart’s Pinocchio: she is his conscience, providing sage commentary on what REAR WINDOW is all about: "What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change."

     

    But Hitchcock knows that we find it endlessly more fascinating to watch others. How often have we heard—or said ourselves: "I like to just watch people. It's the greatest entertainment there is--and it's free!"

     

    In REAR WINDOW, all that watching leads Jeff to begin to connect the dots as to what he sees going on in the apartments beyond the courtyard.

     

    The movies allow us to do something basic to our nature; that is, to watch, to spectate; in essence, to spy.

     

    To stare at the screen.

     

    A screen that does not stare back.

     

    Feeling a little uncomfortable right about now?

     

    Well, they didn’t call the first motion pictures “peep shows” for nothing.

     

    -- Hoyt Harris

     

     

     

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• "Falling" for VERTIGO

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    VERTIGO Hitchcock/USA/1958

    If any movie ever overtakes CITIZEN KANE (1941) as “the greatest movie ever made,” it will likely be Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO. In this 1958 masterpiece of neurotic obsession, Hitchcock reveals more about his own neuroses than he did in any other film.

    Hitchcock was a famously controlling director, especially when it came to the women in his movies. His lead actresses were the same, again and again: blonde, icy and aloof: Janet Leigh and Vera Miles in PSYCHO; Grace Kelly in REAR WINDOW; Eva Marie Saint in NORTH BY NORTHWEST; Tippi Hedren in THE BIRDS. He was notoriously controlling of these actresses----on- and off-screen----trying to remake them to his own near-fetishistic tastes.

     

     

     

     

     

     

    VERTIGO, simply put, is the story of a man, Scottie (Jimmy Stewart)--something of a svelte stand-in for the portly Hitchcock himself in this film--who falls in love with a woman who doesn’t exist. His love-obsession is the creation of another man, who sets the plot in motion by paying a woman to double as his wife so that he can murder his real wife as Scottie, a retired police detective, witnesses what he thinks is an accident, or suicide. (And if that last sentence seems terribly convoluted, complex and confusing in the extreme, it's meant to: I refuse to spoil this film for those who may never have seen it.)

     

     

     

     

    What makes VERTIGO a great movie is the way Hitchcock takes the viewer in; the way camera shots reveal character—for instance, how Scottie is always seen driving “down” hills in his obsessive stalking of a woman who is not who he thinks she is, symbolic of the downward-spiralling vortex of emotion that has him "falling" in love with what is, essentially, a nonentity. “Falling” is a thread that runs through the entire movie; in his nightmares Scottie, who suffers from vertigo, is always seen falling. Early shots depict his fear of heights. Hitchcock shows us this fear from Scottie’s point of view: by zooming the lens in, while simultaneously pulling the camera back, Hitchcock's shot depicts walls—or a building, a staircase or a street below—approaching and receding at the same time. In cinema terms, this shot conveys, I would imagine, the dizziness, the nausea, that sufferers of vertigo experience.

     

     

     

    When VERTIGO was released, Kim Novak, who plays “Madeleine”—the dream object of Stewart’s desire---was ridiculed for playing the role robotically, without emotion. But time has proved Novak right: her character, after all, was a role another man was paying her to portray. Therefore, the way she moves—and you might call it “stiffly”—is exactly how many, if not most, would move if they were trying to project a persona not their own.

     

     

     

    If you see VERTIGO, make sure you get the remastered edition. The original print had faded much over the years until Universal Studios, using an expensive and painstaking process, restored it to the way Master Hitchcock intended it to be seen.

    --Hoyt Harris

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• When Sondheim Wrote Me Back

  • From: agentriff
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    I worship--and have for 35 years--at the shrine of Stephen Sondheim, our nation's greatest living theater composer/lyricist. This is the man who, at 26, wrote the lyrics to Leonard Bernstein's score for the ground-breaking WEST SIDE STORY. At 28, he wrote lyrics to Jule Styne's score--and for Ethel Merman's voice--for GYPSY, arguably the greatest of all Broadway musicals. (Its music and words are the very soul of show business.)
    As a youngster, I, of course, had heard this music but had no idea who Stephen Sondheim was. All that changed, however, when I was a journalism graduate student and the girl I was dating--and the girl she shared an apartment with--were constantly playing the original cast recording of Sondheim's most recent show, 1973's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, the show that gave the world "Send in the Clowns", Sondheim's only bona fide hit. But disciplined musician/lyricist that he was and is, Sondheim never went for the easy hit. He prefers to write for the characters in the show: his words are character-driven and character-revealing. His lyrics spring from the characters' psyches.

    At any rate, when Northwestern's highly regarded School of Speech produced his COMPANY in the winter of '73/'74, I went. And my life was changed forever. More than any artist--any singer, any composer, any wordsmith, any vocal group--his work has "informed" my life; in fact, it has given me an extra education in what music can do and in human psychology.
    
    Ever since that 1973 production I have followed his work and his life as if he were a relative. For countless hours--while exercising, while driving, while mowing grass--I have learned his scores to the extent that they have become a sort of soundtrack of the last 35 years of my life. If you're not familiar with Sondheim, just listen to the original cast recordings of COMPANY, FOLLIES, SWEENEY TODD, A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, PACIFIC OVERTURES, MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, ASSASSINS, PASSION, INTO THE WOODS, SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE, BOUNCE (aka ROAD SHOW)--all shows for which he wrote music AND lyrics. (He also wrote the songs Madonna sings in Warren Beatty's DICK TRACY: "Sooner or Later", "Back in Business" and "More.")

    So grateful have I been for his work that I finally felt I should let him know. After reading his Manhattan address in a New York Times Sunday Magazine cover article, I sat down one night in May, 1994, and began writing what I intended to be a short "thank you" note. But two hours later, what I had written turned out to be a 1,000-word epistle (bet that doesn't surprise you in the least!!!) of gratitude. I mailed it.
    
    Exactly ten days later--while he was in the angst-ridden throes of getting his show PASSION on the boards of Broadway, and while the "butchers of Broadway" (read: critics) were trashing his work in previews--he had written me back.
    
    When I pulled the small envelope from the mailbox and saw his name and address embossed on the envelope's back flap, I couldn't believe what I was holding. So taken with his talent for so long, everything sort of went into slow-motion. I mean, the man is one of the towering talents of 20th Century America.

    I got the letter-opener. With hands practically shaking, I opened it.
    
    He began: "Dear Mr. Harris, Thank you so much for your wonderful letter...."
    
    I later learned that he himself types these notes in the wee hours of the morning when taking breaks from composing and writing.
    
    The fact that this man, this genius, had typed "Mr. Harris" was practically beyond my comprehension.
    
    For this is the man who wrote, for GYPSY:
    
    You'll be swell/You'll be great/Gonna have the whole world on a plate
    Starting here/Starting now/Honey, Everything's comin' up roses....
    
    And for WEST SIDE STORY:
    
    Tonight, tonight/Won't be just any night/Tonight there will be no morning star....
    
    And for SWEENEY TODD:
    
    There's a hole in the world like a great, black pit
    And it's filled with people who are filled with shit
    And the vermin of the world inhabit it
    And it goes by the name of...London....
    
    The man who wrote those world-famous words signed off with: "Gratefully, Stephen Sondheim," his distinctive signature in black ink.
    
    As I read Sondheim's note, I realized in that moment that Sondheim is not only a great musical genius. He is also--for I was holding the evidence in my hands--a gentleman par excellence. The fact that this Tony-, Grammy-, Oscar-, Kennedy Center Honors-, and Pulitzer-winning artist would take the time to write to even one of his legion of fans worldwide spoke volumes about the man's generosity of spirit and his humility.
    
    And, oh yes, despite the "butchers of Broadway," less than one month after I received his note, his PASSION won the Tony Award for Best Musical.
    
    Sondheim's note is rather expensively framed and woe be unto the person who ever even THINKS about moving it from its special spot on the baby grand.

    --Hoyt Harris

     

     

                

                          

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• PSYCHO (1960) HOW'D they DO th

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    How’d they do that ?

    PSYCHO’s Death of Arbogast

    Hitchcock: …I used a single shot of Arbogast coming up the stairs, and when he got to the top step, I deliberately placed the camera very high for two reasons. The first was so that I could shoot down on top of the mother, because if I’d shown her back, it might have looked as if I was deliberately concealing her face and the audience would have been leery. I used that high angle in order not to give the impression that I was trying to avoid showing her. But the main reason for raising the camera so high was to get the contrast between the long shot and the close-up of the big head as the knife came down on him. It was like music, you see, the high shot with the violins, and suddenly the big head with the brass instruments are clashing. In the high shot the mother dashes out and I cut into the movement of the knife sweeping down. Then I went over to the close-up on Arbogast. We put a plastic tube on his face with hemoglobin, and as the knife came up to it, we pulled a string releasing the blood on his face down the line we had traced in advance. Then he fell back on the stairway.

    ( Editor : Arbogast does not actually fall. His feet aren’t shown—not in a full body shot, but in a close-up cutaway--but the feeling one gets is that he’s going down the stairs backward, brushing each step with the tip of his foot, like a dancer.)

    Hitchcock : First I did a separate dolly shot down the stairway, without the man. Then we sat him in a special chair in which he was in a fixed position in front of the transparency screen showing the stairs. Then we shoot the chair, and Arbogast simply threw his arms up, waving them as if he’d lost his balance.

    (SHOWER SCENE)

    Hitchcock: It took us seven days to shoot that scene, and there were seventy camera setups for forty-five seconds of footage. We had a torso specially made up for that scene, with the blood that was supposed to spurt away from the knife, but I didn’t use it. I used a live girl instead, a naked model who stood in for Janet Leigh. We only showed Miss Leigh’s hands, shoulders, and head. All the rest was the stand-in. Naturally, the knife never touched the body; it was all done in the montage. I shot some of it in slow motion so as to cover the breasts. The slow shots were not accelerated later on because they were inserted in the montage so as to give an impression of normal speed…. This is the most violent scene of the picture. As the film unfolds, there is less violence because the harrowing memory of this initial killing carries over to the suspenseful passages that come later. --Hoyt Harris

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• Cybill: The Golden Girl

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    You know how many of us, when dripping wet, look like drowned rats? I know I do. Well, on June 6, 1967, the day before I embarked on a summer in Europe, I spent the entire day with Cybill Shepherd. (Yes, THAT Cybill Shepherd.) Cybill is from Memphis but was visiting mutual friends of our families in my hometown, Lewisburg. We spent part of the afternoon swimming. A member of the swim team at East High School in Memphis, Cybill would do these absolutely perfect dives, swim the length of the pool underwater, coming up at pool's edge, long blonde hair gleamingly wet, looking for all the world like some sea goddess. We were 16 then. And while "youth itself is beauty", Cybill was perfect.
    
    At this point in her life, her only claim to national fame was that she had won Miss Congeniality in the Miss Teenage America pageant. Had this turned her head? Not in the least. She was as down to earth a girl as you'd ever want to meet. The next year--1968--her entrance onto the national stage got a major boost: she won Model of the Year in New York City and appeared on the cover of Glamour magazine, the first of what would become a record number of covers on Glamour.

    But that first cover was all it took. Her picture was spotted by film-critic-turned-Hollywood-director Peter Bogdanovich who cast her as "Jacy Farrow" in his THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, what Newsweek's Jack Kroll would call in the opening line of his review "a masterpiece." In it, Cybill had a quick nude scene: while standing on the diving board in a bathing suit, she quickly takes it off and dives in. (A perfect dive, of course.) She comes up out of the water--again a sea goddess. This time for the whole world to see. For me, of course, it was a case of art imitating life....
    
    In his Oscar-winning screenplay for 1950's ALL ABOUT EVE, in the movie's opening sequence writer/director Joseph Mankiewicz has the narrator say of Eve in voice-over:
    
    "Eve. Eve, the Golden Girl. The cover girl, the girl next door, the girl on the moon...Time has been good to Eve. Life goes where she goes--she's been profiled, covered, revealed, reported, what she eats and when and where, what she wears and when and where, whom she knows and where she was and when and where she's going...."
    
    At the ripe age of 18, this was the world Cybill stepped into. You couldn't walk through a grocery or drug store without seeing her face staring back at you from a magazine cover. You couldn't turn on "The Tonight Show" without seeing Johnny Carson dazzled by her blonde good looks. Cybill was the healthy, athletic beauty who replaced the likes of reed-thin model Twiggy and preceeded the anorexic, coked-up-looking models like Kate Moss and the clones that followed. The powers that be in the fashion industry and on Madison Avenue should be crucified for glorifying models who look like concentration camp survivors. Had they continued to "glamour"-ize the likes of Cybill our young women today would be a lot healthier.
    
    In the early 70s, Cybill went on to do several films for Bogdanovich, with whom she was now living in Hollywood, but none as successful as PICTURE SHOW. Despite critics scathingly panning her work in Bogdanovich's period-piece, DAISY MILLER, and his musical, AT LONG LAST LOVE, she remained a fashion icon. And in 1976, she got good notices for her performance in Martin Scorcese's TAXI DRIVER.

    But in 1978--at the ripe, old age of 28--unhappy with where her career was "not" going, she went home to Memphis, became pregnant and had her first child, daughter Clementine. Her marriage ended in divorce several years later. A second marriage produced twins and ended in divorce after three years.
    
    But Cybill bounced back with the TV sitcom "Moonlighting," a huge hit for Cybill and the up-and-coming Bruce Willis. In the mid-90s Cybill showed her business chops when she executive-produced the TV sitcom, "Cybill", based loosely on her two marriages. It was a huge hit for Cybill and for CBS.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Fast-forward from when we swam in 1967 to 1991. I was in Memphis, having been invited by my alma mater to participate in the annual Rhodes Forum. My college put me up at the Peabody Hotel for the long weekend. Cybill was living in a Peabody penthouse while her Japanese-style home was under construction in Memphis on property that borders the Mississippi River.
    
    On side-by-side treadmills, we exercised---and we talked: Cybill has remained a fighter; with such an up-and-down career, she's had to. In hearing her story, it was fairly heart-breaking to see what Hollywood fame, the bust-up of her eight-year, on again-off again relationship with Bogdanovich, the failure of two marriages, life in the goldfish bowl of media coverage, and being a target of fevered entertainment reporters working overtime can do to the human spirit.

    She is a survivor. Over the years, she evolved into an out-spoken voice for civil rights. At 58, ingenue movie roles haven't come her way in decades. She now does television, having starred in two television movies portraying Martha Stewart. Personally, I think her life itself has the makings of a movie. She survived the beauty pageant circuit of the Sixties; she rose and fell and rose again in Hollywood; her personal life hasn't been "happily ever after."

    In many ways, she is Everywoman.
    
    But I will always remember Cybill as "the golden girl" of my generation, the dazzling-even-when-drenched sea goddess, the once-upon-a-time, quintessential, All-American girl-next-door.

    ---Hoyt Harris

     

    

     

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• Salt Water Fish In Fresh Water

  • From: Historybuff
  • Description:

    Friday 9/12/08 I noticed all types of salt water fish swimming in the canal behind my shop. I am talking large fish, drum, sheephead, some huge chad, etc. all day long they swam back and forth in large schools. Even the fish no when its time to move on!

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• When I was 12, I shot Tallulah

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    May 1963/Redstone Arsenal/Huntsville, AL

    The day I photographed President John F. Kennedy in May 1963 (BLOG POST: “The Day I Shot a President”), I also shot Tallulah Bankhead. The legendary New York stage actress was a staunch Democrat and avid Kennedy supporter. Like hundreds of us, she waited in the hot sun of Redstone Arsenal for several hours for the president’s arrival.

    Tallulah was born into a family of powerful Alabama Democrats: her father, William Brockman Bankhead, was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1936 to 1940. She was the niece of Senator John H. Bankhead II and granddaughter of Senator John H. Bankhead.

    Bankhead was born in Huntsville , Alabama , on January 31,1902 . After winning a movie magazine beauty contest, she blew out of her home state at the age of 15, determined to achieve recognition.

    
    In New York , she was to have a career that spanned more than 40 years and more than 50 plays. Although her successes were erratic, she did have three huge hits: "The Little Foxes", "The Skin of our Teeth" and "Private Lives".

    Her film career was largely unsuccessful, except for the 1944 Hitchcock hit, LIFEBOAT, in which Bankhead played the gravel-voiced journalist who loses a diamond bracelet over the side of the boat.

    During her early New York years, she began to use cocaine and marijuana. She famously said, "Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know--I've been using it for years."

    She became known for saying almost anything, whether true or not. Once, at a party, a guest made a comment about rape. Bankhead replied, "I was raped in our driveway when I was eleven. You know, darling, it was a terrible experience because we had all that gravel."

    She reportedly engaged in hundreds of affairs with both men and women. Bankhead almost died following a five-hour emergency hysterectomy for an advanced case of gonorrhea , which she claimed she contracted either from George Raft or Gary Cooper . Only 70 pounds when she left the hospital, she stoically said to her doctor, "Don't think this has taught me a lesson!"

    She was romantically linked with a Who's Who of show business: Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Hattie McDaniel (Mammy in "Gone with the Wind") and Billie Holiday.
    
    She smoked more than one-hundred cigarettes a day, drank gin and bourbon as if they were water and carried a suitcase full of drugs to help her sleep, stay awake and just function in general.

    She was the first white woman to appear on the cover of Ebony magazine.

    In 1968, on her deathbed in a New York City hospital, she is said to have whispered to the doctor,

    “…bourbon...cocaine...."
    
    

    Quotes

    · “I'm as pure as the driven slush".

    · “What's wrong, dahling? Can't you recognize me with my clothes on?"

    · “It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.”

    · “I'll come and make love to you at five o`clock. If I'm late, start without me."

    · “I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw.”

    · My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.

    --Hoyt Harris

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• Angola Prison Field Trip

  • From: critterkeeper
  • Description:

    Today, 27 VOICE group members took a trip on a yellow school bus to Angola Prison and had a most interesting day.....to say the least. My V.O.I.C.E. support group was personally invited by Warden Burl Cain, himself. This man is a very sincere person who is faced with an intense job!! He looks to people like us, who has lost someone due to murder for confirmation on what he's doing right to try to end the cycle; hard job, eh? He seems to really know where we're coming from, and knows our pain; because he sees both realms......the inmates' families are filled with pain themselves, especially the children (they're innocent). Warden Cain had us out to the farmhouse, where we had lunch, prepared and served by trusties. It was delicious, and they were VERY polite.

    We got a guided tour of the WHOLE facility which sits on 18000 acres. This prison is self maintained and grows most all of the food prepared; the inmates are served 3 meals per day @ a cost of approx. $5.00 per inmate for 5166 inmates and they also feed their staff, which reside on the grounds of the prison.

    We walked down death row, which was a bit eerie; we were NOT allowed to talk to any inmates, except for the trusties. We saw inmates working in the hot fields, being guarded by armed/unarmed guards on horses. The lethal injection room was a lil eerie as well; it was the actual table that was in 'Dead Man Walking', and another movie as too. The inmates with life sentences are locked up for 23 hrs. per day with one hr., 3 times a week for exercise; we saw a few, shackled, cuffed, and just walking in circles or back and forth. The only A/C was in the farmhouse, the hospital, and the museum; everywhere else is cooled by fans....very uncomfortable even for the guards. The trusties are housed in Dorms; which is a large open room with 60 beds per dorm, open bathroom facilities, 1 TV and lots of fans.

    When an inmate dies in prison, they bury within 24 hrs. because they do not embalm. They're laid to rest in a coffin made by inmates and are carried in a horse drawn hearse made by inmates (very talented people).

    The museum was interesting, too; but with so much stuff to see, and so little time, our day had to end. We all had a great time spending the day together and are looking forward to the next field trip :-)

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  • 1 year ago
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• Cypermort Point

  • From: gert
  • Description:

    Does anyone have reports from Cypermort Point, we would like to know about how high the water is and if or when it is expected to go down. We own property down there but did not have it when Rita hit. Thanks to anyone that can help with info.

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  • 1 year ago
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• VERMILIONVILLE 1869-Where's Th

  • From: DavidBarry
  • Description:

      Hi there. I'm a Lafayette native but I live in Houston Texas now. It's a relatively easy driving distance between Houston and Lafayette. When I turned fifty years old, I found things that seemed unimportant, or, not relevant to my life, seemed very important all of a sudden. As a child I would ride my bicycle around on St. John Street, Lafayette Street, Vermilion and the like, never realizing I was riding on the original Vermilionville street grid that was laid out by Jean Mouton.

       In preparation for my then, up-coming 50th birthday, and with it, "absolute confirmation of old fartdom," I figured I might ought to learn some of this, old fart, stuff. I started last January with an initial trip to the Lafayette Public Library. I looked through several books and that's when I found the original street grid. Wow! Apparently our founder laid out what he considered at the time to be, the most important street first. Named for his patron saint, St. John the Evangelist. (Ten feet wider than the rest). The second  street was named after George Washington, followed by the Marquis De Lafayette.  The names of the other north and south streets further to the east, weren't so etched in stone They could be subject to change, depending on whether this individual's politics were favored by Jean Mouton at the time. Cutting in east and west,  he laid down Vermilion Street on the northern side of the grid, Main Street in the middle, and Second Street. (Now Convent). And that was pretty much it. That eureka moment set me off and running. And that's when I saw all those city directories, telephone books.and the rest is, oh, I can't say it.

       My grandfather was a conductor on the Southern Pacific Sunset Route. And I have always been fascinated by the train depot in Lafayette. Watched its decline, its being badly burned, and now, looking like a great train depot at the Rosa Parks transportation center. Standing in front of the depot in the sixties, I remember very well the three railroad tracks in front of the depot with the Southern Pacific freight operations on the other side. To my two o'clock position would  a huge Tonka Toy wonderland with a giant sand pile and conveyer belt to climb on. A veritable death trap to any modern child but merely playground equipment for us kids of the sixties. I remember sitting on my bike at the underpass waiting for the three o'clock train from New Orleans. I'd watch the people arriving and departing, wondering where they were going and where they had been. Sigh. So it's safe to say, that railroads will be a constant subject in our get togethers. Along with the plantations, how they were divided, and of course the evolution of the downtown street grid. There's the "additions" and all those long gone businesses and the stories that might be dug up. Also I am ravenously going through Advertiser archives, and the stuff I'm finding is nothing short of amazing. In my column I'd like to open up discussions about the things that I have found about Vermilionville and Lafayette history and pick the brains of readers who know things that I don't, and of course share things I have found. And that's what I'd like to do today.

     

      I've been left waiting for the Amtrak Sunset Limited for many hours on more than one occassion. The tardiness usually occurs eastbound coming in from Los Angeles since it has more time to accumulate delay. From New Orleans it's arrival times in Lafayette are usually closer to schedule. Amtrak attributes this to the fact that the tracks are owned by Union Pacific between L. A. and Lake Charles, with the rails between Lake Charles and New Orleans by the BNSF Railway Company. They have started tracking their delay causes and posting them on their website detailing where and why the delays have occured. It seems to have improved their on-time performance.

       Of course, I'm sure we all know that before it was the the Amtrak Sunset Limited, it was the Southern Pacific Sunset Route. As early as 1874. So if it's currently 1869, and we're in Vermilionville, we'll be waiting for more than a just a few hours for that three o'clock train. How much longer will we have to wait?

       To give us a hint, I dug up the following as it appeared in Vermilionville's weekly newspaper, the Lafayette Advertiser, on January 23, 1869. 140 years ago today. And yes, it was called the Lafayette Advertiser when we were still officially known as Vermilionville.

     

              THE OPELOUSAS, HOUSTON AND PACIFIC RAILROAD

      We have seen Mr. J. B. Price since his return from Texas, and he speaks in terms of confidence in regard to the early completion of the railroad between Houston and New Orleans. He thinks that capitalists are so thoroughly appraised of the importance of the road, and the profits it will pay, that other companies would immediately take it up, even if abandoned by Messrs. Price and Chonteau.
      Besides, the attention which is now turned to this great southern route to the Pacific coast makes this enterprise still more important. The snows on the two upper lines of the Pacific Railroad are found to be terrible impediments in winter, and the lower route will be entirely free from this difficulty. Beyond a doubt, in from ten to twenty years the great highway between the Mississippi and the Pacific will be through Attakapas, and over this part of the Opelousas Railroad.------Banner
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     

      In this same edition of the Advertiser, there was this re-print from the Houston Telegraph, the first newspaper of Texas.

     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------     

            Missouri  Captialists wish to build the Texas and New Orleans Railroad

     

      Yesterday we had a protracted interview with Gen. Thomas L. Price and J.B. Price of St. Louis, the former, one of the company of Price, Chonteau and Co., lessors of the New Orleans and Opelousas Railroad to Texas. Gen. Price has just closed a contingent lease--to be made final on the 24th if profits in this quarter are satisfactory--for the early completion and extension of the Orleans road from the Brashear line, to the texas line. Gen. Price is managing director and principal stockholder in the Kansas Union Pacific Railroad, now some 400 miles west of Kansas City.  This road has been transporting Texas cattle to eastern markets, that have been driven to Abilene and other stations on it's track three hundred miles north of the Red River, at the rate of 48,000  per month.

     

      Impressed with the fact of the prospective importance of a rail route that would connect the whole projected system of roads now in Texas, with the entire of Southern Roads east of the Mississippi, recieving the tide of travel and traffic as a neck to an hour glass, through which would pour the concentrated commerce of the region east and the region west of the great dividing river ; we say that Gen. Price, first realizing on the Kansas Pacific the enormous value of the Texas beef trade alone, and upon subsequent inpection, having seen that the Opelousas Road would be the only connecting link between the Gulf States east, and this great Southwestern grain and beef region, he visits Texas to learn what can be done to remove the rubbish on the track this side of the Sabine.

     

      If the complications that now envelope this section of the road from Houston to Orange are adjusted so that the whole route from New Orleans to Houston could be under one administration, and thus insure those who build Louisiana, and that they could have certain connections with this city, Gen. Price assured that upon these facts being manifested to him he would close his contingent lease on the route in Louisiana, and prosecute the work to immediate completetion of the Texas line.

     

      So deeply interested was he in the route, that he has traveled from Brashear (Morgan City) over land to this city, to inspect the topography of the line, and the present actual condition of the Texas end of the road.

     

      He finds the embankments where thrown up, in better condition than expected ; but all the ties rotten and worthless, and the road in the same condition as if nothing but the iron lay convenient for ultimate construction.

     

      What can be done to reconcile, harmonize and remove the cloud of complications that envelope this Texas end of the road, so calculated to repel any effort upon the part of capitalists to embark in the work, either in Louisiana or Texas?

     

      The case stands thus--that the bondholders and creditors, and all the others interested in any manner with the Texas road, from this city to the Sabine have a lifeless, and rotting and rusting apology for a railroad, that is not only utterly profitless, but unless capitalists from abroad come to the rescue, is an incubus on their hands, and a shameful ulcer on State enterprise.

      What will these parties at interest do to induce Gen. Orice, or any representative of money to embark at once to vitalize and repair, and complete the work from city to city?

     

      We have heard on this day several of our largest local bond holders say that if Gen. Price will take hold of the work, they relinguish or extinguish their at present wortlhess bonds and stocks. Unfortunately most of the bonds are in the hands of non residents and foreigners--can they dispose of satisfactory to them. We answer yes!

       

      We will make our point as brief as possible. We assume as irrefutable that this road is the sole connecting link between the Texas system of roads and the whole system east of New Orleans, with the positive certainty of its being the coast link of the Southern Pacific connecting New Orleans with the International Pacific track at Austin and San Antonio. This route, we say, from Houston to New Orleans can carry first and second mortgage bonds of $20,000 each per mile, and pay the handsomest dividends of any road, without exception, on this continent.,Mortgage bonds of $15,000  per mile, can be put in the market and the work, and and the whole complications, now so seriously embarrasing the work, can be disposed of, if the bond holders of the old road, and all others legally interested, will consent to convert their now worthless interests and claims into second mortgage bonds, convertible into stock at same rate, say fifty percent below their face value.

       

       Well, we now know that all the people that were needed to make it all happen, did eventually "get on board."  And that, is when Vermilionville, really,  begins to grow.

     

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• A break, a lake and a corpse..

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    During a class break while a Northwestern grad student in 1974, I walked the less-than-200 steps to the edge of Lake Michigan--the spot is just behind me in this photo. (That's the Chicago skyline in the distance.)

    Standing there, I stared out across the lake--which takes up the entire horizon, as if it were an ocean.

    Something below caught my eye. I looked down. There, less than 15 feet below, was a nude male corpse, face down, gently lapping against the wooden pylons.

    It was one of those surreal "Is-this-really-happening?" moments: in broad daylight, I'm looking at a corpse bobbing just below my feet.
    
    I quickly went back to the journalism building and reported it to the Chicago Police.

    Then, I reported the story--my first "scoop"!

                                                                                 ###

     

    <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Hoyt-Harris/1130596464" title="Hoyt Harris's Facebook profile" target=_TOP><img src="http://badge.facebook.com/badge/1130596464.206.903299997.png" border=0 alt="Hoyt Harris's Facebook profile"></a>

     

     

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• "SHARK!! SHARK!!"

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    In the summer of 1974, I spent three weeks on Maui. Everyone, it seemed, had read "Jaws" that summer. But not I. I'd been too busy finishing my master's degree back in suburban Chicago. On July 4, I was bobbing along with our hostess off the coast of Lahaina in what had been a rectangular raft. But, while awaiting our turns to use one of the surfboards, we had used the raft so much for body-surfing, riding waves up onto the beach, that the sand had finally torn the bottom out, leaving a rectangular "inner tube."
    
    Nancy and I were sitting in it, at opposite ends, facing each other, our legs dangling down into the water. We were about 200 yards from shore. All of a sudden, she clamped her finely manicured fingernails into my forearm and gave me a quiet but intense "SSShhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!"
    
    I thought, "What's wrong with this woman?" Following her gaze, I turned my head to see one of the most spectacular sights I have ever seen. There, not three feet from the raft and less than two feet below the surface was an 8'-10' shark. It was just hovering there--suspended in the water--as if it wanted us to climb aboard for a ride or something. Stunned but fascinated (and you're not going to believe this), I started to reach down to TOUCH the creature. At this point, blinding pain shot through my forearm. Nancy had dug her nails deeper into the skin, drawing blood.
    
    At this point, people on the shore are running around, screaming, "SHARK!! SHARK!!" A young man is running toward the water with a rifle held in one hand above his head.
    
    The shark begins to ever-so-slowly swish his tail back and forth, angling slightly away from us. Having bobbed back into water only chest-deep, Nancy and I slowly walked--within the rectangular "tube"--toward shore. Rifle shots rang out. The shark got the hell out of Dodge. Then everyone regaled me with the book "Jaws."
    
    The next summer--1975--as I was ending my first year in TV news--I took the woman I would eventually marry to see Spielberg's movie version at a Nashville theater, which was packed with screaming movie-goers. Then and only then was I scared witless at what could have happened the previous summer when I --very, VERY stupidly--had even CONSIDERED touching the damn thing.

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  • 10 months ago
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• An Open Letter To The Democrat

  • From: Kmatt
  • Description:

    An Open Letter To The Democrat And Republican Party

    Gentlemen:

    After much deliberation, I have decided to change my political affiliation from Democrat to Independent. This was no small decision; indeed, I have been a voting Democrat since 1979. My reasons are simple, to wit: 1—There was a time when the Democrat Party concerned itself with and represented the ideals of the average American. There was room for all, regardless of race, creed, or color. It was the party of Hubert Humphrey, RFK, and JFK, the party of MLK, the party of ideas, the party of the American Dream. However, as time progressed, I began to notice a change in direction, a subtle shift of priority. Civil rights for minorities began to give way to civil rights for groups who already enjoyed first-class status as white Americans, and now I found myself being asked to step to the back of the bus to make room for them. Women’s rights, gay rights, and rights for illegal aliens took the prime seats, and, while my issues as a black American were shoved into the baggage compartment, I was expected to push the bus. I find now that the Democrats are enthralled with far-left ideology, ideas and concepts, which I have never been able to identify with. While we as black Americans faithfully pulled the lever in favor of the Democrats, I find myself asking: que buono ? When Clinton was in office, the highest ranking black in his cabinet was the Secretary of Transportation. Gee, thanks, Willie. (By the way, Obama, watch your back, Hillary’s still lurking about.)

    Even now, while Democrats enjoy a majority in the House and Senate, you waste your time making demagogues out of people like Limbaugh, Hannity, and O’Reilly, and ignore the weightier issues of the American people, including national security, obscene gasoline prices, and the future of Social Security. You attempted to grant blanket amnesty to millions of illegal Mexican aliens, who never pulled a Democrat lever, and ignored the needs of legitimate American citizens who have faithfully supported Democrat candidates in every election since 1968. Perhaps that is the problem: you have learned to take our vote for granted, and we, like Pavlov’s dog, have learned to reflexively vote for you without examining the benefits of that vote. To sum it up, I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the party left me.

    2-The Republican Party, in a well-meaning but misguided attempt to court and woo my vote, calls itself “the party of Lincoln.” Do you have any idea how long ago that was? Yes, I know that civil rights legislation could not have passed without GOP support, and, yes, I know it was indeed Southern Democrats who attempted to block the passage of that legislation. But what I also know is a fact you fail to acknowledge: the same Dixiecrats who fought against civil rights are now nestled comfortably in the bosom of the GOP. I understand that politics make strange bedfellows, but I’m sorry, that’s one bed I refuse to sleep in. You are the party of David Duke, the Democrats are the party of Robert Byrd, and no matter which side you make the bed from, the white sheets remain the same…

    3-I long for a party that will legislate and govern in the best interests of all Americans, not just the vested few. America would greatly benefit from a legitimate third party that would provide a new point of view, a party that would force Democrats and Republicans to rethink their political strategies, come together, and pass legislation that places America first. But, until that happens, we must deal with the bicameral dragon that stands before us. No longer can we blindly vote for a donkey that kicks us to the side, nor can we find refuge in an elephant that will simply trample us. I urge Black Americans to stop supporting candidates who are only seen during election time, to stop being a Election Night booty call for politicians who suddenly develop amnesia the next morning, and begin to ask a simple question: What will you do in our communities in exchange for our vote? And let’s not stop there, let us pay attention to the issues of the day, and for those we vote for, let us hold their feet to the fire by calling and e-mailing their offices and letting them know we are watching and remembering, not only what they say, but what they do.

    Finally, let us realize that our state, indeed, our country is at the proverbial fork in the road. The electoral decisions we make in the upcoming months will set the course for the future of this nation. We must never forget our God-given purpose, our manifest destiny. As Jesus told his disciples, “Ye are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.” As Americans, we set the standard for the rest of the world to follow. We cannot give the reins of government to those who will disdain or ignore what we were divinely called to do. I express my opinions and make my political decisions based on my personal Christian point of view, and I urge all Americans to do the same.

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• it was bad but not as bad as t

  • From: bri04
  • Description:

    yea i know it was bad but still at least it could have been a whole lot worser than what it had turned out. lafayette seems to be still having some rains and alittle bit of the winds. i just hope that everything gets cleaned up right away and everything gets fixed right away. it sucks for the people who lost the electricity and who had gotten damage from the hurricane. just hopefully hanna will stay on the other side of florida and not come anywhere near us cause i dont think that we could handle another one.

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  • 1 year ago
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• Marilyn: Then, Now...and Forev

  • From: agentriff
  • Description:

    Everyone thinks Marilyn Monroe is dead. Not at all! She's been living in New York City for years.

    I had met her, briefly, while in college in Memphis, in 1968. (This was during her "Elvis years"-- something the media never caught on to. Marilyn had been "dead"--as far as the public knew--for five or six years at that point. But Elvis, and several other close friends, including Aristotle Onassis, were helping her "disappear." When Onassis married Jacqueline Kennedy in the late 60s--providing her sanctuary on his island Skorpios--Marilyn was romping around the island, too, unseen by the world. Ironic, isn't it, in light of the affair between Monroe and JFK? At first, Jackie didn't know Marilyn was ensconced on the other side of Skorpios, but in time, when Onassis would be off in Paris trysting with opera diva Maria Callas, Jackie learned of Marilyn's presence on the island and they became friends. The two, after all, had much to talk about, and bond over. But that's another story....)

    All this may have you wondering whether Elvis is dead. He did live some 15 years beyond Marilyn's "death," and, like Marilyn, it's understandable that he, too, would like to have "checked out" of the celebrity rat race. But, as the Munchkins sang regarding the Wicked Witch of the East, Elvis is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably dead.
    
    At any rate, in 2000, I literally bumped into Marilyn on a side street just off New York City's Fifth Avenue. (Believe me: that was some bump!) I reminded her of our brief meeting years before in Memphis. She said she remembered. But, considering her age, I doubt it.

    As we walked down the street, I asked her why--if she was trying to remain anonymous--she was out on the street dressed in a replica of the costume she wore in what's probably the most famous scene in her most famous movie, Billy Wilder's "The Seven-Year Itch." She said this was the beauty of her plan: because people see virtually everything on the streets of New York, they think she's merely an impersonator. Consequently, Marilyn says, they simply smile and walk on by. In other words, she was "hidden" in plain sight.

    "But what about the media?" I asked. "Oh, a select few know the truth," she responded, "but they respect my privacy. They're longtime friends."

    I know she's undergone cosmetic surgery in New York over the years. But about 30-35 years ago, she went to Dr. Patanguy in Rio de Janeiro for his truly revolutionary cosmetic work. He perfected a cosmetic procedure that bears his name: The Patanguy Method. It consists of removing a circular piece of scalp from the very top of the head and pulling everything up--uniformly.

    She also says she assiduously avoids the sun. That's when I asked, "Then what are you doing out here on the street in the middle of the day?" She said she had "cabin fever," that several days of non-stop rain had kept her trapped in her apartment. But she promised that her "stroll" would last no longer than 30 minutes.

    As we continued to walk, I noticed we were approaching a subway grate. I couldn't help myself: as any lover of movies would have done, I asked Marilyn if she'd have her picture made with me. "Why not!" she said. (She's such a kid; that's one reason people loved her so.)

    As the subway rattled beneath us, a gust of wind--right on cue--blew up through the grate. Marilyn struck that famous pose and--voila!--here you see the result: a virtually dead-on re-creation of her famous scene from Wilder's 1957 film.

    I suggest you eat plenty of tomatoes. Marilyn attributes much of her good health to what she calls "the tons" of tomatoes she eats year-round. (She grows them in several mini-greenhouses on the rooftop of her Upper West Side apartment building.)

    And remember: cooked tomatoes are best because the cooking process fully releases their anti-cancer and anti-aging properties.

    But doesn't Marilyn look good? No one knows her age for sure. But at 80-plus, she's something of a tomato herself, don't you think?

    -- Hoyt Harris/Paris 2003

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  • 1 year ago
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• St.Landry Parish Black Water

  • From: captainrob
  • Description:

    What in the world is wrong ith the ST. Landry Parish water system??? Lastweek it was broen and today it is BLACK .We washed our white sheets and they are BLACK.There are black particles floating in the water samples we are keeping to Send to DEQ.Please,anybody who has any resources to complain to .This is hideous and disgusting and an outrage.

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  • 1 year ago
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• Whatever Happened To Lightning

  • From: DavidBarry
  • Description:

    One thing I really remember from my childhood is lightning bugs. On a cable tv-nature show I was watching recently, they were on the subject of bioluminescent creatures in the depths of the ocean. As a sidenote they touched on the "firefly" and it's mechanisms for creating it's light. That got me to thinking. Just when was the last time I've seen even one lightning bug? Some people call them fireflies, but I have never heard them referred to as that. When I was growing up they were always just "lightning bugs." I can remember vividly running through an open field on summer nights in the in the mid sixties. Running a zig zag pattern  and swatting the bugs to the ground if they were unfortunate enough to light up in front of me. There were so many in the air at that time that it was not uncommon to swat down five or more in less than fifty yards. They were then collected in a jar, and eventually ground down to a fine biolumenescent paste. Perfect for rubbing on younger siblings! Ah, the good old days.

      These days, however, with the Google right in front of us, I couldn't help but look up some things about the old lightning bug. I found the reason that they are flashing is that they are looking for mates or prey. The females sit on nearby vegetation and wait for males to "flash" them. If they are ready to mate they will respond to a male by "flashing" right back. Then a dance of sorts  take place with their light bursts  becoming shorter in duration and closer together. As this plays out the male is also getting closer and closer to the female, and if it goes his way, bingo. Well that sounds a lot like what the creatures are doing in the dark depths. Albeit, not nearly as elaborate as some of them.

      The lightning bug produces it's light chemically from it's abdomen. Across North America the light can range in color between green, yellow, or pale red. ( I have only seen them  in green myself.) They thrive in wet wooded or marshy areas where their glowing larvae have plenty to eat. Most of the areas that I used to see them in are not nearly as wooded as they used to be.

      So, do you remember lightning bugs? Are there any places around Lafayette where they can still be found? Would love to hear from anybody and everybody on this subject.

      Tomorrow, we look at the 600 block of Jefferson Street, as it was in 1959. A lot has changed since then.

     

    Lightning Bug Sources: The Backyard Nature Website, Wikipedia

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  • 10 months ago
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• Back from the cruise

  • From: Dwayne_C
  • Description:

    
    

    Well, we made it back from our first cruise. I must say we did enjoy it although we could have had an even better experience. Poor planning and inexperience on our part caused us to miss a lot of things. That and a few too many naps did not help. Weather was cold as heck as we left NOLA but by the time we arrived in Progresso, it was a nice comfortable temperature. It was overcast the entire time which was not really too bad. The wind was a little strong but at least it was not hot.

     

    The ocean crossing was not bad although the ship rocked more than I imagined a big ship would. The skies were clear on the way there and there were so many stars. The cabin was more spacious than I would have imagined and the balcony was nice but could have been a few inches wider to allow more room to walk around the chairs. On the way back, strong head winds made the deck almost unusable and the ship rocked even more than on the way there. Nothing severe but enough to make it tricky walking around. I must say however, the rocking made me sleep like a baby. Good lord, I had a couple of the best nights of sleep I have had in a long long time. Reminded me of when I was a kid and I would sleep in the back seat of the car while taking a road trip.

    

     

     

    The service aboard the ship was absolutely the best. Reza did a wonderful job trying to keep our room clean and received the biggest tip from us. Room service was quick and always delivered with a smile. Although a few did not speak English, their smiles said enough. More food than any man should be offered was available 24 hours a day. The quality of the food could have been a little better but quantity more than made up for it. Of course being a Cajun, I am a little picky about my food. We ate in the main dining room only one night. Wife had lobster and I had a steak and both were great.

     

    
    

    My son and his new bride were on the trip with us. They were married the day before we left in New Orleans. We had to leave immediately after the wedding which ran a little late. I, being the worry wart in the family was panicking trying to get to the Carnival dock to board the ship. Turns out I was stressing for nothing. We got there in plenty of time. Yes, his mom and dad went with him on his honeymoon. lol

    I never thought I would actually enjoy a cruise but I must admit that it was better than I thought. Again, with a little better planning on our part, it could have been even better. We only did one onshore excursion and that was in Progresso. We did a Jeep exploration ride to a Mayan ruins site. We then drove into Progresso and visited cemetery and a beautiful church. This part of Mexico is really really poor. Most of the homes on the way there were simple one or two room cinder block buildings and many had no doors or working windows. It is a different world and made us appreciate what we have here. Shopping in Cozumel is what I figured it would be. Store after store of the same stuff similar to what you would find in the flea market in New Orleans. We should have scheduled and excursion in Cozumel as well. An entire day of trinket shopping was not fun for me. My wife of course was in hog heaven. I thought there would have been more shops than there was.

     

    

    It was too cool to go swimming but I was determined to at least go to the beach. So we jumped in cab and asked the driver to bring us to a public beach. He mentioned three beach clubs that were open to the public. Two had a minimum bar charge he said but the third one did not have a cover charge and he assured us that we would not be hounded by Mexicans wanting to sell us stuff. So we took his suggestion and were dropped of a couple miles down the road at what had to be his cousin's beach club. Taxi cost there was $15.00. We spent maybe 20 minutes there and during that time, we were constantly solicited to get fake tattoos, take pictures with a huge lizard, offered jewelry and other cheap items. We walked back to the road and waved down a taxi. Trip back was only $12.00. But that is what one would expect in a poor country like Mexico. What was amazing was the THREE cruise ships docked in Cozumel. We hear so much about our economy but with three huge ships docked at one port, it certainly does not seem like we are in a bad economy. One thing was obvious however. Towns like Progresso and Cozumel survive solely on these cruise ships.

     

     

     

    

     

    So, to sum it up, we are already planning our next cruise. Armed with a little knowledge of the cruise life, we intend our next trip to be even better. And yes, I did enjoy sitting on my balcony in my boxers drinking coffee.

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