Mayhem

How does one even do Carnival on COVID? It's a citywide party people come to from all over town... all over the world, really.  They all stand in the street talking, eating, drinking, sharing with friends, family and strangers. If you're doing it right, you will see every single person you know at least once by the end of the season. Carnival is a social binder. But you're supposed to be isolating; "socially distancing" as we say now. You can't really make plans to see anyone. You can't have anybody over. You should probably just stay home.  Is Mardi Gras a marathon or a sprint?  How can one do either if you can't even catch your breath?

But what if your quarantine quarters just happen to sit a block or so off of the parade route?  Are you really going to just lay there all night when you can hear the drums outside? Wouldn't you be just a little bit tempted to bundle up, put on a mask, and oh so carefully creep up to St. Charles to take in a few moments from the other side of the street?

No, of course you should not do that.  You should stay your sick ass in bed until you get better. 

I did try and do that on Friday, though. Here's what it looked like. 

Yeah okay so you really can't see that well from back there. At least not when the marching units are going by. The floats came out okay, though.  Even the Oshun floats, although all I really saw of Oshun was the king and court stuff.  After that I had to go back in and take a break.

So here's something about having COVID, you might not have heard.  It really sucks. Even when the fever is gone, and even when your cough is mostly under control, the fatigue is still very freaking real. My only plan this evening was to walk a block and kind of stand around for a while.  But I couldn't even do that without going back in to rest and get warm.  Oh also it rained during Oshun (it always seems to rain on Oshun) and I wasn't going back out until that stopped. 

By the time it stopped, Cleopatra was already rolling. Looked like they had some kind of gem theme going. This float was Diamonds.

And this one was Turquoise

Oh and Lapis Lazuli

By the way, I don't think I'd noticed before now how much nicer my float pictures come out when I take them from this distance. Maybe not great for detail, but there's a sense of scale and balance to them this way. And you can see the crowd well.  Also I can still zoom in when I want and... oh my that doesn't look very safe!

Don't worry. Nobody fell off a float.  Not on Friday night, anyway. 

Here's what did happen. 

Entergy New Orleans blames a car striking a utility pole for the electricity failure during Friday night's Uptown Carnival parades.

Spokesperson Lee Sabatini said the car hit a pole on St. Charles Avenue at Terpsichore Street at about 9 p.m., darkening the river side of St. Charles as far as Prtania Street between Felicity Street and Andrew Higgins Boulevard. Almost 1,500 Entergy customers were powerless until 10 p.m.

Wait. Is that what actually what happened?  Witnesses differ.

Bc there was no car that hit a pole. After that report, I walked Terpsichore over to Prytania and then back across St. Charles to Carondelet. Everything was business as usual. Asked people on both sides if they’d heard a car hit a pole & no one heard anything like that.

— Candice, right? (@YesICandice) February 11, 2023

Ok, fine, then, people from the internet. Please tell us about whatever crazy conspiracy y'all are on about now before Elon shadowbans you or something. If it wasn't a car, then what?

Confetti cannon at erato appears to have hit a transformer. Saw it blow. We have no power now. Parade halted.

— @Sharney@mastodon.social (@sharney) February 11, 2023

Knocking out the power by shooting confetti from a parade float sounds like something out of a 60s TV Batman episode. It's plausible, though. Jefferson Parish has already banned metal confetti specifically because of this problem having come up in the past. Still, Entergy is out here saying it was a car accident that nobody saw. Why would they make something like that up? I mean, sure, we know they're super defensive about the fragility of their infrastructure and all but they wouldn't just lie about it, right?  I mean what if somebody had it on video?

Hi, I have footage of confetti cannon blowing transformer. pic.twitter.com/YFmKJaKP1Y

— ⚜️A. Ruffins⚜️ (@lifethrufiction) February 11, 2023

What if there were more than one video, even?  What would this story look like then?

A video shared with The Times-Picayune, by a person who asked to remain anonymous, shows what presumably is a float-mounted confetti cannon blasting toward utility lines on St. Charles Avenue during the Krewe of Cleopatra parade. The blast results in sparks flying and darkness descending on the area.

How much would that change Entergy's position on the matter?

Sabatini said a confetti cannon might have contributed to the power outage, because confetti made of Mylar can act as a conductor on power lines.

Oh okay the cannon "might have contributed." That's good. I might have contributed to paying my light bill this month. I'll have to check back on that too. I sure hope they don't cut me off in the meantime. (You know.. on purpose for once.) Maybe I should say something to my Congressman about this problem.  You think I can get his attention?  I mean I'm all the way in the back of the crowd and he's up there on that float. 

Troy's a West Bank guy so it figures he'd show up in the Alla (Algiers, la) parade. I'm an Uptown guy and even though this West Bank parade comes through my neighborhood now, I barely had the energy to stay out and watch it.  It looked like they were doing a festivals theme. But it was cold and I was already overspent. So I let the rest of it go and went back inside to collapse. 

On Saturday, I was even more determined not to overdo it. I found an oak tree root I could sit down on, conserve energy, and people watch. I can't really drink. And it gets lonely when you can't go into the crowd or really even talk to anybody. But I like to take in the scene, and listen to the music, and watch some of my favorite totems roll down the street.  

But first I had to watch this cop parade. Troy Carter was also in that. 

So was Susan Hutson.  At least her float was better than the one in Krewe du Vieux. 

Oliver Thomas was there too. He was on the Army float.  This made me think of Elvis Costello. 

Also, in the cop parade, the cops. 

Don't know how this affected their delicate deployment issues. Maybe this is why nobody could substantiate Entergy's "car accident" theory about the power outage. The cops who would have taken that report were getting ready to ride on the float?  Sad, if true. 

Anyway, I was low on energy again Saturday afternoon so I hung around just long enough to see the big catfish before I went back inside. Ordinarily I like to watch Pontchartrain and play the little fill-in-the-blank game with their float titles. I just couldn't do it this time. 

Like I said earlier, though, I don't feel like I'm participating in the ritual unless I am able to bear witness to certain of the idols presented for admiration by the throng. The catfish is one. The Sparta helmet is another. So I had to go back out.

Sparta.. or.. The Spartan Society, now, I guess.. was, like Oshun doing a kind of global festivals theme. 

But theirs was a little more esoteric. These floats depicted Carnival celebrations around the world and the music associated with them. So we got float titles like, "Maslenitsa - Hopak" and "Carnival-Danzon" or  "Ostatki-Polonaise" Also if you are wondering what the big reflective jacket looking aura is in these photos, it is a ghost. When you have to step back from the crowd to photograph Mardi Gras floats, it turns out that you can see ghosts. 

Anyway, shortly after this, I ghosted.  It was too cold and starting to get wet and, um, I had COVID so.. time to go in and rest.  Besides, it would be a while before Pygmalion showed up, anyway. Why was that?

After taking too wide of a turn at Jefferson Avenue and Magazine Street, the Pygmalion parade stopped for at least 30 minutes before resuming on Saturday night.

The krewe's seventh float, titled "Jester," hit a tree. The float then appeared to disconnect from its tractor trailer.

Killer trees! Here's what that looked like. 

Jester float hits tree. Everyone is okay. @wdsu #mardigras pic.twitter.com/ynW5k3QaDt

— Jake Kleinmahon, MD (@jakekleinmahon) February 12, 2023

It's absolute mayhem. 

@wdsu Rider falls off Pygmalion Jester float after it hits tree. pic.twitter.com/GnAIKxjHZj

— Jake Kleinmahon, MD (@jakekleinmahon) February 12, 2023

You could call the police but they all went by in a float earlier that afternoon. The trees must have known they had free rein too because it just kept happening. 

On Sunday afternoon, a somewhat similar incident took place, when the 43rd float in the King Arthur parade plowed into what apparently was the same oak branch.

A NOLA.com editor riding in the parade said the Big Bird head on the float hit the limb. She said a second tractor driver arrived and tried to complete the turn, but hit the limb again.

Noooo not Big Bird too!

How did this happen?  Don't they inspect the routes anymore?  Of course they do. I can vouch for this because I saw it with my own eyes too but many people reported observing crews on the street taking measurements. This guy from the city confirms that's, at least, what they were supposed to be doing. 

A city spokesperson, John F. Lawson II, said via email Monday said that the route had been “previously inspected leading up to parade start dates” and that floats had routinely made the turn in the past.

Lawson said that after Pygmalion, members of the Department of Parks and Parkways' Forestry Division “confirmed that the branch was outside of the clearance zone.” The branch, Lawson said, “was roughly 10 feet from the curb, leaving approximately 18 feet of roadway for the turns to be made.”

Obviously everybody did their job.  Only one explanation at this point. The tree did it on purpose. Time to face the consequences.

A twisting branch jutting from an age-old oak tree was rammed by two parade floats over the weekend, causing considerable damage to the floats — in one case, decapitating a large jester — and frustrating delays to the parades.

By Monday afternoon the fern-covered limb at Jefferson Avenue and Magazine Street had been cleanly removed by the city’s Parks and Parkways Department. The 25-foot-long, 9-inch-diameter branch was a safe distance from where floats were supposed to pass, according to City Hall, and shouldn’t have interfered with the turn in the first place.

Sorry, tree. But let this be a lesson. 

And for me too. Let it be a lesson to not go to Mardi Gras if you are sick with COVID.  I was so beat from just sitting outside for 45 minutes on Saturday that I couldn't make it out for Sunday at all.  I'd better be over this by Thursday at the latest. Otherwise, we might have to take it out on that tree I was resting on.

Who did this?

This is really shitty. Don't do this shit. 

Officials are investigating after over a half a dozen trees were poisoned with herbicide in New Orleans' Central Business District.

The New Orleans Advocate reports someone drilled holes in the trunks of eight pistachio trees and poured in herbicide.

The city confirmed the poisoning Thursday, and although it's unclear when the poisonings occurred, some residents say they noticed the holes last week.

 Guess we'll be monitoring the Finebaum show to see if the culprit turns up.

Herring blade tree removal not discussed

But one thing that did come out at this community meeting was, Uptown residents definitely want a shrubbery that looks nice with a little path running down the middle.

Likewise, many residents have long hoped to see the walking path on Napoleon in Broadmoor extended down the length of the avenue when the project is complete. Thus, the options for Napoleon include the “natural” approach, the formal approach (called “basic” in the renderings) or a third option with the walkway surrounded by clusters of small trees, similar to Broadmoor.

Ann Farmer, a Napoleon Avenue resident, took issue with the off-center, straight-line design of the walking path, saying she preferred a meandering path like Broadmoor has. She also preferred larger live oaks instead of the small trees in the plan, in hopes of restoring some of the leaf canopy cut down during the project.

So, this is what democracy looks like.  Folks talking about whether or not they want the path to go all zig-zagged.

What will they get? That won't be answered for at least another two years or so.

The drainage canal construction has been starting on each corridor since 2010, with the final Louisiana Avenue leg starting this month. The projects have staggered finish dates as well — the upper portions of Napoleon and South Claiborne will finish in 2015, followed by the lower portions of Jefferson, Napoleon and South Claiborne in 2016, then the upper part of Jefferson in 2017 and finally Louisiana in 2018.

Portions of this meeting were filmed.

 

The bead trees are so hard to look at during the offseason

Here is a well known St. Charles Avenue Bead Myrtle in full bloom just after Carnival.



And here it is during the summer months when it's growing some other crap.

First they came for the trees

The massive SELA drainage project (proudly preventing Uptown New Orleans from driving in any direction) is finally about to cross St. Charles and move onto lower Napoleon Avenue.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District recently awarded a 38-month contract to provide increased drainage for the Uptown area. The contract includes canal improvements along Napoleon Avenue between Carondelet and Constance Streets. The project, which is part of the Southeast Louisiana Project (SELA), will reduce the risk of damages from a 10-year rainfall event. A 10-year event is basically a rain storm that has a 10% annual probability of occurrence and equates to approximately 9 inches of rain over a 24-hour period for our area.

On September 26, 2013, the Corps awarded a $38 million contract to Boh Bros Construction Co. The contract calls for constructing approximately 3,000 linear feet of a concrete covered box culvert under the neutral ground along Napoleon Avenue from Carondelet Street to Constance Street. The new culvert will parallel an existing box culvert and will tie in to the new culvert under Napoleon Avenue at Carondelet Street and the existing box culvert at Constance Street. A notice to proceed will be issued early October and construction will be completed in the fall of 2016.

The Corps continues to work closely with its partners at the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans on the SELA program. To date, a total of 17 contracts have been awarded in Orleans Parish to date, with work completed on 10 of those projects. All scheduled SELA work in Orleans Parish should be finished in 2018.

Today the crews arrived to prepare the neutral ground for excavation by murdering the crepe myrtle trees that live there.





Having passed that way fairly often for a number of years, I had gotten into the habit of keeping time by those trees.

In the late spring they start to bloom.



By mid summer they are in full blossom.



Their fall foliage becomes a brilliant orange for a brief time.



And adds a rust tone to the avenue by the time winter comes along.



I'm told by people who worry about such things that their flowers can get goo all over your car's paint job if you park under them when this is happening.



During Carnival these trees fill up with a different sort of blossom. I have shockingly few decent photos of this. Here is a close up of a bead tree that fell over last year.



This is a more dramatic example on St. Charles.



Here's what they looked like that one time I saw them in the snow.




And now they're gone. I'm not sure what sort of landscaping is planned for these neutral grounds when the project is finished. Guess we'll have to wait 3-5 years to find out.

Trees We Hate (#5 In a series)

This morning, on my way to pick up my customary overpriced coffee, I parked the Tercel under my favorite (and everyone else's least favorite) Chinese tallow tree on Prytania street. The tree, which in late spring develops this gorgeous golden waterfall look,



has by this time of year begun to shed its foliage producing this gold leaf effect all over the ground and everything else within range.



One of the items within range was the car parked directly in front of me whose owner was engaged in a largely futile battle to clear the leaves off of the roof and hood. The heavy humid air had given the leaves an adhesive quality and they now clung to the car giving it a ruffly golden outer covering. It looked like a miniature Rose Bowl float.

While I would have been pleased as hell to drive around in a spontaneously created art car for the day, the woman who had been given this opportunity was not so excited. She wore an angry expression as she tried rather absurdly to wipe away the sticky leaves with her sleeve while simultaneously trying to keep them from sticking to her. She wanted them off the car but wasn't sure if she wanted to touch too many of them in order to accomplish this. I wanted a photo of the car, but I would have felt like a bit of dick if I had just walked up and snap-captured this poor woman's moment of distress. So I just got the one of the ground you see above.

When I came out of the coffee shop, I saw the car drive off with a little patch of fuzzy gold still affixed to the roof. Red car got a golden crown, I guess. Anyway, I don't suppose the driver was satisfied with that result. Yet another reason (some)people hate this tree, I guess.

Previous episodes of Trees We Hate: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Trees We Hate (# 4 in a series)

Why does everyone in New Orleans hate trees?

Back in May I posted a few pictures of, what I had considered, the elegant... sensual, even... sight of a Chinese Tallow tree in bloom on Prytania Street. I didn't know what the tree was called and posted the pics in the hope that someone could help me identify it. So I was surprised to learn from the responses that the Chinese Tallow is an invasive species and largely considered a "nuisance tree" by those of us who know about such things. I say I was surprised to learn these dark things about my favorite tree but not necessarily disappointed since I've long been at peace with my general attraction to "nuisances" of all sorts.

It was this conversation which inspired me to once again open the floor for discussion of the Crepe Myrtles when they began to flower all over town in June and then again regarding the Magnolia when this story was published about a tree in Mid-City slated for removal. In each case, the People Of New Orleans (defined as people who read and responded in these threads) displayed an uncommon aptitude for arboreal antipathy. The myrtle, it was decided, is "ornamental", difficult to climb, and unnaturally indestructible... among other things. Meanwhile the Magnolia turns out to be a "waxy" "high-maintenance" and even "dirty" tree.

With such much nastiness directed toward the local foliage coming from the populous, it can't be any wonder that the city's governmental and quasi-governmental institutions feel empowered (perhaps mandated) to wage this sort of jihad against the area's most infamous species.

Evidently the City of New Orleans bears some responsibility for restoring Harrison Ave through City Park. Not only are they widening the road–to the detriment of the oaks–but they’ve specified that a path be cut, evidently for sidewalks. Even the construction crew was surprised at the technical specifications which called for them to bulldoze the path. Now the trees have had their roots severed and are destined to be compacted and be abused by suffocating additions, likely concrete.

Why is it that as we rebuild we are killing so much of what matters in this town? What the floods didn’t take, stupidity is.

This is actually the latest in a series of posts on Nolamotion concerning the City Park renovations. There are pictures of the carnage also. Check it out and help cheer your municipal army on to victory!

Update: More dispatches from the glorious war on trees available at Dying Oaks.

Upperdate: Just to be clear. If you'd like to take this opportunity to tell us what you hate about oak trees, please go right ahead.

Trees we hate

Following upon previous comment threads in which we aired out our repressed antipathy toward the Chinese Tallow Tree and the Crape Myrtle, I'd figure now is as good a time as any to find out what we hate about the Magnolia Tree.

Signs that Hurricane Season is here

The crepe myrtles are starting to bloom on Napoleon Avenue.



Yes, we're obviously going to an all-horticulture-all-the-time format here. We figured we'd get a head start on the time when it becomes illegal for anyone to talk to anyone else about the news without paying the Associated Press for the privilege of doing so.

Also, you may now feel free to begin the obligatory everybody-hates-crepe myrtles discussion.

Name this tree

There's this tree on Prytania Street in the Garden District which I pass practically every day.



It blooms at about this time every year with these bright yellow... um... seed vehicles which dangle from the leaves and create this really pretty spouting effect.





This is the only one of these trees I know of around here. Each year I tell myself I'm going to find out what it is but never get around to asking anyone. Does anybody have any idea?