Super Sunday is cancelled

Today, it is actually just postponed due to weather.  Tomorrow, the story may be different.

Those who made New Orleans famous for its culture — its Indians, musicians and social-aid-and-pleasure-club members — simply aren't making enough money to cover costs of living. It's "discouraging and heart-wrenching," said bass drummer Ellis Joseph, who leads the Free Agents Brass Band and is a music instructor at a public school, but was saddled with student loans and rent that just rose by another $100.

Joseph will move into an apartment at Bell next month, but a long list of bandmates and musical friends are now on Bell's waiting list, he said. One musician had moved into a sketchy area, because it was affordable, only to dodge bullets when he gets home from gigs, Joseph said. Another was forced out by a landlord turning the rental into an Airbnb, leaving him sleeping on a family couch in eastern New Orleans, far from where his gigs are.

We love our neighborhood cultural traditions but nobody actually lives in those neighborhoods anymore.   It's fine, though. As long as there is a market for the simulacrum of these folkways on display at Jazzfest, the Airbnbs that replaced them should keep property values high enough to sustain the illusion.