Seasonal rituals

I think I'm getting more superstitious in my old age. Or at least I'm making more of an effort to keep to the rituals. Or maybe I'm just set in my ways.  What I'm saying is that, as the year goes along, I'm trying to make sure I do the things. 

For example, we've been in the habit of seeing the skeletons sing at Ghost Manor every year. So it was time to do that again and there we were.  

Halloween is first and foremost a children's holiday even if the grown ups don't always see it that way. It's about processing fear and even the idea of death by allowing it to stimulate our sense of wonder and imagination. Heck we might even call it a social #Resilience exercise.  

But that doesn't mean there aren't also true horrors waiting around the corner. 

The City Council is taking up Entergy New Orleans’ request to raise customer bills because of the $170 million in costs the utility racked up during Hurricane Ida.

Utility committee members voted Wednesday to consider the proposal, originally made in June, which along with another request to replenish a depleted storm reserve fund would raise bills by $4.40 per month for the average customer.

At-large Council member JP Morrell, the committee chair, said it was only the beginning of a process with a deadline of August 2023.

The rate hikes might be months away but, in the meantime Entergy plans to resume shutting service off to residents behind on their bills this week. Although if you call them, maybe they can work something out. 

Entergy New Orleans customers seeking payment assistance may call (800) 368-3749 to sign up for a 4-month deferred payment plan. Customer service agents are also available Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to discuss additional payment assistance, including levelized billing.

But then maybe you've seen this horror flick before and don't necessarily trust where this plot might take you. Maybe you'd like to try something different than just walking down that dark alley alone where the monster picks off victims one by one.  Maybe there's more safety in numbers. 

That is the idea behind this proposed debt strike. 

A debt strike works to get Entergy’s attention by hitting them where it hurts: their bottom line! By acting together and disrupting Entergy’s cash flow, they risk becoming less profitable. Entergy’s biggest fear is a cascading effect that could erase millions in profits from C-suite executives, hedge fund managers, and others that make a dollar off of our struggles to pay.

Entergy’s stocks are built off of our high bills and their continual disinvestment in our infrastructure. Without collective action, there are no collective gains. It’s time we stand up and fight back together with a debt strike.

Right now the goal is to get 10,000 people to pledge to participate before moving forward.  Remember that's how many signatures the mayoral recall campaign claims to have now.  (I seriously doubt they have even that many but they have enough that they feel like they can say that.) So it's not impossible to at least come close enough to that number to claim it.

In the meantime, we're just trying to ward off the evil spirits the old fashioned way. Ironically, a lot of the time, this is the only way you can light your home around here.  No doubt they'll figure out a way to bill me for it.

 

 

In other news of the occult-adjacent, we caught the beginning of the Anne Rice memorial second line today in the Garden District. 

Rice, the author of the 1976 blockbuster “Interview with the Vampire,” several sequels, and dozens of other novels, died in December at her home in Rancho Mirage, California, where she’d lived for the past few years. Her remains were subsequently flown back to New Orleans, her hometown, where she was buried with a private ceremony at Lake Lawn cemetery.

Leaders of the Vampire Lestat Fan Club, named for Rice’s iconic antihero, decided that the day before Halloween was the perfect time to mark her passing, New Orleans style. They conceived a traditional, group-participation, funeral parade that would begin at the Garden District Bookstore, where Rice once famously arrived for a book signing in a coffin.

Here they are turning on to Washington Avenue.

 

And that's pretty much what that looked like. The parade made a quick cycle to Rice's old house on First Street and then back again.  All told we only missed the third quarter of the Saints game to see it. 

I did feel obligated to check it out, though. After all I'd just re-watched Interview With The Vampire (1994) and re-read Interview With The Vampire © 1976  last week in order to prepare for this discussion on the latest CBC episode.  All in all I'd say we did our part this year. Happy Halloween.