You would have done well to know our friend to help you with your house.
The fellow who was shot at Jazz Fest was our very good friend. He lived
around the block from us, and we shared interests in old cajun carpentry.
P BRBR

That seemed like such a senseless, repellent crime. I didn't know the guy,
but...

About the carpentry--I wonder. This is, theoretically, the "American sector".
Would they have had Cajun workers in 1880? One piece of the house--an
elaborate iron fire surround I found broken in 3 pieces at The Green Project's
new digs (they seem to have a much higher quality and more unusual stuff, plus
more than fair prices--is Creole and antebellum, or so said the guy who
soldered it together for me, almost invisibly. He owns that place on
Tchoupitoulas where a giant iron Praying Mantis, twice as tall as I am, held
pride of place a couple of months ago--his own work. Said the Creoles liked
their mantels even fancier than the Americans, so the raised decorations were
copper, though covered in black paint. Since the room is colorful enough as is
(olive green, dull pink and beige tiles around the fireplace, white woodwork
and the previous inhabitants, Robert Shakespeare and family, painted the walls
rose pink, matching patterned curtains that hide the AC outside) I left it
black.

Leslie
zemedelec