Louisiana art is spicy and sweet. The music is mysterious and soulful. Drift away from the Bourbon Street ruckus, and you’ll discover a place where even the buildings join in the chorus.

What happens when you combine the essence of Louisiana art, music, and architecture? A shanty town that sings, of course.

Dithyrambalina (dith-ee-ramb-a-lina) is a magical community installation that you probably won’t find in a lot of the typical New Orleans travel guides. A collaborative project involving 25 different artists, Dithyrambalina is a New Orleans Airlift project initiated by artist, curator and Airlift Director Delaney Martin, the Brooklyn-based visual artist Swoon, and New Orleans-based sound artist Taylor Lee Shepherd.

Built up from the ruins of a late 18th Century Creole Cottage, Dithyrambalina is a village of musical, playable houses. That’s right. The structures themselves are recycled musical instruments, ready to express the joy, pain, or wonder of anyone who cares to take the time to play them.

“Invented instruments embedded into the walls, ceilings, and floors of Dithyrambalina’s architecture will support boundary-breaking musical performances and inspire wonder, exploration and invention in visitors of all ages,” explains the official website.

The village started out with only one musical building, appropriately called The Music Box: A Shantytown Sound Laboratory. Built from the salvaged remains of the 250-year-old house, the Music Box contained a plethora of musical instruments that seem like they fell out of a Dr. Seuss story:

Singing House: a harmonic drone synthesizer that allows the weather to join in the music-making. Wind speed, sun position, moonlight, rainfall, and lightning all make small changes to an ever-present E major chord. A special amplification system delivers a true “surround sound” experience.

Water-Organ: a device that allows the sound of a keyboard to be played through water. The sound “is produced by mingling sound and air in a sealed box and pushing the air (with the sound in it) down through pipes, past valves, through water, and then out into the air, where the sound is then amplified. The pipes and water act as the throat of the instrument, shaping the sound as it passes through the water, achieving a “watery sound” that has a very distinct emotional quality to it.”

Rocking Chair: a thumping bass instrument made from an old rocking chair. “Even the smallest movement is audible, the creaking of the wood evoking images of old haunted houses while the strings attached can be played through an old radio. Whoever gets into the chair can dive into a world of sound, balance and vibration.”

(Listen to field recordings of each of the instruments here.)

With such amazing ambiance and potential for musical experimentation, it’s no wonder that Dithyrambalina has attracted performances of some well-known professional musicians, including Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Japanther, and the Tiajuana-based Nortec Collective.

Next time you’re passing through New Orleans, and want to see some home grown Louisiana art, contact New Orleans Airlift to see if the village is open for business.

Images: Dithyrambalina

The post Dithyrambalina: Where Louisiana Art Oozes From The Buildings appeared first on EcoSalon.

Turns out, it’s fun being dead. Provided you lurk in the right zipcode.

At EcoSalon, we approach shelter with the philosophy that a home is more than just a roof over your head. It’s a refuge – an asylum, if you will – from the travails of everyday existence. Today being All Hallows Eve, that sentiment holds true not just for the living among us, but also for the dead. The undead, even, in the interest of fairness.

Here are ten of America’s most phantom-friendly haunts where a ghost can be a ghost without fear, recrimination and the associated heebie-jeebies.

10. Cell Block 14D, Alcatraz

Reputed to be the most haunted cell block on Alcatraz Island, witnesses claim to have seen apparitions walking the cellblocks; occasionally voices are heard emanating from what was once the cafeteria. Evidently, the food was really that bad.

9. University of Ohio in Athens, Ohio

Being dead anywhere within the city limits of Athens, Ohio is much like being alive in, say, New York City. It’s a real hotspot for the paranormal, home to a headless train conductor, pagan cults, and five major graveyards laid out to form a pentagram. Legend has it that ghosts instructed a farmer named Jonathan Koons to build a “spirit room” in which apparitions could manifest and hold conversations with him beyond the grave.

In a town like Athens, the local insane asylum has its share of ghouls. As expected. But the real action takes place on the college campus, said to be one of The Scariest Places on Earth. Funny, I thought that was high school.

8. The Hampton Lillibridge House

Savannah, Georgia is a lovely place to be a ghost, what with its temperate weather and antebellum charm. There is a plethora of old manses to haunt, too, but the Hampton Lillibridge House is a favorite. Built in 1796, strange phenomena didn’t start occurring until the 1960s. Two workers were killed during a renovation and others claimed they could hear voices, footsteps and pieces of furniture being thrown about. A particularly disturbing report is that at the mere mention of the word exorcism, a female voice could be heard screaming throughout the house.

7. The Battery Carriage House

Charleston is called “Holy City” for all the church spires dotting its skyline, something the dead and undead take very seriously. The city’s most haunted houses can be found in an area called the Battery, locale of the infamous Battery Carriage House Inn. Here, a headless torso with either, a) a macabre sense of humor or, b) a serious axe to grind, appears at the bedsides of guests in the middle of the night. Gullah legend has it that Boo Hags, a type of vampire that wears human skin as a mask and feeds off its victim’s energy while they sleep, have also been spotted in the neighborhood.

6. The Joshua Ward House

The builder of this house made the unfortunate mistake of erecting it on the foundation of George Corwin’s old home, the sheriff in charge of rounding up witches during the 1692 Salem witch trails. If anyone’s going to be haunted by a guilty conscience, poor Sheriff Corwin’s the guy.

5. The LaLaurie House

Physician Louis LaLaurie and his wife Delphine were not very nice people. Inside the walls of their picturesque French Quarter mansion, they tortured their slaves with bizarre surgical experiments and other atrocities, including the murder of a 12 year-old girl. After a fire broke out in the kitchen, fireman discovered several slaves chained to the wall of a dungeon. The LaLaurie’s fled to Paris, but the ghosts remain.

4. The Lizzie Borden House 

It almost feels boring to write about the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, MA, but it bears mentioning. Now a bed and breakfast to the stars, it was the site of an 1892 axe murder, which, I think we can all agree, is the most unpleasant kind.

3. The Winchester House

Silicon Valley – a place associated with sterile, manufactured and thus un-haunted things – is home to one of the most paranormal houses in the nation. The Winchester House in San Jose was built by gun heir Sarah Winchester, who sought the guidance of spirits in constructing her dream home. The result is an officially weird house, sanctioned as “haunted” by the state of California, with stairways leading to nowhere, windows on the floor, doorways opening, and rooms with no entrances.

2. The Whaley House

The California Department of Commerce designated this house as officially haunted, as well, prompted by budgetary concerns, or, perhaps, the research of Professor Hans Holzer. Hans is a professor of parapsychology and is considered the world’s leading expert on psychic phenomena. San Diego’s Whaley House has been host to a myriad of strange and unexplained apparitions, making it “probably the most haunted house in America.” Maybe.

1. The White House

Most ghosts stick around ‘cause it’s personal; for Washington ghosts, it’s political. Abigail Adams, the wife of President John Adams, has been seen hanging laundry in the East Room, long after it’s dried. Many guests, including right-minded political leaders like Winston Churchill, claimed to have seen the ghost of Abe Lincoln. The Queen of the Netherlands was an overnight guest at the White House and allegedly fainted after she saw an apparition of honest Abe.

Happy Halloween, kids.

Images: timekin; USA Today; Justin Masterson; f_iodinea; Battery Carriage Inn; Todds Travel Photos; Jeremy M. Farmer; abbie*christine; Travis S; peyri; Wes

The post 10 Seriously Paranormal American Haunts appeared first on EcoSalon.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Lynn Morris

Everyone knows that wearing fur is wrong. But what if the fur came from a highly destructive invasive species being culled anyway as part of state sponsored control program?

A project in Louisiana has come up with a range of “˜guilt free fur’ from swamp rats. Nutria, otherwise known as swamp rats, do huge amounts of damage to the ecosystems around New Orleans. They use their massive front teeth to dig up plants by their roots creating holes in the levees hastening coastal erosion. If there is one thing Louisiana doesn’t need it is more coastal erosion.

New Orleans based Righteous Fur aims to help the state sponsored control program along by creating a high fashion market for nutria fur, with the slogan “˜Save our wetlands, wear more nutria’.

Cree McCree who set up the project in 2008 believes it’s wrong not to use animals that are culled.

She said: “About half a million nutria were killed last year but just two percent of the pelts were used. It is a colossal waste if the animals are being killed anyway. Nutria should not die in vain.”

But she does not think wearing any old nutria fur is ok. She said: “It is only guilt free fur if it is certified Louisiana pelts harvested as part of the pest control program.”

McCree calls her work “˜a giant recycling project’ and has commissioned designers to create bags, cuffs, hats and coats with the pelts. She also uses Balinese silver to make jewelery from nutria teeth.

She aims to create a fashion demand for the fur, increasing the value of nutria pelts encouraging more people to take part in the control program eventually reducing the population of nutria in the area. At the moment the state pays a bounty of $5 per nutria tail.

McCree said: “If this project is successful it will eradicate itself but that would be a long way down the road. We are not in the business of spawning a bunch of nutria farms.”

Nutria used to be used in clothing and was fashionable from the end of the Second World War to the mid 1970s, worn by fashion icons including Sophia Loren and Greta Garbo. Nutria were introduced to Louisiana for fur farms in the 1930s but some escaped into the wild.

There have been other attempts to create a market for nutria including an unsuccessful effort to turn it into a gourmet food.

Righteous Fur’s designs will be on show in New York on November 21 at House of Yes in Brooklyn. The Righteous Fur design collective will also be selling their wares at Brooklyn Flea in New York on November 20.

People not in New York City will have to wait a little while but the pieces will soon be available to buy through Righteous Fur’s website.

The post Guilt Free Fur appeared first on EcoSalon.

After meeting with Speed, I continue down Claiborne, heading to what’s left of the Lower Ninth Ward. Six years post-Katrina, the neighborhood has yet to recover. It’s eerie; there are a few houses that have been rebuilt on stilts, but the vast majority of the area is just overrun by vegetation.

On nearly ever telephone pole there are adverts for services that say, “WE CUT TALL GRASS.” The geography of the place is important to note – it’s way below sea level – flanked by levees and canals. The neighborhood is your standard grid layout, square blocks with parallel streets. Now imagine removing 80% of the houses, with the rest being a mix of decrepit and destroyed and new. The streets aren’t straight anymore, encroached upon by dirt and grass.

Here, derelict houses are marked with the famous Katrina X: a simple quadrant system of spray paint on the front door. If the X only has a single line, it means a hasty search. The north quadrant of the X has the date of the search, the east marks notations for hazardous chemicals or dead animals, the south is for body count (human), and the west is initialed by the search team.

It’s insane to be looking at this. Some of the dates are from November! That’s how long it took to deal with the search. On the doors where there are body counts, neighbors often spray paint epitaphs on the house, wishing the fallen well into the next world.

I walk into a dilapidated building that looks to be some sort of old automotive garage. Being a person of poetic sensibility, I’m constantly seeing images that serve as metaphor.

Above my head, the second floor of the building is slowly disintegrating. Large holes have formed and in one, a half destroyed office chair is dangling through, ready to fall at any moment, like a water drop on the end of an icicle. Animals have been living here – feral cats, rats, and insects. Lots of insects.

In another house, furniture is piled in rotting heaps, no doubt from floating in the flood. When the waters receded, they were left where they were, and thus, everything is scattered.

Broken and torn children’s toys scatter the front lawns. Cement is covered with dirt and oil residue.

I’m overwhelmed – which has been the constant feeling for weeks. I’m texting friends about what I’m seeing because I can’t handle seeing this by myself. But no one is responding. It’s fitting given what transpired here.

Editor’s note: Stiv Wilson has been reporting from the Gulf and New Orleans this summer. To learn more, read his investigations of the oil spill and catch the first installment of “Her Name Is Katrina.”

The post Her Name Is Katrina, Part Two: The Lower Ninth Ward appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s our last day in NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana – as the locals call it), and my schedule is free. After being on the go-go-go traveling all over the region and processing some of the hardest emotions I’ve ever felt, I’m ready to go home.

Go home, yes, but not forget.

Whenever you talk with anyone down here about the BP spill, the story invariably starts with “before Katrina” or “after Katrina.” Her impact is still felt deeply by the people here, every day. The trauma has given them a signature resiliency that emanates from them as they describe their condition, their lives, their hopes and fears for the future.

Separating myself from the group, I take the day to photograph New Orleans: I want to get my art on. So, I’m off, driving a rental minivan in some of the poorest ghettos I’ve ever been to – not just of this country but of anywhere in the world. Here’s me, white sweaty guy, shiny minivan and pricey camera. I’m awkward.

People train their eyes on me  as I pass by on the street. It’s not possible to have the windows up, ensconcing myself in air conditioned comfort, because my camera has to stay at the temperature and dewpoint outside or it will fog. This is a beneficial thing. Driving this slowly down streets with tinted windows might make some people nervous; there is violence here and that creeping car move is something that causes panic.

I wave a lot when people stare.  And they, thankfully, wave back. I’m hoping that the ubiquitous southern hospitality that I’ve felt down here extends to these hard knock places as I cruise streets off Claiborne, taking in the geography, the sea level, and the infamous Superdome.

What I find is unrelenting urban decay in parish after parish. There are houses that should be torn down, windows that should be replaced, live power lines dangling, trash and addicts in castaway couches. Many are so far gone they don’t even register my presence.  There are signs up everywhere for cheap and easy D.N.A. tests (who is your daddy?).

My nerves are hot. Emotions are overwhelming because what I’m looking at is so foreign for a first world country, my country. Sure, I’ve seen a few places approaching this – Detroit, East St. Louis, Watts, Appalachia – but the degradation takes the proverbial cake. And it’s all the worse because it’s caused by poverty mixed with the devastation of severe weather. It’s a combination that lends itself to an aesthetic reality that isn’t relegated to abandoned cars on the street, but cars that were turned over in floods and moved up onto schoolyard playgrounds, where, when the water receded they remained to rot, now alien and utterly destroyed. Anything valuable on them has been stripped already, and they’re rusting and forgotten, machines raped by a formidable tempest.

I meet a guy named Speed who is smoking the last roach of a self-rolled cigarette. As he inhales, I observe the heavy nicotine stains on his index finger. His lips have sores, probably burns. He asks me what I’m doing. I tell him I’m photographing the place to tell a story – I want to tell him that some of us haven’t forgotten, but I don’t. Speed is jittery as he talks, classic in-between-fix behavior, probably heroin. His movements at once seem threatening and thankful. As he spouts, I can tell he’s a friend, and, circumstance notwithstanding, he still loves his neighborhood, his place in the universe. Yes, I’m talking to a junkie with a sincere pride of place. And it’s amazing.

Speed gives me a short tour of the neighborhood and he describes what the place was like when the water was here. He points out the water lines on the houses. The foundations that are cracked. The places where his friends and neighbors died. And he talks about the the people who haven’t received FEMA checks and that he doesn’t think this neighborhood will ever get back to, what, normal? All of the sudden, it crashes in on me: This is what the world looks like when your government is impotent.

Speed and I part ways; he’s urging me to check out the Lower Ninth Ward, where as he says, “People have it tough.”

The post Her Name Is Katrina and She Knows a Junkie Named Speed, Part 1 appeared first on EcoSalon.

We’re approaching the part of Louisiana where land and water become indistinct. South of New Orleans, approaching Grand Isle, we’re driving a series of elevated roadways and bridges, traversing a mammoth, venerable estuary the likes of which I’ve never seen. The likes of which I never knew existed. This area serves as a natural buffer between the Gulf and New Orleans, an ecosystem that not only provides vital habitat for waterfowl and other aquatic life, but a geography that protects the city itself from storms. It has been threatened by years of development of channels for commercial ship navigation that transect the estuary. And it’s always threatened by oil.

On the island proper, we’re meant to meet up with U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s Search and Rescue. Unfortunately, our tour of the bay structure, where distressed, oiled birds are captured and then taken to a rehab center nearby, was not to be. We’re in the height of hurricane season now, and though we’re not looking at such a storm, we’re looking at a massive wall of gray just on the horizon and the official is telling us that the mission is officially standing down.

I ask the search and rescue team leader how bad the spill is, after her tells us he’s worked on three other spills. “Monumental,” he says. I’m with a reporter from my hometown newspaper and he’s unsatisfied with the answer. He presses. The official speaks in gentle equivocations – it’s not his job to argue, it’s his job to get the media out to these places, to see what is what and get the story to the public.

His body language says what his reticence doesn’t. Besides, monumental is a monumental word.

We take the opportunity to tour Grand Isle. I haven’t been here before but it looks like a middle class summer wonderland, a place where families fish and fight the the oppressive heat by bathing in the placid sea. I’m constantly texting pictures to a friend of mine who has a strong connection to the place, and I’m sad she’s not with us. It feels weird to translate this place myself, without her knowledge as guide.

We eat lunch at the local eatery where a serious rush is underway. Coast Guard, Louisiana officials, BP workers and boat captains eat gumbo and fried oysters in relative peace. We sample boiled peanuts for the first time, and I’m not a fan. Standing in line, waiting for my sandwich, everyone gets along. But there is tension. Some of these people literally can’t talk to each other – they can’t tell each other what they know, or what they do. The subject on everyone’s mind is avoided; the room lacks the levity lunch usually brings.

Barrier islands make this area surfless, which makes for perfect bathing. But the beaches are closed. The houses are mostly unoccupied, and many of them are still in disrepair from Katrina. Frisbees are getting dusty, beach balls are deflating.

We walk the beach – no one’s here to tell us not to. Akimbo check point tents are empty. There are a few locals crabbing and fishing, but largely, the beach looks as empty as Coney Island in the wintertime. What’s astonishing is the lay of the beach – uniform and unnaturally level. It has been scrubbed by machines. This area had been entirely covered with oil not long ago.  Every time it washes up, machines comes through and takes the top layer off and then haul it away to where the oil and the sand is separated. I want to see this place.

As the storm approaches, the locals on the beach say that the oil will come back, and the skim will happen again. And again. And again. This is a common theme when I speak to people here. At a bar in St. Bernard’s Parish, New Orleans, I talk with a woman named Donna. St. Bernard’s Parish was the only total devastation zone in New Orleans – meaning everything flooded. Her house was under 17 feet of water only six weeks after she bought it.

“You learn to roll with the punches here, and you roll through, but it ain’t never gonna get back to normal.”

She’s upbeat, but she looks beaten. Hardened by a hard life and hard times.

Life in this region has been in such trauma for so long. Pre- and post-Katrina are the temporal boundaries by which people understand reality. The oil only makes things worse. Locals have come to expect the abnormal as the normal. There is no other life here than spills and storms. It feels like a strange pathology. It makes me sad.

For better or for worse, the oil industry isn’t going away and no one even thinks about that as a possibility. Things don’t change here, but the landscape varies in degree of toxicity.  Walking here, seeing oil at the tide line mixed with dispersant, I too believe that this will never, ever go away. A storm will bring it up. A current will make it known again. It’s an unsettling feeling.

One thing is certain – no one here believes what the government and BP are saying about the oil going away rapidly.

The post BP Took Our Arms; the Government Is Taking Our Legs appeared first on EcoSalon.

Currently on a trip to see the real effects of the Gulf Coast oil spill firsthand and document them, I’m spending 10 days in a region known for its culinary heritage, and in the last few I’ve been in the Southern foodie capital: New Orleans. That means lots of gumbo and poboys. In fact, you can’t really get away from food here. As one local put it, “We’ve got a culture that’s based on two things: music and food, and I think those two are pretty good.”

It’s an understatement to say that food has been on my mind, from keeping an eye out for just what local joints have on their handwritten menus to listening to fishermen talk about their concerns over the federal government opening up the shrimp season just a little too soon before knowing what the real health effects of dispersants are going to be.

The devastation that New Orleans went through in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina permeates every conversation and every interaction. The idea of “restoration” is everywhere, and that includes the food movement. With such a central role in this city’s culture, it’s no surprise that food can easily be used to bring people together after disaster, and to assist in simple community building.

Last month, Cafe Hope opened up in Marrero, on the West Bank of the Mississippi River, and has become a shining example of how food and community building certainly go hand-in-hand. “Cooking up great food and bright futures,” the non-profit restaurant was set up to give at risk youth the educational and professional skills to succeed. This is done through a 12-week curriculum of hands-on training in the kitchen and dining room with participants responsible for working as kitchen or wait staff during lunch hours, five days a week. The apprenticeship program is aptly called Seeds of Success, and along with training its participants, it partners them with a member of the community to become their mentor.

The menu is chocked full of regional classics like Southern Comfort Bread Pudding and Cochon de Lait Poboy, and the restaurant even has its own vegetable garden (deemed “The Farm”), another key element of building more sustainable communities.

Cafe of Hope is new, so keep checking back on its website as the farm and restaurant expand.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground. Each week, Anna will be taking a look at something new and different that’s taking place in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to culinary avant garde.

The post Foodie Underground: Bringing Hope Through Food in New Orleans appeared first on EcoSalon.

This week Green TV showed us two kinds of eco-disasters. An HBO drama tackled the environmental devastation in New Orleans and Planet Green exposed crimes against tigers.

“Treme” Shows Perseverance in the Face of Nature’s Fury

HBO’s New Orleans drama Treme may not seem like a straightforward choice for “I Want My Green TV.” But with everything that’s been going on in the Gulf with the BP Oil Spill, it’s hard not to think about the hardships the fine citizens of the Big Easy have endured over the last few years.

After all, the spill is not the first man made disaster to happen in New Orleans in 2005. Yes, Mother Nature sent Katrina but she didn’t build the insufficient levees. And there certainly are government agencies that could have chipped in then (and now) to help rebuild faster, more efficiently, and much more in tune with ongoing local environmental concerns – Brad Pitt and his Make it Right housing development aside.

Treme takes place in the aftermath of Katrina, and this week’s episode, “All on a Mardi Gras Day,” celebrated Fat Tuesday – almost six months to the day of the devastating hurricane. The show rode a lot of emotional ups and downs as characters embraced the spirit of the day while reconciling the recent devastation of their homes and families.

Every week, the series shows the delicate balance between the ugly truth of a city ravaged by environmental fury and the beauty of the healing power of human perseverance. As John Goodman’s character pointed out to his daughter, “It’s good to get out and see the destruction. It’s good. Get off the isle of denial every once in a while and be reminded how much of this city is still wrecked.”

Planet Green Doc Exposes Illegal Tiger Trade

This past weekend, Planet Green premiered the award-winning documentary, Dangerous Trade. In the hour-long film, a team of eco-crime investigators from the Environmental Investigation Agency (a sort modern day Green “Mod Squad”) investigate the seedy underworld of illegal tiger trades in China.

What they find is infuriating, horribly sad, and highly profitable. And there lies the reason why it doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. According to the doc, China is the largest consumer of tiger products for skins, taxidermy, and medicine. And apparently the military turns a blind eye to the issue for their own profit and political reasons.

Ironically, this is the Chinese Year of the Tiger and with three subspecies already extinct and only an estimated 3,100 of the glorious animals left in the world – yes, we said the world – ending the illegal tiger trade is more important than ever. This fall there will even be a Global Tiger Summit in Russia (who knew?!) to commit to taking action toward saving the tiger.

We’re guessing somewhere that Tony is screaming, “that’s grrrrrrreat!”

Tune in next time to see what’s cropping up on green TV.

Image: Tryburn

The post I Want My Green TV: From Louisiana Disasters to the Tiger Trade appeared first on EcoSalon.

Whether you want to help the ongoing cleanup efforts from the BP oil spill or you just like good music (or both), good news: the Hangout Festival, an Alabama concert series, has just announced all of this year’s profits will go to Gulf relief. For those of you in the Southeast this summer, it’s a great excuse to get to the beach, listen to live bands and help the environment.

The Hangout Festival has been re-dubbed the Concert for the Coast, and expanded to include New Orleans as well as an original Gulf Shores, Alabama, location. As the Gulf Oil disaster rages on with no relief in sight, musicians from the oil continues to spew out and drift in.

Organizers say the stages in Alabama are currently being constructed upon pristine beach, but the oil slick in the Gulf threatens to endanger the wildlife habitats and livelihoods of those that live in the region.

To learn more about the concert’s lineup and goals, check out Planet Green.

Editor’s note: Article by Jeff Kart. Originally published by our friends at Planet Green. Planet Green is an offshoot of Discovery that covers every aspect of green living, from tofu to tattoos. Be sure to visit them and say hi, and follow Planet Green on Twitter, too!

Image: jeffrey warren

The post Concert for the Coast Planned for Oil Spill Relief appeared first on EcoSalon.