The celebrated 19th-century American artist James McNeill Whistler once wrote that nature “sings her exquisite song to the artist alone.” Many Louisiana landscape painters believe Whistler’s “exquisite song” is heard best by artists who paint outdoors in the natural landscape.…
A few weeks ago, my husband Mark was losing it. He’s an extrovert, at risk due to asthma and we are 24 weeks and 195 days into this COVID-19 dumpster fire. Our medically approved activities include: Neighborhood walks and bike…
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in American men (only skin cancer has more cases). The latest estimates from the American Cancer Society (cancer.org) state that over 191,000 American men are diagnosed with prostate cancer per year and…
Mysterious Fantasy The Big Door Prize by M.O. Walsh A mysterious machine that promises to predict your life’s ambitions may seem too good to be true. And perhaps it is. But in the small Louisiana town of Deerfield, residents are…
Capitol Ideas Here’s a hint. The place is in Baton Rouge. OK, I guess you need more information, but first, what prompted this discussion? In this a year that best be forgotten, except maybe for LSU’s football trophy, there has…
There is one major source that provides credible ongoing analysis of hospitals: Medicare, which, as the federal health insurance program for people 65 and older, as well as certain younger people with disabilities, often provides funding for many of the…
In 2013, New Orleanians Ginny and Dean Westphal built an 800-square-foot St. Francisville retreat with an eye toward the future. Dean, a retired designer of office furniture and former architecture student, sketched the space with a pair of floor-to-ceiling windows…
Randell Henry of Baton Rouge is a remarkable artist who creates vibrant and often cryptic paintings and collages that reflect an imagination and intellect drawn to the rhythms and cultures of Africa and the African-American experience. …
JACKPOT DREAMS Louisiana Lucky: A Novel by Julie Pennell In “Louisiana Lucky: A Novel,” author Julie Pennell brings us the story of three sisters growing up with modest means in a small town. They fantasize about what it would be…
The challenge was to give a voiceless house a voice,” says designer Lance Thomas, one half of the duo that runs Room Service, a Lake Charles interior design business and store specializing in Southern traditional mixed with a current and…
Louisiana photographer Cate Colvin Sampson, inspired by the writings of Southern novelist Flannery O’Connor, joins a growing chorus of artists and photographers raising warnings about South Louisiana’s endangered wetlands and a way of life for the people who have lived…
MAGICAL TALE The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata This book is a hard-to-describe tale of twists, turns and mysterious manuscripts. It starts in 1929 New Orleans, where a young woman writes a popular science fiction tale, falls…
A SPECIAL EDITORIAL We have all experienced our Evangeline Oak moments this year. In 1928 Huey Long, a then little-known candidate for governor, stood beneath the oak and made a speech that is a classic in American politics. Referring to…
FOOD Mosquito Supper Club: Cajun Recipes from a Disappearing Bayou by Melissa Martin Chef Melissa Martin is passionate about two things: food and helping to preserve and protect the fragile wetlands and fisheries of her native Louisiana, as well as…
Louisiana is a social state. Part of that social scene includes drinking — during Mardi Gras, at football tailgate parties, at neighborhood bars and often parents partake (a little) at children’s birthday parties. But what are the best ways to…
Some towns are cut from a different cloth than the state they inhabit. Obviously, New Orleans is different from other parts of Louisiana, Austin is still a bit different than the rest of Texas, and, within the borders of the…
Age is just a number. People are living longer, staying active later in life. They don’t age; they mature. They’re not “over the hill;” they’re climbing it — or even running up it. There are 84-year-olds doing half-marathons. There are…
Magazine publisher Jay Covington describes the previous state of the house he shares with his partner Hugh Johnson as “Versailles Over the Top.” When the couple built the Georgian-style house in 1998, their tastes leaned toward heavy furnishings, French embellishments,…
The long-neglected and nearly-forgotten “Fountain of the Four Winds” — one of Louisiana’s most spectacular, yet controversial Great Depression-era New Deal works of art located at the New Orleans Lakefront Airport — is at last being restored to its former…
Stacked three and four high and all around Blake Haney are brown boxes of just about everything: stickers, T-shirts, hats, socks — everything. Leaning back in his chair and turning his attention from his computer for what looks like the…
“I always wanted the big house with the big family gatherings; I thought maybe if I build it, they will come,” says Vanessa Mayfield, invoking the magical mantra from the movie “Field of Dreams.” Vanessa and her husband Jeffrey, both…
Shreveport photographer Ann George is an artist, a storyteller and a playwright — not in the conventional sense of writing narratives and dialogue, but in composing staged photographic images that appear as still but quiet moments in a story or…
Over 50 million Americans have some form of arthritis, and approximately 923,000 of them live in Louisiana (arthritis.org). For some people, the condition may be unavoidable, but there are ways you can make living with arthritis easier. Some of the…
During our first three Carnival seasons after moving to New Orleans, by the time Fat Tuesday arrived, we were too pooped to party beyond a brief amble out to the corner for a couple of the morning parades while sipping…
