Farrington Smith Gallery

People may wonder why we want to live in a port city, below sea level. But on a sunny day, there is nothing better than lolling by the Mississippi, watching the barges and boats go by.

Only one steamboat is in operation around New Orleans, the Natchez, which has a steam calliope you can hear playing regularly if you’re in the French Quarter.

But way back when, they crowded the ports down here. A steamboat captain named Milton Doullut even built two houses with design elements of the vessels he commanded; one was for himself and one was for his son.

The second isn’t as pretty to look at, but I like how it gives a tiny feel for the neighborhood and the proximity to the levee. They were built in the early 1900s, and were actually red-tagged for demolition at one point post-flooding. Thank goodness that was fixed.

All my out-of-town visitors get taken over the Industrial Canal into the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood Holy Cross to see the steamboat houses.

You may not be able to tell from the photos that Steamboat Sally is a kinetic sculpture; the wings flap and some of the embellishments in front bob up and down when you turn the crank. I try to summon the steam calliope music when I turn it.

-Amy

Until very recently, my mother typed everything on an ancient manual typewriter, which was her high school graduation gift.

The red and black ribbon wiggled round trips from spool to spool, clunking out fainter and fainter messages about whole wheat and recycling. Sometimes she’d splurge on a new ribbon.

After decades of jerking the ribbon back and forth, the machine gave up the ghost, and the digital age dawned in the form of a Formica-toned period piece from the dot com era. It was given to her by a friend, and though you can’t look a gift horse in the mouth, you shouldn’t buy it dentures either.

Somehow she managed to have it serviced…but most often she sends me hand written letters.

-Adam

It’s got a crank poking out of the blade, and when you crank it, the wings in back flap. It’s a little uncomfortable to interface with the blade; it’s as if someone tells you to “talk to the hand” and then you do.

It’s important to try new things and to take the less obvious paths and perspectives.

Bulldozers are symbols of change. And change is scary, with good reason. But without optimism there’s nothing.

I have all kinds of unfounded optimism, and New Orleans is the Stagnantropolis of unfounded optimism. The Lower 9th Ward is still in pretty rough shape, but it’s always darkest before dawn…or a darker darkness.

-Adam