????????????

The weirder things get, the more people on campus pretend to act nomral, and the more confused I become...

Out of sight, out of mind

A lot of things happened in quick succession in between the time I returned to New Orleans to start school and then had to evacuate for Gustav. On campus I needed to unpack, settle in, get books, and prepare for class. Outside campus, in the real world, there were shows to catch like MOS DEF the Thursday before evacuating and streets to cruise to see who and what still up. The giant FORTY piece on the rooftop billboard along I-10 was a welcome addition. That along with the appearance of Banksy's stencils a few days later had my mind really racing to get back in touch with the city.

But one thing that I noticed that no longer existed was the homeless camp under Carrolton. I wonder what's happened to the people that were there even though now their plight weighs less heavily on mind when I go downtown. Out of sight, out of mind.

There location beneath the interstate bridge at the edge of downtown seemed to be born out of not just necessitiy, but also protest. Originally the first homeless encampment was out front city hall in objection to the destruction of the city's housing projects after Katrina. After the city cleared that spot, the camp settled in that horrible space along Carrolton.

I went "down" there, over there rather, a couple times in the summer and it was miserable. The summer heat is unrelenting when you live in a tent and surrounded by concrete. The traffic above and below caused constant commotion and grit from the asphalt would swirl up in your eyes like a dust storm whenever the wind did pick up.

A large majority of the people down there were either handicapped or chemically dependent (and some were both). However the most striking thing was that some were employed and worked long hours during the day only to come back "home" to a tent.

Now no one is there and I wonder what kind of housing they have found. Did the city really find a better place for them to stay or did they just make them disperse to get rid of the "eyesore?" I don't know, just yet.

tniap ssecxe htiw od ot tahw

Crimethinc

"They teach us to OBEY but not to CHALLENGE" NADER speaks

Paper Paper Reporting:

Ralph Nader, the attorney, activist, public speaker, author, defender of the constitutuion, and sometimes presidential canidate, came and spoke at Tulane this week. Under the guise of running for president, Nader stopped in New Orleans long enough to remind a packed auditorium about the ideals that the country was founded upon and the prevailing threats that assail them right now.

In terms of his political aspirations my friend Joey described him as "The exterminator who is running for the top position among vermin." It takes a serious man to take on such a foolhardy task and to keep up a doomed mission.

But make no mistake, Ralph Nader is getting results. This here is proof.

His speech was informative and rallying. From illegal wiretapping, to student loan inflation, to privatized prison systems there is no scandal this man is not keeping score on (just like he did when he first took the auto industry in 1965). Which is good! Because somebody has to stay alert. Or has he would explain, we all do. Its our civic duty to stay informed and from there keep the government in check and under our thumbs.

That is why every four years he traverses the country, going to all 50 states, to deliver speeches to people so that they don't forget the state that the union is in. He's 74 and still full of passion, anger, and hope for this country and its ability to make a u-turn away from the course it is currently on.

However, only if we all decide to grab the wheel.

(here are some notes with electronic paint)



"The american people can have anything they want but it seems as though they want nothing much at all."

"Better to vote for the thing you believe in and lose than to vote for the thing you don't believe in and win"

-Eugene Debs (his hisotrical role model)

On the current educatuion system:

MEMORIZATION TO REGURGITATION TO VEGETATION; THEY TEACH US TO OBEY BUT NOT TO CHALLENGE

(Now excuse me while I go update my account on facebook)

Tommy hits it

Generally I don't find much in the Hullabaloo that I agree with but this week was different. I've known Tommy since we were both freshmen on the same hall in the Wall residential college and I've got a lot of respect for his opinion, though I certainly don't always agree. He is one of the least weird locals I've met and I'm pleased he is now in charge of the campus paper.

I'm glad to see someone speaking out against the ridiculous hype machine that is Tulane University. It seems to me colleges have become far too obsessed with there PR and selling themselves to potential customers AKA high school seniors. Tommy sights highlighting only good news as the reason Tulane would again 'forget' the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, one of the most cataclysmic events of the city and country in modern times.



He makes a good point that while 'they' (read:the school administrators) won't commemorate the disaster, they will eagerly pay lip service to the campus' community service efforts. While 'community service' is a noble cause, I personally feel the term has begun an overused buzz word that gets tossed around for the purpose of self-promotion, by both prospective students and universities trying to attract them. This is partially to blame for the undue stress put upon high-school students to boost their 'resumes' and appear like a super citizen so they can apply to 'quality' universities. Thus beguns a stupid back and forth between student and school with each one unintentionally whoring themselves out to the other via waste of paper in the mail:


Student letter: "Here's my community service record and a picture of me holdings hands with an elderly person and saving a sick puppy from a tornado. Did I mention I also LOVE to play Mozart on my cello?"

University brochure: "Look at our photoshopped campus with its neon green grass quads. Here is a bench under a shady tree where a group of students consisting of a black guy, an asian dude, a cute sorority girl just happened to be engaged in a rousing conversation, you can tell by the way they're smiling. Did we tell you about the new food court we installed in the UC? Who doesn't like a taco bell with a salad bar?"
So the two finally meet and after orientation the romance inevitably ends. The student quits the charade of helping for the sake of his fellow citizens and focuses on drinking and chasing tail, while the administration quickly forgets about them in the sea of already ensnared students and sets its sights on the fresh new blood it can attract to its web.

So universities, like Tulane, reveal there true intentions as a buisness rather than an school, when they do things like promote themselves on paper but fail to commemorate Hurricane Katrina, an event that still continues to impact the lives of its students and civic neighbors daily.

Gustav inspired art

It has been a very harrowing week. Tulane's decision to close down the school forced my decision to evacuate which I had hoped I wouldn't have to do at the beginning of my senior year, just as I had had to do at the beginning of my freshmen year.

I drove back to Nashville with my friends Ted of New Jersey and Patrick of Evanston. Having my friends there and going through all the strife and worrying with them helped tremendously and along with our other friends Ned and Justin we we weathered the evacuation together.

Since this was the first major storm since Rita, there was a lot of uncertainty and theorizing about if the near future would play out like it had 3 years before. News of the storm arrived around the three year anniversary of Katrina, as I'm sure you know, so that left a lot of us on edge. The entire time I just didn't even want to hypothesize about what I would do if school closed down again for another semester.

So since I refused to even think about that possibility my mental energy had to be directed somewhere else. Thinking positively and holding out hope for the future became my only option. Over the last week I've remembered the importance of having faith (in anything mind you). Its just so important to have idea in your mind you can believe in to keep your worst fears and anxieties at bay.

Admittedly, I didn't do an incredible job of this. My faith was often shook and I drank and smoked a lot over the past week because I didn't know how else to cope. I was not down on my knees, begging to god all week but shaking my head, unable to imagine an alternative for this place that has become my home.

This is still very hard for me to make sense of. I'm really grateful that our levees held and that we can only come together again back in New Orleans. I'm also really grateful for everyone outside the city that expressed their concern for what might've happened to New Orleans.

Here are some things I drew during the week. I had the template already done up (and in fact it is already screen printed on the next issues back cover)

"There is no why"

MAN ON WIRE

Everybody who can should check out this awesome movie about Phillipe Petit, a man who set up a high wire between the two world trade towers and walked across it. It is showing at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville and the Landmark's Century Centre Cinema in Chicago but nowhere, unfortunately in New Orleans. Petit didn't act alone; the help and planning of his friends and accomplices was absolutely essential and it took them years to plan before they executed the feat in 1974.



The movie is an in-depth documentary about the whimsical, bizzare nature of Petit that looks at his other high wire accomplishments such as spanning the Notre Dame Cathedral in his native country of France. There is ample footage from his entire life that the film makers had to work with, which is not all that surprising when you think about what kind of showmanship it must take to inspire someone to balance thousands of feet above a concrete carpet. Petit does things to be seen and this movie serves that purpose.

But ultimately what he accomplished is more whimsical and inspiring than egotistical and showy. Some of the people watching him that day were moved to tears and even the policeman who later arrested him can't hide the awe and admiration in his voice as he describes what he saw.

Check it out here and then check it for yourself.

Takin 'em to Church: The Dre Show

High school is a strange and awkward time as anyone who cares to reminisce will attest. Consistently the most painful and excruciating time each week at school was the assembly on Wednesday. After we piled in to the auditorium and begrudgingly sat on floor we would start to heckle any of our peers who dared to take an enough interest in the greater community to stand up and make an announcement at the front of the room. It was a tough crowd that made no attempts to conceal their desire to be anywhere else and we let speakers know it.

Essentially, there were only two ways to win the crowds favor. The first was to cave into the passive aggressive peer pressure from the sea of bored stares and attempt to make your announcement as quick as possible. In theory, this would insure that later on no one could fault you for talking too long and keeping them there any longer than was necessary. (We were teenagers after all, so you can imagine the very important, very pressing things we had to do in our free time). This tactic usually backfired as people inevitably became nervous which lead them to ramble on and then forget how to talk in to the microphone. Eventually the meek, mumbling wreck that only moments before had been a freestanding freshman girl with confidence and a cause (Bake Sale for Sick Puppies, Friday afternoon in the commons) would be at the brink of tears with 400 hundred exasperated faces glaring at her and eventually lead off stage by the vice-president.

The other, more successful way to avoid the crowd's disdain was to get us to laugh. Obviously this was a riskier and more difficult venture. However there was one man among us who repeatedly stepped up to the plate, deaf to our jeers, unafraid of striking out, and who could crack through our collective apathy long enough to get us to laugh at him.

Andre Churchwell was more than just a class clown. He was a bold comedian who put himself in the line of fire simply to get us to laugh, week after week. It was a foolhardy, selfless, and often futile attempt but he kept at it so that by the time I graduated I didn't know anybody who didn't consider him hilarious.

What he did took balls and still does. This is why I was glad to learn that he's still doing it. Earlier tonight I ran into him and he told me about his first recorded show, now on YouTube.

His act was part of a SCAD talent show and it is rather rough. He gets no help from a listing microphone stand but the crowd stays with him through out it. His imaginging what the world would be like if black people were in power certainly has potential (the KKK would be the Kunta Kinte Klan) and reminds me of my other favorite blog: stuff white people like. com Also his tale about a guy lighting his OWN tie on fire is funny to imagine.

Check it out here for yourself and give DrePants 3000 a pound the next time you see him. I know I'm glad he's still at it.

Preface to Chicago

Almost as soon as summer began, I somehow got it stuck in my head that I should take a trip to Chicago. I can't explain just why the Windy City all of sudden appeared so appealing but the longer I thought about it the more intrigued I became by the idea. I had already been mulling over the work of William Upski for the past few months and his tales of self-publishing had inspired me to form this endeavor here. So perhaps, I reasoned, there was more to glean by a pilgrimage to his hometown and so my curiosity began to grow.

One day in June, my roommate Noah out of nowhere popped the question to me: "Do you want to take a road trip to Chicago this weekend?” I was so taken aback that I didn't know to what to say. This was what I'd been thinking about but I found myself, strangely hesitant to sign on. Wasn't this exactly what I said I wanted to do? So why the reluctance?

Well for one thing we were still in New Orleans at this time and Noah didn't know exactly how long a drive it might be. He estimated 12 hours, 10 if we sped. Of that I was skeptical, considering it takes me 8 hours every time I drive to Nashville. When we consulted the Rand-Macnally map of the US on I had on my wall, Memphis appeared to be the halfway point. So we would have to drive through the night with all the passengers (two more were expected) taking shifts without stopping.

(Aside: I salvaged that map from the trash at the end of the school year and it has proven to be one of the best things that I found. However the FLAG of the United States of America that I dumpstered still remains my favorite metaphor for the Great Move-out Hysteria /Trash Extravaganza of May. More on all that ridiculousness later).

He proposed that we leave on Friday and that we could return before Monday morning so I that I would still get to work on time the next week. Seeing how it was already Thursday, I felt some pressure to make up my mind real soon.

“I…uh…don’t know yet, dude. Lemme think about it and get back to you,” I told him and left to go off to work . In the car on the way to Chalmette I weighed the decision.

"It will be a lot of driving but the trip has the potential to be cool," I figured. "So what if we would drive all the way just to turn around almost immediately? 'The journey is the destination,' right?" As I cruised across town I saw the choice appear above me in the big green interstate signs overhead. One side read “NEW ORLEANS,” with a big white arrow pointing towards another weekend of the samo-samo in an oppressively hot city, too crazy for words. But the other side pointed to “BATON ROUGE,” and an arrow beckoned towards all that was outside waiting to be explored, waiting for those courageous enough to take a chance. Here it is, Bud: your trip, your dream, your life just waiting to be lived...

“Aww! To hell with it! I’ll do it. We'll go!” and I called up Noah to tell him the good news right then.

“We’ll leave as soon as I get off tomorrow and if were lucky we’ll make it by mid-day Saturday. Let's do it!”

“Naw man," he said over the line. "I was wrong. We shouldn’t go. It’s a ridiculous idea.”

And that was that.

We didn’t go. And I ended up spending a perfectly fine weekend downtown at the Tomato Festival instead, watching the ships drift by from the banks of the Mississippi River. Chicago would wait.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Post-script: The next weekend my man Phil from Philadelphia called me up to see if I wanted to drive with him to Baton Rouge that morning. This time I agreed and we arrived a little after noon. We picked up his friend at the Sheraton where they’d biked to the day before all the way from NOLA (Phil had immediately taken a greyhound back so he could drive the van to fetch the bikes). To celebrate we ate a pizza at a little restaurant downtown, then went to the old capitol building and read about Huey Long, and ultimately left with little reason to come back again anytime soon.

Ticket stub of my return home from Chicago

Notice of Baggage Inspection

I have a growing collection of these little sheets.

More to follow about my fact-finding mission to Chicago...

-Boudreaux

New Media

The brotherman

Advertising, not art

Red Devil spray enamel on matted down, torn up fliers.
New Orleans, LA
2008

The Printing Process

Really the printing process is not too complex. Apart from that free copier I mentioned before, I utilize an exacto knife to cut out cover stencils and cheap spray paint (dollar general brand typically) to give them some color.


Here is 2nd Guesses



and this was the original 3 Speeches.

After cutting stencils, cropping covers, arranging pages, printing the art, pasting the editorial, and stapling the content I'm generally good to go and set to distribute the latest issue. Its tiring and time consuming if I have to do alone and amazingly more efficient with extra hands, as all work tends to be. I'm all for anybody that wants to lend a hand so you can see how to do it yourself. Then you can commandeer creative control over the production of the next one.

Stay active...

Bud Ries
Linoleum print, 2007.

Feel free to print this off and distribute it to your friends. If you're reading this from an office space where you have access to free printing, 100 copies is a mandatory order and the least you can do for me. Try slipping it in to your nest door neighbors mail slots or putting them underneath windshield wipers in a parking lot.

A call for advice during my summertime lag

Despite having all the necessary tools and supplies at my disposal (including 50 manilla covers already screen printed), I've been dragging my feet on production of the PAPR*PAPR. In fact, up until this post, I'd pretty much stopped moving forward with this "project." The problem is rooted in the fact that I'm still very uncertain what I'm doing, ie: what's my motivation, what kind of response am I looking for, and even what did people like about the first two issues.



Here's a little note I wrote myself in my sketch book this past month. It is as close as I've come so far to pinning a mission statement. Truly, one of the greatest impetuses was access to a FREE photocopier on Tulane's campus. Lame as it sounds, the fact that I technically wasn't supposed to use it fed my renegade impulses and made me feel a little subversive.

The point is I found a cheap and abundant source for printing paper that I wanted to seize upon. Now I've gotten to the point where I'd be willing to actually pay for those resources at Kinko's if I had to (and I probably will once I get back to school and find said-copier has an access-code installed).

But whether I like it or not that raises the stakes of the production. The PAPR*PAPR has begun to teach me very basic economics. The last two issues I've given away for free, as my goal was to make the PAPR*PAPR as accessible as possible. But what I'm struggling with is giving the paper value. I've poured a lot of time and energy ( but not too much money) into this project and so far the return has been minimal. How do you all think I could get a better return on this?

I'm thankful for the praise people have given me and hearing,

"Oh Bud! I read your magazine and thought it was really cool"

is encouraging but only to a point. The reason I've been inactive recently is because I've run out of motivation to carry on and the reason I've run out of motivation seems to be because I have no idea of the value of what it is I've got.I need a little more "something" to keep me pumped about staying up late in a fluorescent lighted office basement at night. If I could tie it into to some other projects people are working on that would be awesome. The PAPR*PAPR definitely needs to grow bigger and beyond me.

Until then I'ma get back to the presses and cook up something cool to look at. I just have to work through this rut I'm in and I would like to hear some advice from you in the meantime.

B

Sequoya- inventor of Cherokee alphabet and Tennessean. All around superhero.

Summer Reading

BOMB THE SUBURBS by Chicago native William UPSKI Wimsatt is one of my favorite reads. Check it out if you are interested in graffiti, Chicago, hitchhiking, hip-hop, the midwest, the 90's, and living in a city. This book blew my mind when I first read it my sophmore or junior year of high school and just recently the follow up NO MORE PRISONS shook up my head again this past semester. Both are published by Soft Skull Press. Check them out

Yee Haw industries

Seen on Magazine street in a cafe window. This was made in Knoxville, Tennessee by the letterpress of Yee Haw Industries. Check them out.

Tight type

Last year I found these letters in a really cool antique book of typefaces in the Howard Tilton library on Tulane's campus. There were many other alphabets in there, mostly calligraphic, that are worth studying if you are interested in crafting cool handwriting, cutting a stencil, or developing a tag with some surfing serifs.

CONO

Cool stencil seen somewhere around Freret.

(Color of New Orleans)

stickers and links

Personally I take no shame in peeling stickers off the street. Certainly I don't steal everyone I see but those that I do take I have no qualms about. One of the ways I'm able to justify my reverse vandalism is by advertising them here so you can find out about them yourself. This is a sampling of some of the local New Orleans artists, organizations, and radio stations. Check 'em out:

SECTION 8- another local zine/website that was one of the inspirations for the PaprPapr

NOLA Rising- Rex Dingler's campaign to cheer up New Orleans with some cheesy slogans and spit in Fred Radtke's eye at the same time. More power to you Rex.

WWOZ 90.7 FM- "New Orleans jazz and heritage station." The best radio station on air in town and everywhere else. They consistently play great old timey blues, jazz, country, and whatever other music you'd never think to listen to. One time I tuned in driving down Claiborne with my mom and they just happened to be playing a song called "Nashville Blues." I've trusted those DJs ever since.

WTUL 91.5 FM- Tulane's college station just a hop, skip, and a turn away from WWOZ. This is another station I turn to with confidence. Whenever I get tired of the hits from the 1930s on 90.7 I just turn to 91.5 and see what my friends there have picked out. Yesterday I meant to call in and praise the DJ who put on "Stereo" by Pavement. That made my day.

The medium is the message: advertising

photo by Andy Fritzshall

Inspiration= new faith in government

Here is another good find pulled from the recycling bin. This article raises an interesting question about whether or not art can actually have a profound social impact. Does the art Obama's campaign has inspired really matter? I, of course, say yes. Even though a poster may still just be poster, all people need to exercise their talents when the inspiration comes. To deny our creative potential is stifling and damaging to ourselves. When we take hold of inspiration and work to actualize it into to something like a cool design then other people see this and become inspired themselves. This cycle of inspiration motivates more production and more creativity. So although one poster may not save the world (or one candidate for that matter) it is still one step towards progress.

Another more simple way I look at it is this:

Barack Obama's encourages people's optimism and hope which inspired creation of art.
George Bush's played on people's fears and distrust which inspired xenophobia and shopping.

I figure we can only go up from here, one poster at a time.

Words from a letter written in a Birmingham jail

Editor's note: correction

There's a typo/misuse of a word in the intro for Second Guesses. My thanks to those that pointed it out and taught me the real meaning of this word, which is not synomous with poetry but rather the antonym.


PROSE
noun
1. ordinary writing as distinguished from verse
2. matter of fact, commonplace, or dull expression

WordNet® 3.0, © 2006 by Princeton University.

#2!!!?! Second Guesses

The title of the second Paper Paper comes from my new favorite activity.

Ever since KRS1 spoke I've been looking at a lot of things in my life differently. This has lead to a lot of confusion and self-doubt.

When I find myself skipping classes to go cut and paste pages for this dinky magazine and staying up late in the basement of the LBC eating Rat food at two in the morning, dizzy from paint fumes, it makes me wonder: "What am I really doing at college?. . . .Aren't all these other people so much more in control than I am?. . .Should I be on track with my own five-year plans and switch to a major that leads to well-known career?. . .WTF Bud?!??"

Luckily I've got a lot of cool friends and an understanding family. You have made all this possible for me. If you're reading this now it means you got to read one of the two issues of the paper-paper and that's what makes it worthwhile. When you guys come up and tell me you dig the zine and we rock a thoughtful conversation for however many minutes, that's when I'm filled back up with hope and the realization that 'Yes! Life doens't suck after all. Tulane is filled with real people of substance!'

Were it not for these moments, 3 speeches may have been the first and last PaperPaper publication. Because of those conversations, though, I'm more inclined to wake up each morning and start a new print project.

Plus, now that I know you're excited to read what I've made, I'm also more excited to find you out the moment I have it ready and to give you a copy. So if you haven't gotten the new issue and have not yet read the poems by C. Meinzen, Shakti, Roy de Vicio, Nathan Scott, and Evan Hanzcor, get at me. But do it soon because I've got a fresh (but small) stack of these in my bag and I see somebody I want to give one to everywhere I go.

Art by Art

ART TERRY's Super Dome Lithograph.

All I know about Art is that he's a screenprinter older than I am who rocks a beard and mustache that I someday aspire to grow. He made this print for some kind of swap project in his class where each student made an edition large enough to give a copy to all the other students. Apparently one of the dudes in his class didn't care enough to clean out his locker when the class ended so his collection of prints ended up in the scrap pile. This is how I came to own the print: by rooting through the trash.

PAPER PAPER the first

Time to pass this on one to a friend...

Props for the performers

Since classes ended Tuesday there has been a lot of excitement on campus. The usual spectrum of emotions on campus, from debauched partying to anxious studying, has been amplified tenfold making campus a very exciting place to be right now.

The two maxims of "Live to party" and "Strive to stay alive" combine to describe these last moments we have before summer begins.

Along with all the projects and tests that conclude the end of classes, there is also been a surge of FREE public performances that are the culmination of the live-arts classes. Everybody should check out whatever is planned next for Dixon Hall because I have seen two great shows there already in the past two days.

I have to shout out to the people who really rocked the stage during the African dance performance Wednesday and the Green Envy concert earlier tonight:

-Nothing made the crowd more hyped than the multiple backflips Quentin Alston did during his routine. I saw him and his dance partners outside the show before it began, sweating, anxiously waiting on their fourth man to show up. Not only was dude already an hour and half late but he was also carrying the Zulu warrior costumes that none of them had seen yet, much less danced in. So give Quentin and the other guys a pound simply because praise should be given to any dudes who have the balls to dance on stage in front of their peers dressed in grass thongs, dancing with black and white spray-painted shields that look like farm cows.

-But, honestly, they didn't really own the stage like Ellen Bull did. While some nervously adjusted their tribal robes, she took control of the performance like she was Nzinga incarnate back at the table with the Portugese. Personally I always dance best when I pretend nobody is looking at me but the smile on Ellen's face as she worked it showed she wasn't scared. She knew we had come to clap for somebody, so she must have figured that it might as well be for her.

- A Cappella groups are such a staple of colleges across the country that we tend to disregard them before a note is even sung. And its not without cause that they suffer such bad reputations: my brother was in an a cappella group in high school with four lanky dweebs who sang barbershop-quartet harmonies.

Technically a cappella songs are complicated layers of sound that take real coordination to pull off, but singing songs that were popular on 78's is asking for the scorn of your peers. And if Green Envy had started off there show with something stupid like a coffee jingle, I'm sure I wouldn't have been the only fool tempted to interrupt it by yelling obscenities.

But of course I didn't do that, just as the Green Envy avoided any and all lame music. To be perfectly honest about it, a few of the songs I would've assumed would be lame but the purity of 14 voices all singing the same thing really highlights the quality of a good composition.

For instance, Amber by 311 is a universal college favorite that I enjoyed for some years until I actually listened to the lyrics. Ever since then I can't help but to roll my eyes at the stupidity of the stoner chorus. Can you imagine actually stepping to a girl and telling her what "the color of her energy" was? I guess its different if you have a guitar in your hands but whatever...until tonight I'd forgotten that the song sounds really pleasant. And as I sat listening with my eyes closed I wondered "How in the hell is Green Envy able to actually sound just like the recorded song?" Their version would have been identical to my ears had they not made its sound better than 311 ever did. They have an awesome ability to mimic the strangest and most minute sounds in a song making themselves sound like the original band and each of its players. That mastery of complex sounds showed especially with Eleanor Rigby.

No Tulane student who has ever shaken his ass at a house party could argue with the songs they picked out: two 80's power ballads! Somebody to Love by Queen and Take on Me by A-ha (next time you see him, give James Lowther a pound for hitting that high note from the chorus. You know the one, just sing it in your head it for a second)

Also before tonight, I had heard Regina Spektor's Fidelity one too many times as a cellphone ringtone.. So Marisa Sack's version made me fall for that song all over again. And freshman Maggie Windler did a good job reviving a song that was popular when she was five year's old: Ace of Base's The Sign.

To top it off they ended with the Killer's All These Things That I've Done, which is a song that rocks, much like themselves. If you make it out to their next show I'm confident you too will be rocked. Until that next show happens, you can pick up the CD they are about to drop in August.



Or you can burn it from a friend like I plan to do.

4,000 "words"

Sunday @ 1:00, LBC pocket park

All this is to preface the performance my classmates and I will give at Pocket Park on Sunday May 4 at 1:00. There we will be performing a short theatrical production inspired by Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed we get to do in lieu of a research paper written in spanish. Check it out as we make a spectacle of ourselves.

***The sorority girls in my group would be horrified to know I'm actually promoting this event because they are already horribly embarassed by what were going to be doing.***

So come check it out!

SUNDAY 1pm
LBC Pocket Park

Super Domes & Squalor Homes

"EL NUEVO ORDEN DE NUEVO ORLEANS"
(The new order of New Orleans)

This is a flyer I've made for my Latin American Theatre class project final. The inspiration for it (and the PaprPapr tambien) comes from the newspapers, posters, and other bits of printed propaganda that the Mardi Gras Krewes throw out along their parade routes satirizing the current state of affairs.

"La Cupula Pulula!" The word for dome in spanish is 'cupula' and 'pulular' means 'to swarm or gather'.

The Superdome is the grandest of New Orleans modern landmarks. I remember as kid roadtripping with the family in mom's chrysler minivan, driving into town, and laying eyes on that massive bubble at the end of the day. After 8 hours in the car, coming from Nashville to NOLA, the city skyline was a sign of relief, encouragement that soon we'd get to our cousins house.

The most memorable crowd that ever gathered there was of course on August 29, 2005 when those who couldn't or wouldn't leave their homes, came to hunker down during Katrina. I surely wasn't there among them then and I don't have any particular memories of seeing that building on my way out of town the morning before. Crossing the Lake on I-10 and seeing how beautiful and calm the water looked is the thing that struck me as I left.

But who can imagine all the memories that monumental blister of a building must conjure with each different person in the city?

Today there is a new dome on the city's horizon. Or rather its underneath the city. Below I-10 at the end of Canal St. and along N. Carrolton St. is the new location of the city's unofficial homeless encampment. Since December, when these people were evicted from their roost out front City Park, camping tents having popped under the overpass. Everybody in the city has seen them because N. Carroloton is such a main artery to get downtown and it would be impossible not to notice them. But the street was also never a really pleasant place for pedestrians in the first place so I just zoom by in my car, staring to the left for a moment to wonder, then they're passed by and I'm back on my way with the air-condition on, the windows up, and my music blaring for nobody but me to hear.

What's going to happen to these people? We all want to know (or at least I say I do) but I haven't sought out the answers for myself. What happened to these people in the first place? Its easy to surmise when I see all the storm wrecked neighborhoods that have stood in disrepair for the past two and half years (now closer to 3 really).

Probably they were residents of these areas, people who never ever imagined they might be forced out on to the streets. Or maybe their homes didn't flood and received only minor wind damage but they were told they couldn't move back in because their housing project would better serve the city if it was reduced to rubble.

There is a lot to wonder about in New Orleans today. Why are the housing projects being torn down while people who need to be housed are sleeping under the streets? How is it possible that a group of people can be so close up in front of me can remain invisible? What will have happened when they truly do disappear as the local government keeps promising each week?

NOLA residents can't wait and see...

Hey Kids! 1993 FEMA coloring book!!!

I just found this little gem in the recycling bin at the library.

Protesting is dead

President Bush is in town today and tomorrow (April 21 & 22)
I found this out because of this flyer I received on campus last week and then again today. So today we headed downtown to see what we could see.

Although it was nice to get off campus the results were underwhelming. We found the 9 blocks enclosing Lafayette Square (between Magazine, Poydras, Carondolet, and Girod) had been blocked off . The NOPD, who really only excel at crowd control anyways, need not have bothered to come out in the numbers they did: they were hardly 5 protesters (ie: people with signs) and mostly they just milled around with the press and the cops behind multiple barriers.

Who in this city really has the resolve to protest anyway? Anybody actually making a comeback in this city by now knows not to depend on the help of any of the local, state, or federal governments for help. So what would be the use in wasting ones energy anyways to gripe at President who only excels at ignoring criticism?

I sound cynical writing this but I believe less in less in the traditional methods of protests today. Ever since the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, the images I've seen in newspapers and magazines of "protests" have been the same shot of a dude (or dudette) with dreads and drums and riot police with tear gas.

I would like to see and hear new methods people have come up with to have their frustrations seen and heard and acted upon. Get at me please.

- Bud R.


"The South, the nation, and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
-Martin Luther King Jr. (A Letter from a Birmingham Jail)

Notes from Salman Rushdie's Speech

Paper*Paper would like to thank Jason Rich for taking these notes from Salman Rushdie's speech in Dixon Hall on April 7.

Conglomerate of News Corporations = Bad News

All said and done, its really a rather bad time to be starting up a new newspaper. But this article about CBS borrowing reporting from CNN has me convinced about the need for more and disparate sources to report on more and disparate news stories. Its scary enough
that last year Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal for 5 billion dollars but news sources have been combing for years now. The Gannett Co. owns and publishes USA Today as well over 90 other newspapers, including my hometown paper, the Tennessean, both of which are terrible reading.

So what am I getting at here? Whats to be done? I'm not really sure other than I need to read more.

Buddha put it well when he said this:

"Believe nothing,
no matter where you read it
or who has said it,
not even if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason
and your common sense."

CBS and CNN collaborating does not agree with my common sense.

-Bud R.

READ THIS!!!!!! READ THIS!!!!!!

Here we present to you, ladies and gentlemen, the first and only written response Paper*Paper has received about the inaugural. Sure to enrage and inspire and published untouched and unedited just as I received it, this is what Roy B. has to say: