Culture is a funny word. We think of it mostly in terms of art or music, but it also has a molecular meaning, like what happens when bacteria is introduced to milk, producing cheese. Sourdough bread is another good example. It starts with the basics: flour and water are added to yeast and bacteria, which perform a microscopic dance of “eating, shitting, and fucking,” as a former baker at Stein’s once described the process to me. (“Not a bad life,” he mused, staring at the bubbling mixture.) Too much of any one ingredient, and you either get a flavorless lump of dough, or a putrid mess.
Zooming back out into the bigger world, I find our human-sized production of culture to be no different. When we come together as a community or civilization, our clashing ideas and customs can mix together to create something wholly new and different. With the right balance, magic happens. When that balance is out of whack, we smell disaster.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the culture of New Orleans, and how to preserve it. Other media outlets have chimed in, suggesting everything from more cops on Frenchmen, to a “night mayor,” whatever that means.
Sounds more like a nightmare to me. Sorry, but the last thing this city needs is another regulatory group, agency, or law enforcement wing to “preserve” the culture of New Orleans. These are all end-of-the-road solutions that completely ignore the fundamental issues confronting the culture-bearers of this city, treating their output as if it’s some delicate thing, ever in need of encasement and special protection. This kind of thinking is what gets the faces of a few select Mardi Gras Indians or brass bands plastered across high-dollar ad campaigns, while pushing these same people (and the communities they come from) further and further away.
The vast majority of artists I know are not a special class of people. By day, they are working bartenders and carpenters, teachers and waiters, dishwashers and pedicabbers. And what they need—what we need—more than anything, is a living wage, affordable housing, and public transportation that works—not some feel-good band-aid that maybe puts a few extra dollars in a musician’s pocket. We need affordable healthcare and childcare, not more leniency with loading zones (which is a nice gesture, but c’mon). What if it was easier to get around town to see shows? What if the residents of this city, so many of them working class and service industry themselves, were paid a wage that allowed them to spend more money on their neighbors’ art, rather than us dependinging on the ever-increasing hordes of tourists? Provide these basic needs, and this city’s artists will take care of the rest, bubbling over with all kinds of beautiful creations. Not a bad life, indeed. —Dan Fox
October 2018 New Orleans Film Fest cover by Sly Watts
photo still this page from the multi-media installation 6: An Unbirth
showing at this year’s New Orleans Film Festival
