ENTERTAINMENT NEWSThe latest entertainment updates from New Orleans and South Louisiana
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ENTERTAINMENT
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Al 'Carnival Time' Johnson Celebrates 69 years
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'Bourbon and Burlesque' strike the C.A.C.
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Mules, movies and music on Frenchmen Street, June 18, 2008
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New Orleans at its Essence
by Ann Maloney, A&E editor, The Times-Picayune
Wednesday July 02, 2008, 6:00 PM
Chris Rock is sure to be a big draw when he hits the stage at Essence Music Festival on Sunday night.The music coming from the stages at the Essence Music Festival may sound a bit more familiar than usual as the "party with a purpose" draws on plenty of local talent this year. We checked in with "Big Sam" Williams, who will bring his Funky Nation to a super-lounge stage tonight and gathered other highlights (Music, Page 14).
Continue reading "New Orleans at its Essence" »
Post a comment | View commentsMusic highlights for July 3
by Keith Spera, Music writer, The Times-Picayune
Thursday July 03, 2008, 5:00 AM
THURSDAY, July 3
The "Summer of Love 40th Anniversary Concert: A Salute to the New Orleans Pop Festival" in Fontainebleau State Park on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain features Jefferson Starship (guitarist Paul Kantner's version of the band), Big Brother & The Holding Company, Quicksilver Messenger Service, It's A Beautiful Day (featuring David & Linda Laflamme and New Orleans guitarist Billy Gregory) and the JJ Muggler Band with special guest JoJo Billingsley of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Also Thursday, clarinetist Michael White fronts his traditional jazz band at Snug Harbor. It's Zydeco Night with Keith Frank at the Mid-City Lanes. Marc Stone & West Bank Mike team up for an early set at the Old Point Bar.
Patriotic parfaits and other red-white-and-blue food for Independence Day
by Judy Walker, Food editor, The Times-Picayune
Thursday July 03, 2008, 4:45 AM
Exchange AlleyStarry starry shortcake: Use a large star-shaped cookie cutter to make stars (instead of rounds) from your favorite shortcake biscuit dough. Layer with blueberries, strawberries and whipped cream.
Flag cake: Bake a white cake in a 9-by-13-inch pan and spread with white icing. Use blueberries to represent the blue corner of the flag and sliced strawberries for red stripes. Further embellishment -- such as coconut between the lines of strawberries, or white chocolate chips between the blueberries -- is OK but not essential.
Fruit salad: Make small watermelon balls and combine with blueberries. Sprinkle with a little lime juice (or Cointreau). Whipped cream is an optional topping.
Patriotic parfaits : Make layers of strawberries or watermelon balls, blueberries and whipped topping. (And, yes, you can make the bottom layer blue Jell-O.)
Continue reading "Patriotic parfaits and other red-white-and-blue food for Independence Day" »Gertrude and Alice, together again at Marigny Theatre
by David Cuthbert, Theater writer, The Times-Picayune
Friday July 04, 2008, 4:30 AM
As the poet herself might have put it, "A play is a play is a play is a play." Or, in the case of "Gertrude Stein and a Companion" at Marigny Theatre: "Miss Stein upon the stage; engage."
Karen Shields, top, plays Gertrude Stein to Lisa Davis' Alice B. Toklas in 'Gertrude Stein and a Com´panion' at Marigny Theatre.
It's not hard to do with Win Wells' entertaining portrait of one of the most successful gay unions of the 20th century, that of avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein and her lover/muse/secretary/enabler of almost 40 years, Alice B. Toklas, of the famous hashish brownies.
The title comes from Ernest Hemingway, who liked Miss Stein quite a bit and Miss Toklas not at all, a feeling that was reciprocated. Later, the press found the phrase useful when the couple toured America after the publication of Stein's critical and commercial success, "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" (Stein writing in Toklas' voice, somewhat revised by Toklas as she typed Stein's handwritten manuscript).
Continue reading "Gertrude and Alice, together again at Marigny Theatre" »Get out and celebrate this weeekend
by Keith I. Marszalek, NOLA.com
Thursday July 03, 2008, 8:39 AM
No fewer than 17 area festivals pepper the region this weekend as folks prepare to enjoy four-days of fun in the sun.
From the Essence Music Festival at the New Orleans Superdome to the French Quarter's "Go Fourth on the River," and Mandeville's Seafood Festival, this is a weekend with something for everyone.
Entertainment mogul, Tyler Perry, a New Orleans native, will receive key to city Friday during Essence Festival
by Dave Walker, TV Columnist, The Times-Picayune Thursday July 03, 2008, 4:30 AM
Tyler Perry, will receive a key to the city of New Orleans on the Fourth of July at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.Independence Day is the perfect day for New Orleans and the Essence Music Festival to honor Tyler Perry.
A New Orleans native who's gone on to become a multimedia entertainment mogul, Perry is scheduled to receive the key to the city from Mayor Ray Nagin on Friday at about 11 a.m. during a "Tyler Perry and Friends" seminar at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
That auspicious event will be bracketed by tributes, interviews, screenings and contests -- all revolving around Perry and his work, which includes writing, directing and acting in stage plays, movies and on TV.
Among the day's highlights -- full schedule: www.essence.com -- will be a 3:30 p.m. panel interview with the cast of the TBS comedy "Tyler Perry's House of Payne."
Also a best-selling author, Perry has made himself a force in show business by working almost entirely independently from it.
Continue reading "Entertainment mogul, Tyler Perry, a New Orleans native, will receive key to city Friday during Essence Festival" »This week's Food section is a tribute to the Fourth of July
by Judy Walker, Food editor, The Times-Picayune
Thursday July 03, 2008, 8:59 AM
This week in the Food pages, Ann Maloney gives us a sumptuous bounty of non-traditional potato salad recipes perfect for that Fourth of July cookout! (You'll be so glad you tried the Sweet potato salad.) For the kid in all of us, Exchange Alley has ideas for easy red, white and blue foods, as well as recipes for a lucious low-fat Lemon buttermilk ice cream, Frozen margarita pie and a recipe from the long-gone restaurant Marti's, for Salad Nicoise. Marcelle Bienvenu gives her favorite fig recipes, including one for pizza with goat cheese, proscuitto and figs, as well as old favorites: two kinds of fig preserves and her favorite fig cake.
More in Food and Dining:
• Forums: Recipe Swap | Wine and Beer | N.O. Restaurant Talk
• Search: Find a restaurant
• The Times-Picayune recipe archive (over 800 recipes)
• Sing up for Judy Walker's weekly newsletter 'Eating In'
Free yourself from old-fashioned potato salad this Fourth of July
by Ann Maloney, Staff writer, The Times-Picayune
Thursday July 03, 2008, 5:00 AM
Potato salad is a personal thing. Following the family recipe -- one handed down from mother to child -- was essential in my tribe. We would no more think of leaving out the olives or adding green beans than we would think of celebrating the Fourth of July without fireworks.
And potato salad without mayonnaise?
Unheard of.
This holiday put a new twist on that old-fashioned potato salad recipe.Potato salad is time-consuming to create, especially for my clan. I am the youngest of eight children, so making enough for a group that size (add in in-laws, grandchildren and friends) meant my mother would have two big pots of spuds boiling on the stove, with more than a dozen eggs and lots of hands on deck for the dicing and chopping of pickles, olives and celery.
The salad would be placed in a huge bowl, and I can remember my mother calling on my father to start the mixing process because it required a bit of elbow grease. Even though it was a big task, we never stinted on ingredients.
'Hittin' the Town' for Thursday, July 3, 2008
by Keith I. Marszalek, NOLA.com
Wednesday July 02, 2008, 11:56 PM
The Summer of Love is reborn on the Northshore, Dr. Michael White plays Frenchmen, A Fish Called Wanda is screened pool-side and Bill Davis rocks the Ogden.
Continue reading "'Hittin' the Town' for Thursday, July 3, 2008" »'AP's' Top 5 in entertainment
by The Associated Press
Wednesday July 02, 2008, 9:23 AM
Rocker Bon Jovi ranks No. 1 on this week's top tour list provided by Pollstar.See if your favorites made this week's list.
Continue reading "'AP's' Top 5 in entertainment" »This week in the Reading Life...
by Susan Larson, Book Editor, The Times-Picayune
Wednesday July 02, 2008, 9:05 AM
This week in The Reading Life, we take wing with Baton Rouge Advocate columnist Danny Heitman's "Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House," a beautifully written account of the artist's transformative time in Louisiana. Provocateur Robert Olen Butler is back with a new collection of stories, "Intercourse," which imagines 57 couples caught in the act. Jason Berry reviews David Lida's new book, "First Stop in the New World," an inside look at Mexico City.
More in books . . .
• Hot reads: What's new in bookstores
• A calendar for the bibliophile
Quarter dig explores cathedral's garden
by Bruce Eggler, the Times-Picayune
Wednesday July 02, 2008, 8:37 AM
Dig a hole in a garden behind an old church and you probably would not be surprised to find fragments from religious statues, bits of stained glass, marbles, pieces of broken dolls, even old pottery and jewelry.
| St. Louis Cathedral Archaeological Dig |
'Hittin' the Town' for Wednesday, July 2, 2008
by Keith I. Marszalek, NOLA.com
Tuesday July 01, 2008, 11:55 PM
Vic Shepherd swings-out in Mid-City and Washboard Chaz brings the blues to Frenchmen Street.
Continue reading "'Hittin' the Town' for Wednesday, July 2, 2008" »Jammin' generosity of two families places guitars in the hands of young rockers
by Chris Rose, Columnist, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday July 01, 2008, 5:00 AM
Dinerral Shavers, 8, left, Darrel Allen, 8, and Khalid Allen,12, check out their new instruments. On Thursday, June 26, the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund gave away 20 guitars to both young and well established musicians in town. (see photos)Let us pause to consider, once again, the kindness of strangers.
There is a young woman in the north Chicago suburbs -- Wilmette, Ill., to be exact -- who cooked up a rather unorthodox plan to celebrate a hallowed rite of passage in her life.
Her name is Mel Racenstein and, as her bat mitzvah approached this past May 31, she told her parents that she would like to forgo the bundle of cash and gifts that generally attend the Jewish celebration of a young woman's entrance into adulthood and, instead, would like to buy -- of all things -- a bunch of guitars for kids in New Orleans.
At the very same time, a couple of kids from the Discher family in Wheaton, a western suburb of Chicago, decided to canvass their neighborhood residents and businesses, soliciting donations for a trip they planned to take with their family to New Orleans this month.
Continue reading "Jammin' generosity of two families places guitars in the hands of young rockers" »'Hittin' the Town' for Tuesday, July 1, 2008
by Keith I. Marszalek, NOLA.com
Monday June 30, 2008, 11:58 PM
Alex McMurray brings the Royal Fingerbowl to the stage
Continue reading "'Hittin' the Town' for Tuesday, July 1, 2008" »'Hittin' the Town' for Monday, June 30, 2008
by Keith I. Marszalek, NOLA.com
Monday June 30, 2008, 6:11 PM
Tom Jones dusts of the leather pants for a two night stint in N.O.
Continue reading "'Hittin' the Town' for Monday, June 30, 2008" »
- NOLA'S BEST BETS
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The Summer of Love is reborn on the Northshore, Dr. Michael White plays Frenchmen, A Fish Called Wanda is screened pool-side and Bill Davis rocks the Ogden.
- » The complete week
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- More music: Keith Spera's 'Hot Picks'
- ESSENCE MUSIC FESTIVAL
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• Essence expects to match last year's attendance 10:33 a.m. CT
• DJ Soul Sister steps up to the big stage at Essence 4:37 p.m. CT
• 'Big Sam' Williams brings his Funky Nation to Essence 5:25 p.m. CT
• Photo: Essence empowerment seminars start with youth rally 2:25 p.m. CT
• African American museum tour starts in New Orleans 2:22 p.m. CT
- FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
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- • Greater Mandeville Seafood Festival, July 2-6, Mandeville, La.
- • Go Fourth on the River, July 4, New Orleans, La.
- • Essence Music Festival, July 4-6, New Orleans, La.
- • More Fourth of July celebrations, July 4, Louisiana
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Cool internet stuff our pals passed along
• Cookie Monster makes surprise appearance on Colbert Report 10:48 a.m. CT
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- AP ENTERTAINMENT NEWS
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The latest entertainment news from the Associated Press
• Rachael Ray employee claims anorexia bias 7/3/2008, 6:17 p.m. CDT
• Just how close 'friends' are Madonna and A-Rod? 7/3/2008, 6:06 p.m. CDT
• Brinkley: Husband's affair 'shattered' my life 7/3/2008, 5:47 p.m. CDT
• Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dead at 83 7/3/2008, 5:14 p.m. CDT
• Paisley says working with Griffith a highlight 7/3/2008, 4:48 p.m. CDT
• Priestley says music industry 'a mess' but works 7/3/2008, 4:05 p.m. CDT
• Spielberg group gives $1M to Pa. Jewish museum 7/3/2008, 4:01 p.m. CDT
