opinion
THEOLOGY V. FREEDOM
The 265th pope of the Catholic Church was a hard-line conservative who tried to root out corruption and abuse—but retreated from the battle when it mattered most.
Jason Berry is the producer and director of City of a Million Dreams, a documentary that explores the evolution of New Orleans through jazz funerals and is based on the book of the same title.
GRIT LIT
She works a day job teaching college students how Southern blues artists changed the course of Southern literature. By night, she works the club circuit as a band leader.
DIFFERENT SOLUTIONS
America has 50 million more guns than its 344.4 million people—a figure stratospherically beyond that of any other country.
WORLD BOOGIE IS COMING
The late New Orleans keyboard genius is celebrated in two new recordings.
NOW IT’S OK TO BE AN A**HOLE
A new book maps the now normal hellscape of bigotry and misinformation countenanced by Trump and nurtured and curated by the radical right.
THREE TIMES SEVEN, GIRL
As the city emerges from the pandemic, Tipitina’s kept the sounds moving with a mail-order club for vinyl recordings of local legends.
on the road again
New books by the musician Chris Thomas King and the scholar Imani Perry search out the roots of America’s most indigenous music and the culture that nurtured it.
struttin' with the force
The walking krewe melds “Star Wars,” miscellaneous sci-fi entities, and assorted other fantasies to light up New Orleans during Carnival season.
EPIC JOURNEY
The first Native American poet laureate has married writing to a spiritual quest, and she plays a mean saxophone.
SACRED GROUND
A NOLA historian and filmmaker reflects on the latest threat—this one from city government—to the beating heart of Black culture in the Crescent City.