Binomen Art - Cycas revoluta

We always get Sago Palm (Cycas revoluta) envy when we see one ‘casually’ growing somewhere. (It reminds of the measly Sago Palm we nursed along for several seasons that never amounted to much.) Anyway, this specimen was growing in a Henderson Nevada backyard. For this binomen project, we had two young helpers who decided on how to write out the genus name. They took apart one leaf (which you might be tempted to call a frond) and cut off leaflets that come out from the center spine of the leaf (which you might be tempted to call a pinna – as in a fern). Rocks were needed to hold down the leaflets in the wind.

C. revoluta is not a true palm, but a cycad, one of the five divisions of seed plants which includes cycads, gingko, conifers, gnetophytes, and flower plants. Cycads are found in many subtropical and tropical parts of the world.

According to CRC/Quattrocchi the genus name Cycas comes from the Greek name for a kind of palm, kykas, koikas, koix. Online Etymology chalks it up to a scribal error: “Mod. L. name, from Gk. kykas, a word found in Theophrastus, but now thought to be a scribal error for koikas ‘palm trees,’ accusative plural of koix, a word from an unknown non-Greek language.”

The species epithet revoluta means revolute or rolled back, especially referring to the edge of a leaf. It’s hard to know whether this epithet refers to the new leaves which unfurl from the center of the plant or refers to the mature leaves which are arched.

Cycas Leaf (left) and Cycas New Leaves (right)


The Creators (left) and Cycas Leaves On the Plant – Spared

National World War II Museum, New Orleans

Operation Overload, The Plan (left) and The Fleet (right)
Yet another little surprise about New Orleans: it boasts an interesting World War II museum called the National World War II Museum. The museum is about a 20 minute walk from the French Quarter heading south by southeast.

Not only did New Orleans undoubtedly contribute to the war effort in countless ways like many cities did, it also has the distinction of being home to the boat designer and builder, Andrew Jackson Higgins. The boat commonly referred to as a Higgins boat and technically called Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (LCVP), was so crucial for landing on open beaches that General Dwight D. Eisenhower stated:

“If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach. The whole strategy of the war would have been different.”

The Higgins Boat story in the larger story of the war of course, is featured (we only made it through the Normandy Invasion, not the Pacific Theater), but it’s done in context and doesn’t overshadow the main focus which is telling of the story of Operation Overload (Battle of Normandy 1944). The museum uses photos, audio, video, and personal objects and stories covering the time leading up to the landing, the actual landing (in some detail), the first days of fighting after the landing, and the eventual retreat of the Germans from France.

Some favorite quotes we saw while visiting the museum: “Smash the Axis, Pay your taxes” (a saying during the war effort) and “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” (Prime Minister Winston Churchill said this in 1943).

Propaganda and Imagery During the War Effort

National World War II Museum Brochure

Hard Truths - The Art of Thornton Dial

Lost Cows, 2000-2001
Cow skeletons, steel, golf bag, golf ball, mirrors, enamel and Splash Zone compound
We headed to City Park on a bright and pleasant Saturday morning while in New Orleans for a few days. We took one of the branches of the Canal St. Streetcar (the red cars) to City Park. From where the street car ends (and turns around) in the park, it is just a few minutes’ walk to the New Orleans Museum of Art or NOMA. Featured at the museum when we visited was an exhibition called Hard Truths, The Art of Thornton Dial (through May 20, 2012). In the exhibition, over 40 of Dial’s large-scale paintings, drawings and found-object sculptures are featured. Thornton Dial is an American artist from Alabama whose work came to prominence in the late 1980s. From the NOMA site: “Born in poverty in Alabama, Dial has lived his entire life in the American South, and his art, informed by decades of struggle as a black working class man, offers compelling commentary on our most pervasive social and political challenges.”

The social and political “challenges” that Dial tackles are transformed into his found-object sculptures as fantastical, sometimes hard to look at, twisting and chaotic forms. The sculptures are assemblages of cast-away objects that address issues such as global conflict, African American history, and homelessness. The pieces have evocative titles like Crosses to Bear (Armageddon) 2001-2004 and Lost Cows 2000-2001 - both shown here, and The Beginning of Life in the Yellow Jungle 2003 - featured on the exhibition brochure and shown here as well. The information cards accompanying each piece are hints on how to “read” the piece. Therein lies a minor misstep of the exhibition: the hints (bullet-pointed nonetheless) are not really helpful to enjoying the piece. Rather, the hints seem forced and bit pedantic and block the viewer’s interpretation of the piece. Solution for the viewer: don’t read the explanations. Instead, let the pieces speak the “hard truths” that Dial intended them to convey.

Hard Truths Brochure

Crosses to Bear (Armageddon), 2001-2004
Steel, wire, tin, tire scraps, caret, wood, clothing, plaster hand, enamel, spray paint, and Splash Zone compound

Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb - New Orleans

In the spirit of our Italian-related travels - we end up again in a cemetery once again, but this time in New Orleans. One of the stops after Marie Laveau’s tomb in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 was the Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb. The plaque on the tomb reads:

“This architectural masterpiece is the most notable of the many multi-vaulted society tombs in the cemetery. Designed by Pietro Gualdi it was fabricated in Italy and erected in 1857 at a cost of $40,000. Ownership was ceded to the cemetery in 1986 by Loggia Dante #174, F. & M, which had acquired ownership from the Italian Society in 1949.”

A society tomb is an option where you could be buried in a tomb (not in just a wall or at all) if you or your family couldn’t afford your own tomb or if you felt a close association with the particular society. The way it worked is that you joined the society and paid dues of some kind or recurring fees so that by the time you died, you could be buried in the tomb. Society tombs are typically themed as this one is - Italian poor immigrants. Your remains in a society tomb might only remain in the initial placement in the tomb for a year and a day. As newly dead arrived and space was needed, your remains would be pushed to the back of the tomb and down into a great collective bone pile. The Italian Mutual Benevolent Society tomb is said to have space for more than 1,000 remains and is the tallest monument in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1. The statue on top is known as ‘Charity’.

Contrary to the commonly held idea that above-ground burial in New Orleans is only due to the high water table, the real reason is likely a combination of a high water table and other factors such as Spanish burial tradition and the ability of above ground tombs to accommodate a large number of dead without taking up valuable arable land.

In a different post, we talked about the feel of New Orleans and, in particular, the French Quarter. It is interesting to reflect now - after the visit - that New Orleans and surrounding parishes are not part of the protestant Bible belt that dominates religion in the south. New Orleans has a high percentage of Catholics and it is perhaps this influence that we felt familiar with and was unexpected.

Speaking of things Italian, we never made it into the Central Grocery to get a muffaletta sandwich. Che peccato! (In fact we missed the Piazza d’Italia - we may have walked by it but didn’t stop - and the American Italian Renaissance Museum & Library.) The Italian-American Central Grocery was founded in 1906 by a Sicilian immigrant, Salvatore Lupo. The muffaletta sandwich which appears on most of the menus we looked at in New Orleans was invented by Lupo. It is a sandwich made with the Sicilian muffaletta sesame bread. The vero-muffaletta always has marinated olive salad - ingredients typical of a jar of giardiniera. According to New Orleans Online, the majority of Italian immigrants to New Orleans are from Sicily and started to arrive in large numbers in the 1880s.

From Grocery to Grave? Central Grocery (left) and Charity on Top of the Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb (right)

Italian Mutual Benevolent Society Tomb – Saint Louis Cemetery #1, New Orleans

The Tomb of Marie Laveau

The tomb of Marie Laveau - the famous voodoo priestess of New Orleans - is in the Saint Louis Cemetery #1 - a short walk from the French Quarter. According to the plaque outside Saint Louis Cemetery #1 the cemetery is “[t]he oldest extant cemetery in New Orleans. Established by royal Spanish land grant August 14, 1789.” The plaque on the Marie Laveau tomb reads:

This Greek revival tomb is reputed burial place of this notorious “voodoo queen”. A mystic cult, Voodoism, of African origin, was brought to this city from Santo Domingo and flourished in the 19^th century. Marie Laveau was the most widely known of many practitioners of the cult.

Laveau’s tomb is a pediment-style tomb. For more on the types of tombs you will find in New Orleans cemeteries, go to New Orleans Cemeteries.

According to our guide (on the very interesting and highly recommended walking tour: Mondo Creole), this tomb is the second most visited tomb in the US, after the Elvis tomb. Pop culture rules. Also according to our guide, the X marks are part of a tradition to get a wish granted: get a brick from another tomb, spin around, and mark three X’s on the Laveau tomb - or something to that effect. Not something we would do, but the graffiti on the tomb caught our eye as interesting to look at – although much to the dismay of the owners of the tomb - and then this note written on the wall:

To a sister who walked this Earth. Be one, be peaceful, rest as you will and enter the cycle as it pleases you. Thank you for being. I offer my hands to share in your work as I do my own work.

In the back of our minds, on repeat was the Grant Lee Buffalo song Dixie Drug Store from the great 1993 album Fuzzy. In the song, the singer spends a night with Laveau or does he? Here are the lyrics towards the end of the song:

I shouted out for Marie
I darted out the door
An old man on the wooden porch said
What you in there for

Son you got no business
The hoodoo store's been closed
Long as I remember
A century I suppose

But Mister I just spent the night
With a young gal named Laveau
He said the Widow Paris
Done had a little laugh on you

I said you mean to tell me
That was the voodooin'
He nodded yes none other
The Queen of New Orleans

Ooh Jambalaya
Ooh Jambalaya

“Widow Paris” refers to the fact that Marie Laveau married a man named Jacques Paris. He died under unexplained circumstances - ooh jambalaya.

Marie Laveau Tomb Plaque (Left) and Saint Louis Cemetery #1 Plaque (Right)

Words of Widsom and Beads on the Marie Laveau Tomb

Nearby Tombs – Missing Bricks Used to Etch an X on Marie Laveau’s Tomb?

Voodoo Practitioners or Tourists at Marie Laveau Tomb?

X Marks the Spot on Marie Laveau’s Tomb

Binomen Art - Azara microphylla

It’s hard to imagine the intoxicating smell of Azara microphylla, especially on a warm (early) spring night, unless you have experienced it. We wrote about A. microphylla several years ago and the same plant is still going strong. This year, the fragrance was the strongest at the end of March. The tree, at about 25 feet in height, doesn’t look as scraggly as it has in past years.

According to CRC/Quattrocchi, the genus Azara honors the Spanish diplomat José Nicolás de Azara (1731 - 1804). Oddly, Wikipedia (Tanti-occhi?) says that his brother Félix Manuel de Azara (1742 - 1821) was a noted naturalist and, in particular, spent many years in South America where Azara is native. It could be that this plant was named for José but naming this plant for Félix makes more sense. The species epithet microphylla meaning small leaf is for the smallish leaves of this plant. (Azara is a munipality in the Autonomous Community of Aragon.)

We spelled out the genus name with the pliable twigs (first A), fresh leaves (Z and R), dead leaves (second A), and flower parts (third A). The species epithet is spelled out with green leaves - can you spot the misspelling? We were trying to work fast because the wind is not your friend in these impromptu spellings.

Azara microphylla Spelled Out – With Misspelling (missing an ‘H"’)

The Crown of A. microphylla and Close-Up of Branch in Flower

Azara microphylla Flowers Up Close