Lyn LeJeune's Posts - CrimeSpace2024-03-28T14:13:41ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitudehttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/60985225?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://crimespace.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=Beatitude&xn_auth=noThe Beatitudes - first chapter posted at www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.comtag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-10-25:537324:BlogPost:860562007-10-25T13:36:13.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
<p>Here's a taste and then you can go to my blog and read the chapter. Remember, if you decide to purchase the book, ALL ROYALTIES GO TO REBUILD THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF NEW ORLEANS. Libraries, where books live.</p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Times New Roman">I…</font></span></b></p>
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<p>Here's a taste and then you can go to my blog and read the chapter. Remember, if you decide to purchase the book, ALL ROYALTIES GO TO REBUILD THE PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF NEW ORLEANS. Libraries, where books live.</p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt"><font face="Times New Roman">I</font></span></b></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><font size="3"> </font><b><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt">THE PURE OF HEART</span></i></b></font></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">To course across more kindly waters now</span></i></font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">My talent’s little vessel lifts her sails,</font></span></i></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">leaving behind herself a sea so cruel; </font></span></i></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> Dante, <i>Purgatorio</i> </font></span></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">My best friend Pinch was murdered while I slept. The police reported that she was caught off guard, snuck up on, as Pinch would have said. I don’t believe that for one blasted minute. I</font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">know she looked her killer in the eye, sized him up, laughed, then spit in his face. It all happened before my very eyes; I had dreamed about her death over the past year. The first dream came the morning after the murder of the first foster child. Marisa was found fully clothed, wrapped in a pink swaddling blanket, as though dreaming of many tomorrows and games and parties and toys; and then eight more dreams, eight more foster children murdered, all left on the trolleys of New Orleans; then again the same dream after the presumed murderer had been arrested; and finally the last one, after I had lost my job, accused of negligence in the care of two of the slain children under my charge. And when Pinch was butchered, my dream coming horrifyingly true, my life spinning out of control, I had, for the second time in my life, lost everything, lost control, was unwittingly blown away by the winds of a dispassionate fate. Or so I thought at the time.</font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">Pinch, born Earline Washington, had been my friend and colleague in the social work department located in Greater New Orleans for almost five years. In a bureaucracy that seemed always under siege, its employees ceaselessly dispirited, Earline was one of the few welcoming faces I encountered when I started my first day as a social worker. I had the feeling that I had walked into a hive of Sisyphean slaves; but this woman’s splendid, dark face, embellished with green eyes and an earnest smile, captivated me immediately. My innate and all-consuming reticence vanished. It seemed a natural coming together, our early fraternity, as though we were soul mates. She called me <i>Hannah love</i>, and then our relationship grew to perfect friendship. We read each others’ thoughts, knew when the melancholy clouds of sorrow from our pasts had suddenly descended upon us, even as the bright nimbus of southern nights beckoned. All of my life I had experienced Sundowner’s Syndrome, but with Pinch the carmine shadows of evening became an event not without hope. We shared our failures as potential social saviors, but never allowed each other to give up. </font></font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">She had grown up in a New Orleans housing project shamefully named Desire. Desire had been constructed in an isolated area northwest of greater New Orleans, bordered by industrial canals and railroad tracks. Pinch often recounted her nights as a young child lying on the floor under a matted blanket listening to gunshots in the night. Desire had been built in the late 40s over the Hideaway Club where Fats Domino had played his first gigs. Pinch swore she could hear Fats sing “My Blue Heaven” just for her. As Pinch’s childhood tumbled forward, she learned survival skills. By the age of twelve, she had tried just about every street drug going and stole to keep from going hungry, acquiring the nickname Pinch. She would have been doomed to a child’s death but for the help of an aged aunt. Pinch pulled herself up, finished high school, and made it through college by working sometimes two shifts as a housekeeper in seedy hotels that bordered the Ninth Ward. A city auditor once asked her why she hadn’t worked in the Lafayette Square District or the famous 625 St. Charles suites. “You could have paid for a Ph.D. with the tips alone.” And she replied: “Well, I guess ‘dis sista just feeling mo’ secure wid da brothers. Ozanam Inn be my place, homeless peoples and all.” Then she rubbed his arm. The poor guy broke out in a sweat, brushed his thinning hair back with an aged-spotted trembling hand, and looked at me for intervention. Later I asked Pinch why she’d stuck it to the auditor; she shrugged her shoulders and replied: “I guess just every once and a while I have to remind myself where I come from. Pride has many forms, love.” Pinch had overcome. She was the bravest person I ever knew.</font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">My name is Hannah DuBois. I grew up on the banks of the bayous that run between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This area was once God’s breeding ground, for it held the muck and stuff from which life evolved. But by the end of the Reagan Administration, fouled by oil, gas, and the rapacious march of progress, it came to be called Cancer Alley. My grandparents did not speak English, and my mother stopped talking altogether the night my father went to town for a beer and never came back. Like Pinch, I grew up poor; I was sixteen before I ate pizza, and saved almost every dime I made. I moved to New Orleans soon after my mother died, leaving the only home I had ever known; I exchanged the precious land for the urban jungle. My grandparents had left me a little money and a small monthly income from the Standard Gas Company, so I kept my promise to my long-gone father and enrolled in college. All of my money went to school and rent, and it seemed my hunger was unending. You can eat well in New Orleans if you find the right places, places where food was cheap, good and abundant. But I also loved junk food. I guess any food. My pockets were stuffed with crackers and sugar, mustard, and ketchup packets from fast food joints. “Want not” was my motto. So Pinch nicknamed me Scrimp. We made quite a pair. </font></font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">In May of 2005, the New Orleans Social Services Department finally got divine guidance and mandated that all social workers had to have a partner. The division called it “the buddy system.” The new directive came as a result of what the <i>Times-Picayune</i> dubbed The Foster Child Murders. Nine children had been murdered in the last year; “suffocated tenderly,” said the Medical Examiner, “their baby bodies placed in the back seat of the city’s trolleys.” He continued in his clinically obtuse, yet lyrical, way, for which he was famous: “Fragile spirits fluttering into the moss latticed oaks, riding to God on the St. Charles line.” The children had already endured endless and unexplainable pain during their short time among brutal adults. Sexual abuse, torture, starvation, all criminal in their lack of connection with life. One of the trolley drivers, a black man who had worked the St. Charles Line for over forty years and had witnessed life on the mean streets, broke down in front of the cameras and wept. He said he saw a fine mist swirl around the child he had found, a little black girl of eight years old, the “dancing fog” vanishing into popping fireflies as he approached her. The same Medical Examiner, always around for public events, used the word “reposed,” saying that in all his years of working on the most vicious murders, this was the first time he was truly terrified. “When I cut them open,” he told a reporter, “I saw their little souls rise up, and then I heard a child giggle.” His name was Harlan Boudreaux and he retired after autopsying the ninth child.</font></p>
<p/><p/><p/><p/><p/>A Cajun Halloween Party -they did it for Harry Potter, They can do it for Pinch & Scrimptag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-09-23:537324:BlogPost:747872007-09-23T02:15:31.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">HALLOWEEN PARTIES BUILD NEW ORLEANS LIBRARIES. You did it for Harry Potter, you can do it for PINCH & SCRIMP!</font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Bonjour, my Friends; it’s me, Lyn LeJeune, author of…</font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">HALLOWEEN PARTIES BUILD NEW ORLEANS LIBRARIES. You did it for Harry Potter, you can do it for PINCH & SCRIMP!</font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Bonjour, my Friends; it’s me, Lyn LeJeune, author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">The Beatitudes</span></i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">Book I</span></i> in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">New Orleans Trilogy</span></i>. As you may remember, I am donating ALL of the royalties from the sale of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">The Beatitudes</span></i> (amazon.com! and all fine booksellers, on and off line)) directly to the New Orleans Public Library Foundation to help rebuild the public libraries. My organization is called The Beatitudes Network- Rebuilding the Public Libraries of New Orleans(</font><a href="http://www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com/"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#800080">www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com</font></a><font face="Times New Roman">). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">The Beatitudes</span></i> is about New Orleans, a voodoo priestess (Scrimp, aka Hannah DuBois), a heroic ghost (Pinch, aka Earline Washington), a secret society that is trying to take over New Orleans, and a host of supernatural and paranormal characters that haunt, eat, kill, and seek redemption. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Mon Dieu!</i></font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Halloween is coming and I am here to give you the ingredients for a</b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">supreme supernatural Halloween party</span>.</i> You will have fun and you will help rebuild the public libraries of New Orleans. Ready?</b></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Buy as many copies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">The Beatitudes</span></i> as you can. Read one, and use the others as prizes for contests such as the best costume (Pinch, Scrimp, Romeo, Harlan Boudreaux, n’est pas juste characters), the best reading from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="COLOR: red">The Beatitudes</span></i>, the best horror or ghosts story about New Orleans. Let your imagination run wild. <u style="text-underline: words">Your guess will know that their participation is helping to rebuild the libraries of New Orleans. Hell, they may even buy some of the books themselves. (email me at <a href="mailto:lynlejeune@cox.net"><font color="#0000FF">lynlejeune@cox.net</font></a> for Readers’ Discussion Questions or to book an event where I cook Cajun!)</u></font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Here are some of my Cajun/New Orleans recipes you can serve at your party; very ghoulish and bloody mixes.</font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">PEPPER SAUCE ( Satan’s Holy Water)</font></b></p>
<h1 style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" size="3">Fill a clean jar or bottle with jalapeno peppers and then pour in white vinegar to</font></h1>
<p class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0in"><font face="Times New Roman">almost the top. Add ½ cup of salt. You may add whole cloves of garlic and dill for taste. Cap or use a cork stopper. Store in icebox at least overnight or best ready for use after about one week. Pepper Sauce will last for a</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">very long time in the frig.! Use it to add zest to gumbos and stew and soups, adding a few drops at a time as to your taste.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">SAUCE PIQUANTE (blood of a virgin)</font></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">¼ cup vegetable oil</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l9 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">5 large fresh tomatoes, chopped</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 lb can stewed tomatoes</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l12 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 tablespoons tomato paste</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 cup chopped yellow onion</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1in"><font face="Times New Roman">½ cup chopped green onion tops</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">2 cloves of minced garlic</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1in"><font face="Times New Roman">¼ cup chopped parsley</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1in"><font face="Times New Roman">½ cup chopped green pepper</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1in"><font face="Times New Roman">¼ cup minced jalapeno or other hot pepper</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">3 cups water</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l6 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">4 hit sauce, red pepper and salt to taste</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">In large skillet sauté yellow onions, chopped tomatoes, garlic and minced hot peppers in vegetable oil until yellow onion starts to lightly brown. Add stewed tomato, tomato paste, water, chopped green onion tops, green pepper, hot sauce, pepper and salt to taste. Stir well so that paste thickens mixture. Cover and cook over low heat for about one hour. Turn off heat and add parsley. Let stand for about one-half hour before using.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">Sauce Piquante is used mostly for sauce-baked dishes, such as the sauce poured over whole baked red snapper or chicken. The sauce is poured over cooked rice as the side dish. Or in a large skillet, chicken cut in pieces is browned and then the piquante is poured over the chicken and simmered for about an hour. Serve over rice. Sauce Piquante has many uses as the cook wishes to spice up meals. It can even be used as a barbecue sauce when allowed to thicken adequately to stick to the meat or vegetables.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">JAMBALAYA (The Voodoo Princess collected body parts)</font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">¼ cup vegetable oil</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 lb boneless chicken breast cut into bite-sized pieces</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l8 level1 lfo6; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">2 lbs sausage sliced into bite-sized pieces</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">½ lb ground round</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l7 level2 lfo4; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 cup chopped celery</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l4 level2 lfo5; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 cup chopped yellow onions</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">4 cloves of garlic, minced</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo7; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 cup of Sauce Piquante mix</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l13 level1 lfo7; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">2 cups water</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">½ cup chopped green onion tops</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">½ cup chopped parsley</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo8; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 teaspoon red pepper</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo9; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 teaspoon black pepper</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo9; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">2 teaspoons hot sauce or to taste</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo9; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">3 cups uncooked rice</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">In large pot, combine ground round and vegetable oil and cook until ground round is slightly browned. Add chicken and sausage and cook until all meat is combined and browned. Add celery, onions, garlic and cook for about five minutes or until onions start to turn brown. Add water, Sauce Piquante mix, black and red pepper and hot sauce. Cook for about five minutes. Add rice and turn to low heat and cover. Cook until rice is tender and all liquid is gone. Gradually stir in onion tops and parsley and let set for about five minutes in the pot. Serve immediately.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">Shrimp may be substituted for chicken, or you may us any combination of seafood, including oysters, and meats and poultry as you wish. As an added taste, add one-quarter cup of the okra paste at the same time you add the rice.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">SHRIMP AND OKRA GUMBO (guts and gory)</font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo9; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">4 lbs peeled and deveined medium shrimp</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l5 level1 lfo8; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">2 quarts water</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l11 level1 lfo10; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 cup okra paste</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l10 level1 lfo11; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 cup finely chopped yellow onion</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l10 level1 lfo11; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">2 tablespoons roux mix</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">¼ cup celery</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in; TEXT-INDENT: -0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo12; tab-stops: list 2.0in"><font face="Times New Roman">1 large, ripe tomato, minced</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 1.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">¼ cup chopped parsley</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2in"><font face="Times New Roman">salt, red pepper and pepper sauce to taste</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">In large pot, pour in water and bring to boil, add okra paste and roux and cook until liquid starts to thicken. Turn down heat to low and add onion, celery, and tomato, cooking for about one-half hour, stirring so that mixture does not stick to bottom of pot. Add shrimp and cook for another fifteen minutes, but no more that twenty as that would make the shrimp too rubbery. Turn heat off and add parsley. Serve in large bowls with cooked rice.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">This gumbo recipe is very versatile. Sausage, oysters, crab or chicken may be used either together or mixed and matched. The oil riggers that Inez cooked for especially liked sausage and oyster gumbo.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Excerpt from THE BEATITUDES – Introducing PINCH & SCRIMP</font></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 2.5in; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="FONT-SIZE: 18pt">I</span></b></font></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt">THE PURE OF HEART</span></i></b></font></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">To course across more kindly waters now</span></i></font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">My talent’s little vessel lifts her sails,</font></span></i></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><i><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman">leaving behind herself a sea so cruel; </font></span></i></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; tab-stops: 343.5pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><font face="Times New Roman"> Dante, <i>Purgatorio</i> </font></span></p>
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<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font face="Times New Roman">My best friend Pinch was murdered while I slept. The police reported that she was caught off guard, snuck up on, as Pinch would have said. I don’t believe that for one blasted minute. I know she looked her killer in the eye, sized him up, laughed, then spit in his face. It all happened before my very eyes; I had dreamed about her death over the past year. The first dream came the morning after the murder of the first foster child. Marisa was found fully clothed, wrapped in a pink swaddling blanket, as though dreaming of many tomorrows and games and parties and toys; and then eight more dreams, eight more foster children murdered, all left on the trolleys of New Orleans; then again the same dream after the presumed murderer had been arrested; and finally the last one, after I had lost my job, accused of negligence in the care of two of the slain children under my charge. And when Pinch was butchered, my dream coming horrifyingly true, my life spinning out of control, I had, for the second time in my life, lost everything, lost control, was unwittingly blown away by the winds of a dispassionate fate. Or so I thought at the time.</font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font face="Times New Roman">Pinch, born Earline Washington, had been my friend and colleague in the social work department located in Greater New Orleans for almost five years. In a bureaucracy that seemed always under siege, its employees ceaselessly dispirited, Earline was one of the few welcoming faces I encountered when I started my first day as a social worker. I had the feeling that I had walked into a hive of Sisyphean slaves; but this woman’s splendid, dark face, embellished with green eyes and an earnest smile, captivated me immediately. My innate and all-consuming reticence vanished. It seemed a natural coming together, our early fraternity, as though we were soul mates. She called me <i>Hannah love</i>, and then our relationship grew to perfect friendship. We read each others’ thoughts, knew when the melancholy clouds of sorrow from our pasts had suddenly descended upon us, even as the bright nimbus of southern nights beckoned. All of my life I had experienced Sundowner’s Syndrome, but with Pinch the carmine shadows of evening became an event not without hope. We shared our failures as potential social saviors, but never allowed each other to give up. </font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">She had grown up in a New Orleans housing project shamefully named Desire. Desire had been constructed in an isolated area northwest of greater New Orleans, bordered by industrial canals and railroad tracks. Pinch often recounted her nights as a young child lying on the floor under a matted blanket listening to gunshots in the night. Desire had been built in the late 40s over the Hideaway Club where Fats Domino had played his first gigs. Pinch swore she could hear Fats sing “My Blue Heaven” just for her. As Pinch’s childhood tumbled forward, she learned survival skills. By the age of twelve, she had tried just about every street drug going and stole to keep from going hungry, acquiring the nickname Pinch. She would have been doomed to a child’s death but for the help of an aged aunt. Pinch pulled herself up, finished high school, and made it through college by working sometimes two shifts as a housekeeper in seedy hotels that bordered the Ninth Ward. A city auditor once asked her why she hadn’t worked in the Lafayette Square District or the famous 625 St. Charles suites. “You could have paid for a Ph.D. with the tips alone.” And she replied: “Well, I guess ‘dis sista just feeling mo’ secure wid da brothers. Ozanam Inn be my place, homeless peoples and all.” Then she rubbed his arm. The poor guy broke out in a sweat, brushed his thinning hair back with an aged-spotted trembling hand, and looked at me for intervention. Later I asked Pinch why she’d stuck it to the auditor; she shrugged her shoulders and replied: “I guess just every once and a while I have to remind myself where I come from. Pride has many forms, love.” Pinch had overcome. She was the bravest person I ever knew.</font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; TEXT-ALIGN: justify"><font face="Times New Roman">My name is Hannah DuBois. I grew up on the banks of the bayous that run between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. This area was once God’s breeding ground, for it held the muck and stuff from which life evolved. But by the end of the Reagan Administration, fouled by oil, gas, and the rapacious march of progress, it came to be called Cancer Alley. My grandparents did not speak English, and my mother stopped talking altogether the night my father went to town for a beer and never came back. Like Pinch, I grew up poor; I was sixteen before I ate pizza, and saved almost every dime I made. I moved to New Orleans soon after my mother died, leaving the only home I had ever known; I exchanged the precious land for the urban jungle. My grandparents had left me a little money and a small monthly income from the Standard Gas Company, so I kept my promise to my long-gone father and enrolled in college. All of my money went to school and rent, and it seemed my hunger was unending. You can eat well in New Orleans if you find the right places, places where food was cheap, good and abundant. But I also loved junk food. I guess any food. My pockets were stuffed with crackers and sugar, mustard, and ketchup packets from fast food joints. “Want not” was my motto. So Pinch nicknamed me Scrimp. We made quite a pair. </font></p>
<p class="DefaultText" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><font face="Times New Roman">In May of 2005, the New Orleans Social Services Department finally got divine guidance and mandated that all social workers had to have a partner. The division called it “the buddy system.” The new directive came as a result of what the <i>Times-Picayune</i> dubbed The Foster Child Murders. Nine children had been murdered in the last year; “suffocated tenderly,” said the Medical Examiner, “their baby bodies placed in the back seat of the city’s trolleys.” He continued in his clinically obtuse, yet lyrical, way, for which he was famous: “Fragile spirits fluttering into the moss latticed oaks, riding to God on the St. Charles line.” The children had already endured endless and unexplainable pain during their short time among brutal adults. Sexual abuse, torture, starvation, all criminal in their lack of connection with life. One of the trolley drivers, a black man who had worked the St. Charles Line for over forty years and had witnessed life on the mean streets, broke down in front of the cameras and wept. He said he saw a fine mist swirl around the child he had found, a little black girl of eight years old, the “dancing fog” vanishing into popping fireflies as he approached her. The same Medical Examiner, always around for public events, used the word “reposed,” saying that in all his years of working on the most vicious murders, this was the first time he was truly terrified. “When I cut them open,” he told a reporter, “I saw their little souls rise up, and then I heard a child giggle.” His name was Harlan Boudreaux and he retired after autopsying the ninth child.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></p>Halloween parties with a unique crime scenetag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-09-17:537324:BlogPost:731542007-09-17T17:50:15.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
<p>I'm preparing the ingredients for a great Halloween party for anyone who is interested. I'll be posting it this week. Here's a few tidbits - New Orleans, Cajun Food, Costumes, books, contests, libraries, murder, a secret society, a ghost named Pinch, a voodoo princess name Scrimp.</p>
<p/><p>Prepare to put on the show for yours friends this Halloween 2007!</p>
<p>Lyn LeJeune</p>
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<p>I'm preparing the ingredients for a great Halloween party for anyone who is interested. I'll be posting it this week. Here's a few tidbits - New Orleans, Cajun Food, Costumes, books, contests, libraries, murder, a secret society, a ghost named Pinch, a voodoo princess name Scrimp.</p>
<p/><p>Prepare to put on the show for yours friends this Halloween 2007!</p>
<p>Lyn LeJeune</p>
<p/><p/><p/>Absolut New Orleans - the Drink for Southern Crime writerstag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-08-22:537324:BlogPost:658322007-08-22T14:21:13.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
If you haven't heard the news and for you writers from the south who like to drink and write - all hail Faulkner and Tennessee Williams and soooo many more, Absolut Vodka has come out with a new blend - ABSOLUT VODKA..Here's more about that: Absolut Vodka has developed a special-edition flavored vodka to honor New Orleans, and the proceeds will go to Gulf Coast charities.<br />
<p class="inside-copy">Absolut made the announcement and previewed the mango-with-black-pepper flavor at the annual New…</p>
If you haven't heard the news and for you writers from the south who like to drink and write - all hail Faulkner and Tennessee Williams and soooo many more, Absolut Vodka has come out with a new blend - ABSOLUT VODKA..Here's more about that: Absolut Vodka has developed a special-edition flavored vodka to honor New Orleans, and the proceeds will go to Gulf Coast charities.<br />
<p class="inside-copy">Absolut made the announcement and previewed the mango-with-black-pepper flavor at the annual New Orleans culinary festival, Tales of the Cocktail.</p>
<p class="inside-copy">Absolut New Orleans, which went on sale Aug. 1, commemorates the second anniversary on Aug. 29 of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans. The company plans to make 35,000 cases, with 100% of the sales — an estimated $2 million — to go to the charities.</p>
<p class="inside-copy">A national print ad shows people returning to the city to rebuild.</p>
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<p class="inside-copy">So 35,000 cases are going quick. What would be your recipe using this concoction? And can you really write while drinking? Used to be the dectectives of the noir 30s, 40s and 50s slurpped it up...now? pot, coke, or just a really twisted view of the world? What do you think?</p>
<p class="inside-copy">post your own concoction here! (I loved it when Marlowe took a long pull and looked over his glass at a swanky dame)</p>The Death of a Friend - Excerpt.tag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-08-10:537324:BlogPost:616992007-08-10T13:16:50.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
<p>I was too distraught to take in the details of the interview. I had become numb, dead to the world, irrelevant and bereft. I lived in a state of extreme suspension for the next few days. I pulled the phone from the wall, locked the door, closed the curtains, and left the apartment in darkness. I ate from cans, dry cereal chased with swigs of wine, beer and then vermouth and then vodka. I slept but did not dream. Then the taxi driver banged on my door, yelled that he was there to take me to a…</p>
<p>I was too distraught to take in the details of the interview. I had become numb, dead to the world, irrelevant and bereft. I lived in a state of extreme suspension for the next few days. I pulled the phone from the wall, locked the door, closed the curtains, and left the apartment in darkness. I ate from cans, dry cereal chased with swigs of wine, beer and then vermouth and then vodka. I slept but did not dream. Then the taxi driver banged on my door, yelled that he was there to take me to a funeral, and literally carried me down the stairs and dumped me into his cab. Who called the cab and who arranged the funeral? I was beyond caring. I somehow managed to wipe my face and underarms with Handi-Wipes and tie up my hair with a purple ribbon. <br/>It was late morning, but the sky had taken on the tint of Stygian gloom. We passed through the French Quarter and then took St. Philip’s and headed north, passing Louis Armstrong Park. Clouds swirled and meshed, a spear of lightening jettisoned earthward, and then a burst of thunder hit and rolled over us. It seemed I had lived in this same storm for days. The cab driver whistled. “Whoa! Mais, I tink God done come on down and gonna tell us what’s be what.” I pulled myself forward, my head pounding, and said: “He already has.”<br/>I plopped back and pulled my legs up, my heels balanced on the seat, cupped my hands to my head, and suppressed the urge to throw-up everything I had ever eaten in this forsaken life of mine. In just a few days I had forfeited everything and had been let lose, unanchored, abandoned just like the children I had tried to save. The cab rocked and turned and stopped and the fume from the city buses was like the poison piped into hell. I breathed in, choked, and then the cab rocked from the wind. A large black man with white hair who smelled of peppermint helped me out.<br/>“Come on, darlin’, you gonna get tru ‘dis. We be hera ta hep ya.”<br/>Then I was standing alone, wobbling like a wounded wild duck. My hair clung to my face and shoulders, my clothes flattened to my body. I looked around for the driver, but saw only a rain funnel sprouting toward the sky and old ladies in black dresses, a priest shrouded in white vestments, and some young men with bandanas and sleeveless sweat shirts, their arms decorated with colorful tattoos. Gang members, I whispered, and laughed like a demented crone. I have finally gone mad, Mama. And who said I wasn’t like you? Fou, fou, fou. <br/>She was buried next to her mother in a graveyard that had endured since the Civil War. Out of deference to history and remembrance and rage, the community had left a wooden sign that read: Colored Cemetery. It rained straight down on me as I stood watching her casket descend into the ground. Ninety-five degrees and raining, I heard an old lady grumble. Steam rose off the bodies standing around Pinch’s grave. Mud and branches and pieces of rusted metal slid into the hole along with her coffin. Then a little girl in a yellow rain coat sprang from behind another lady and grabbed the metal. She sloshed through the mud on baby feet, stretched her arm up toward the priest, her round eyes shining as though she had found the source of life. In her hand was a rusted crucifix. The priest smiled at the child and nodded, telling her to keep it. Such a beautiful child, turning towards me in slow motion, braided pigtails moist with raindrops, yellow ribbons dancing in the wind like butterflies. She smiled with Pinch’s smile; looked at me with Pinch’s eyes; waved at me with Pinch’s baby hand; she was Pinch as a little girl. I stifled a sob and looked around the cemetery, imagining dead confederate soldiers molding along with slaves who would never be free. Ghosts were everywhere. The little girl hid behind a woman’s body; only a patch of yellow against a black sky. The priest mumbled words I did not want to hear, about dust and departed and a good life not without struggle and then the thudding reverberated in my head as mud and dirt slammed down on a shiny black box and finally she was covered and gone. Red plastic flowers that were stuck into the ground by a few unidentified mourners clacked in the wind.</p>The Beatitudes in New Orleanstag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-05-01:537324:BlogPost:302122007-05-01T18:47:38.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
My other blog <a href="http://www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com">www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com</a> is dedicated to helping rebuild the public libraries of New Orleans. The book is completed and revised, and I hope to have it out by the end of the summer. Here is a quick description of the book:<br />
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Out of New Orleans before the catastrophe that was made by a hurricane and, as Dante wrote, “of false gods…</font></p>
My other blog <a href="http://www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com">www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com</a> is dedicated to helping rebuild the public libraries of New Orleans. The book is completed and revised, and I hope to have it out by the end of the summer. Here is a quick description of the book:<br />
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Out of New Orleans before the catastrophe that was made by a hurricane and, as Dante wrote, “of false gods who lied,” comes <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Beatitudes</i></b>, part one in the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">New Orleans Trilogy.</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Beatitudes</i> portrays New Orleans as Dante’s purgatory, a place were the sins of men are exposed for all to see, where redemption is close at hand but most often lost.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">This world is revealed by the lives of two social workers, Hannah Dubois (white and nicknamed Scrimp) and Earlene Washington (African-American and nicknamed Pinch), who start their own business, Social Investigations, in order to solve the murders of ten foster children in New Orleans, Louisiana. The NOPD, the Catholic Church, and politicians have sidestepped clues that point to those who hold great power. As Hannah and Earlene find more and more evidence, they also know that they are dealing with a force that crosses into the realm of the spiritual. The murderers are part of a secret organization called the White Army (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">le Armee Blanc</i>), centered in New Orleans, but rooted in Medieval Europe and the Children’s Crusades. Each clue leads to a beatitude and each chapter defines the novel: The Pure of Heart, The Persecuted, The Merciful, The Sorrowful, The Peacemakers, The Meek, The Poor in Spirit, and Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Justice. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">The Beatitudes</i></b> is thus a study of good and evil, and that act, the murder of innocent children, which encompasses all of the seven deadly sins.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">So it is Book I of The New Orleans Trilogy, loosely based on Dante Divine Comedy.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">I already have promotion out for a tour, because I think pre-publication promotion is helpful. I do an hour lecture called :</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt">Katrina and Dante – was there ever such a pair?</span></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font size="3"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">LET’S TALK ABOUT DANTE:</b></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font size="3"> MODERN MYSTERIES, FAITH AND <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">THE DIVINE COMEDY</i></font></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">So if any of you know a group or want to organize a group to listen to me, I can send more information and what I call a mini book....the first ten pages with other information. I intend to donate most of what I make to the rebuilding fund which you can read about at <a href="http://www.nutrias.org">www.nutrias.org</a> and also see photos of the destruction of books.....</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">All the best to all of you friends....</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Lyn LeJeune</p>The Beatitudes in New Orleanstag:crimespace.ning.com,2007-03-06:537324:BlogPost:21012007-03-06T23:07:08.000ZLyn LeJeunehttp://crimespace.ning.com/profile/Beatitude
<p>Please check out my blog, <a href="http://www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com">www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com</a> and think about helping in the restoration of public libraries in New Orleans. If you wish, let me know and I will add you as a Beatitude.</p>
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<p>My book is complete and I have been looking for a good agent. The proceeds of any profit will go toward New Orleans public libraries. Wish me luck. The title is The Beatitudes and it is book one in The New Orleans…</p>
<p>Please check out my blog, <a href="http://www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com">www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com</a> and think about helping in the restoration of public libraries in New Orleans. If you wish, let me know and I will add you as a Beatitude.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>My book is complete and I have been looking for a good agent. The proceeds of any profit will go toward New Orleans public libraries. Wish me luck. The title is The Beatitudes and it is book one in The New Orleans Trilogy, based on Dante's Divine Comedy. Book I is pre-Katrina, book II (The Book Burners) and book III (Paradise Possible) are post-Katrina. If anyone would like to read the book, let me know and I will forward some of it to you. Also, see the my blog as I am working on serializing it.</p>
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<p>I am presently reading Ken Bruen's book The Dramatist. Great stuff!</p>