10 Years Ago: Lafayette: International Festival Intersections

 

"Cast" updates since the original post in 2015: 

• You can watch the completed movie, Dirt Road to Lafayette, on Youtube, Tubi, and Amazon Prime (and Freevee). 
• Pamplona's is still open in Lafayette.
• I wish I had updates for Alfredo, Ms. Orelia, and Mr. Lawrence, but I don't have enough identifying info on them to find out.

 

Monday, April 27, 2015

Lafayette: International Festival Intersections

You never know what the standouts of a festival or a trip are going to be. This was true for the International Festival.


One fun thing was that a movie was being filmed at the festival, called Dirt Road to Lafayette. On Saturday, when it was so rainy, I watched a scene play out at Pamplona's Restaurant on Jefferson.
 
I took my own little movie of this scene:

Consider the shakiness of the video to be an intentional bit of cinema verité.

After the Scottish laddie (who is the movie lead) did his bit, I noticed awhile later a gentleman carrying the young actor's accordion, wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain. I have no idea why, but I was so taken by this. Having an accordion-carrier.

The next day, Sunday, at the Heritage stage, Corey Ledet performed with his band, and the movie crew was there again. When I saw the laddie pass through a dance crowd with the accordion, and then the same gentleman from the day before subsequently have the accordion in his arms, again wrapped in plastic, I had to check it out. Which resulted in me meeting the very pleasant Alfredo. He does more than carry the lead actor's accordion, but at this moment, that was his responsibility.

Alfredo, International Festival 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana

Shortly after my visit to the Heritage stage, I scurried over to the International Stage where I had volunteered to do security for the Buckwheat Zydeco performance. And this is where I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Lawrence and Ms. Orelia. They share the exact same birthday, a fact they didn't discover until they were married. It was common for Buckwheat Zydeco (aka Stanley Dural) to practice how to play the accordion on Mr. Lawrence's and Ms. Orelia's front porch. See, before then, Mr. Dural had been a blues and funk musician, focusing on the organ. Mr. Lawrence said it was not a big jump to move from the organ to the accordion.

Ms. Orelia and Mr. Lawrence, International Festival 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana

At the end of the day, which coincided with the end of the festival, I found myself walking down Jefferson Street, past Pamplona's Restaurant, the street now empty of festival-goers, en route to the shuttle bus.  Three guys talking in the street. One telling the other two about the movie being filmed and how he was in this scene where .....

And, you know, it was this guy: 

Filming Dirt Road to Lafayette, International Festival 2015, Lafayette, Louisiana

OK, so I'm a nosy wench, and I stopped and listened outright while he told his adventure story to his friends. Presently, I interrupted, and said, "You know, I think I may have a video of you doing your scene. I'm not positive you're in it, but I'm pretty sure, and I've uploaded it to youtube if you want to go look." I told him how to find my youtube channel.

Do you know how good it felt to bring such pleasure to someone because of the dumb luck of happening on the movie scene the day before, filming it, and then the dumb luck of walking by this guy the next day while he told his friends about his experience? It felt very good, indeed.

So in this one day, I had the good fortune to intersect with four congenial people.

 

Word of the Year: Meditation: May You Be ...

Giving Heart. Borderlinks, Tucson, Arizona, September 2019. Artist unknown. Photo credit: Mzuriana.

 

I listened to a podcast on love the other day. The narrator reintroduced me to metta, the Pali word embodying goodwill, friendliness, and loving-kindness toward others in the Buddhist tradition. 

The idea of a metta meditation is to conjure up a person in one's mind and send benevolent intentions to them. There seems to be a similar array of three or four intentions in a metta mantra.

For example, to each of the recipients I mentally picture, I say aloud:

• May you be safe.
• May you be healthy.
• May you be happy. 
• May you be at peace. 

The trick is to include among our list of recipients, not just folks we love, like, or even feel neutral about, but ...also individuals who we resent, fear, or loathe. This last aligns with a common 12-step suggestion: For 30 days, wish for that person to receive all of the good things in life that we would  like to receive for ourselves. Doing so can soften us, again to our benefit, expressing, if you will, the pus that infects our minds and bodies.

Fortunately, there is no goal for us to bring such a person into our literal or figurative embrace. We don't have to be friends with such a person, even if they are a family member. It may not be healthy or safe for us to do so. The metta meditation is a door we can open to free us be safe, healthy, happy, and at peace.

I hold the assumption that if a person is happy and at peace, their actions toward others will be benevolent rather than malicious. That makes it possible for me to wish them safety, health, happiness, and peace.

It's interesting to me that the word metta is from the Pali word referenced above. Pala is the name Aldous Huxley gave to utopian culture in his book, Island. Where the myna birds remind the humans, "here and now, here and now."