Sherry Chandler

Thanks to BagNews for linking to this story of a New Yorker cover bumped. Artist William Joyce explains:

I was asked some months back to do a New Yorker cover depicting some aspect of how New Orleans was dealing with Mardi Gras in the post Katrina world.

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Coming up with a concept that tempered my rage with some hope was not easy, but I got inspiration from an old photograph of Mardi Gras in the ’30’s by J. Guttman, called the” The Game”. It’s a wonderful, eerie image of New Orleans and its curious magic.

The editors were very pleased with the results. The proof looked great. Some friends cried when I showed it to them.

The image did what I’d hoped. It made people from here sad and proud at the same time.

I was hoping it would, I don’t know, somehow help. Help call attention to our plight. Help people understand us.

Then Dick Cheney shot his friend instead of a bird.

Joyce’s cover “Katrinarita Gras” was bumped in favor of a Brokeback Mountain parody with Bush and Cheney. To see this forgotten cover, follow this link or this one.

I think this story may be typical of the sort of Attention Deficit Disorder we’ve developed about New Orleans — and all of the Gulf Coast.

Considerable chatter in the office yesterday about who would be brave enough to do the Purple People Bridge Climb.

The Purple People Bridge Cl!mb is a unique bridge Cl!mbing experience on the pedestrian bridge known as the “Purple People” bridge. This exciting experience will allow participants to Cl!mb Over the Top of the Purple People bridge. Throughout the experience, participants will be able to view beautiful vistas of the riverfront and the Greater Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky areas. Visitors will access the Purple People Bridge Cl!mb expehttp://sherrychandler.com/wp-admin/edit.php
Managerience via the southern side by Newport on the Levee.

I’m up for that. But here’s the stopper – the climb costs $59.95. So save your pennies. Climbs scheduled to begin in May.

Poorer folk and those who feel less venturesome can walk across at street level between Newport and Cincinnnati. From the Cincinnati Enquirer for April 2003:

NEWPORT - Of the nine bridges crossing the Ohio River at Cincinnati, only one is purple. Starting Saturday, it will be the only one just for people, too.

After a $4 million restoration, the former L&N Railroad Bridge between Newport and Cincinnati will reopen as a pedestrian walkway. Officially named the Newport Southbank Bridge, the “Purple People Bridge” will be the longest connector of its kind in the country that links two states.

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The bridge - it’s 2,670 feet, or just over a half a mile long - has been redesigned to provide an easy way for people to move between the two states. It also could link the riverfronts of Ohio and Kentucky in a seamless collection of entertainment, dining, nightlife, festivals, parks, attractions and more that could bring hundreds of thousands to the river’s edge.

Looks like the entertainment is about to begin.

Ernest Coleman gets credit for the photo.