Donuts!

 I love donuts. There's a new donut shop in New Orleans called Blue Dot that's getting rave reviews. In addition to the usual varieties, it has some exotic flavors on the menu -- Red Velvet, Maple Glazed with Bacon, Key Lime Crumb, Almond Joy -- to name just a few of the fancies. They also sell ice cream in only-in-New-Orleans flavors: Creole Cream Cheese, Bananas Foster, White Chocolate Bread Pudding, Nectar Soda, Chocolate City Chocolate. (The ice cream is produced by New Orleans Ice Cream Co., not by Blue Dot.)

Photo by Rusty Costanza, The Times-Picayune
Blue Dot owners: Brandon Singleton,
Dennis Gibliant, Ronald Laporte

The part that really tickles me is that it's owned by ... wait for it ... COPS! 

Plus it's in my old stompin' grounds, Mid-City -- Canal Street at North Hennessey. I gotta try it soon. Next time I eat at Mandina's, I'll stop at Blue Dot for dessert!

Followup on San Fermin

To follow-up my post on the Running of the Bulls in New Orleans, the fourth annual San Fermin in Nueva Orleans event was a big success. An estimated 8,000 people participated, with nearly 300 "bulls" consisting of not only New Orleans' Big Easy Rollergirls but also teams of rollergirls from surrounding states.

Below is a video of parts of the run itself. The video starts at the back of the Rolling Elvi and moves through them to the group escorting the fake "St. Fermin" statue (in imitation of the procession with the St. Fermin statue that opens the Pamplona fiesta). Later on you'll see the runners and the rollergirl bulls. (I love the creativity of the bulls' headgear--who'da thunk there were so many ways of putting horns on helmets?)

(Photo by John McCusker/The Times-Picayune)



© Video. neworleans.com © Photo. Nolabulls.com / facebook

I don't know how they could stand the scorching heat, but I guess that's why the organizers set the run for early in the morning. It looks like everyone had a great time. What wonderful silliness!

Oh, and here's some late-breaking news (meaning I just found it via Google). The New Orleans festival this year also included competitions among the "bulls":  One for the best dressed bull; the other for the horniest bull -- "You know, the one with the longest, pointiest horns." (No word yet on who won that.)

Running of the Bulls in New Orleans!

It's that time of year again--the Running of the Bulls in New Orleans!

This is the announcement from the Times-Picayune:

Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Running of the Bulls


The 3 Legged Dog, 7 a.m.
Conti Street and Burgundy Street, French Quarter


Tickets: Free
Resources: Official site
More on this event

San Fermin in Nueva Orleans replicates and pays homage to the world famous Encierro of Pamplona, Spain, or "The Running of the Bulls", only the bulls are none other than members of the Big Easy Rollergirls. The event will begin at 7 a.m. at the Three Legged Dog bar the French Quarter. Sangria, Stella Artois beer, Spanish wines and good cheer will be available. The "running," which winds through the streets of the Quarter, begins sharply at 8 a.m.

This event has grown exponentially each year since it started. Now, in only its fourth year, it's expanded to a three-day festival. It starts on Friday night with a pre-party (El Txupinazo) featuring tapas, paella, flamenco dancing, and lotsa beverages. On Saturday morning is the main event--the running of the bulls (El Encierro)--followed by rest time, then a post-run party Saturday night (La Fiesta de Pantalones) that includes a concert, more great tapas, and lotsa more beverages. (Me, I love a good Sangria.) On Sunday there is a grand finale (Pobre de Mí), about which I quote from the Nolabulls website:

WHAT: As part of the grand finale to the San Fermin in Nueva Orleans fiesta weekend, the festivities continue with the second annual Pobre de Mí (Poor Me). Featuring a savory tapas brunch menu by Vega Tapas Café and specialty drinks, the event is highlighted by the 2nd Annual Ernest Hemingway Talent Contest, a collaboration with NOLAFugees:

Death in the Afternoon Drinking Society presents Hemingway, Ole!

Six teams enter the ring, but only one will claim the big prize. Sign up now with your 2 or 3-person team (or just sign up now and draft someone on game day) to compete in this Ernest Hemingway-themed contest of nerves. Teams will perform 2-minute micro-skits (no memorization required,as there will be closely-guarded scripts provided at the event) of infamous Hemingway scenes. A panel of judges, and the audience, will decide who advances to sweet sweet victory.

What you need to participate: absolutely nothing. A sense of humor helps, but is not required.

What you do not need: any prior knowledge of Hemingway’s works or life.

What you will gain by joining the hunt: Prizes. Glory. And your photo will be made over the carcasses of your enemies.

What you stand to lose by not joining the hunt: your sense of adventure, and perhaps the ability to look your mother in the eye when she says, “Don’t worry, honey, I love you anyway.”

So unleash your inner Hemingway and enter now!

We will also roll the party directly into a live screening on multiple screens of the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final Match in South Africa!

I love the whole idea of this--it's so New Orleans and, yes, so Spanish. (Not to mention that The Rolling Elvi will be following the crowd of bull-runners....)

What fun!

Krewe of Dead Pelicans

Feeling helpless at the immensity of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, New Orleans resident Ro Mayer organized a protest in a typical New Orleans way: a mock jazz funeral for the Gulf and its wildlife. Participants in The Krewe of Dead Pelicans were asked to wear black pants and blue shirts, and to carry blue umbrellas painted with black splotches--symbolizing the black oil beneath the blue waters. They also were asked to wear shrimpers' boots--the short white rubber boots you'll see many people in the second-line parade wearing--symbolizing the mighty Louisiana seafood industry, which is likely to be permanently devastated by the oil spill. 

Photo of oil-coated pelican by Matthew Hinton/The Times-Picayune

As Ro Mayer said in her video interview with the local newspaper's reporter, we feel helpless in the face of this calamity. We have to cope as best we can. At nearly five years after Katrina, we are faced once again with an environmental disaster that will destroy our marshes, our wildlife, our homes, our businesses, our jobs, our economy, our lives. Its effects will be felt for decades, if not centuries, and will reverberate far beyond Louisiana and the other Gulf Coast states.

See the video of the event, held Saturday, June 5, 2010. Hundreds of people participated.

In a press conference last week, BP CEO Tony Hayward said he'd like to have his life back. Yeah, so would we, but it ain't happening. How about this, Mr. BP? You don't get your life back until, and unless, we get our lives back. You suffer what we suffer, as long as we suffer. How about that?

Photo by Michael DeMocker/The Times-Picayune

Who Dat Won Dat!

Yeee-haaaahhhhh! That's my cheer for the Saints winning the Super Bowl. I'm a few weeks slow getting this post online, but that works out well. I've had a chance to observe not just the night of the Super Bowl victory, but the days and weeks afterward. 

Wow. We're still elated, floating on air, exuberant, overjoyed, delirious with happiness. It's been a huge boost  for everyone, not just the sports fans. It gave us our power back, power that seeped away over many long years of defeat after defeat--failures not just of the Saints, but of the city, the area, the whole state. Katrina was nearly a death-blow. We're fighters, though; we've hung in there, remained loyal to the Saints, kept hope alive despite our civic messes, doggedly rebuilt from disaster after disaster.

Now, well . . . who ever thought we'd see headlines like "Aggressive tactics boost mighty Saints to first title" (USA Today) "Mighty Saints"! There was a time when those words would have been said only in cruel derision.

I keep thinking, "Sport as metaphor . . . sport as metaphor . . . sport as metaphor." That, in fact, was what I talked about in a blog entry from 2006, when I first became a real Saints fan. It resonates even more with me now.

Breesus

Miracles are happening in New Orleans. Witness this photo taken on the Mississippi River only a few days ago. For those of you who don't recognize this man on sight, it's Drew Brees, quarterback extraordinaire of the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS football team! They're now 13-0 (a true miracle for those of us who have followed the Saints over the past 40 years), division champions, and heading into the playoffs with a bye the first week and a home field advantage thereafter. Not to mention our hopes, expectations, etc., of the Saints getting into the S-s-s-....er, we won't say the word for fear of jinxing our team. They have three games left in the regular season. Regardless of the results in those last games, however, the Saints are in the playoffs! Many of us, faced with a difficult situation, now ask ourselves, "What would Breesus do?"

Celebrations

The title of this post is both ironic and non-ironic.


I'm writing about two funerals--hardly material for celebration. Yet here in New Orleans, a funeral can be as much a celebration of life as it is mourning for the dead.

Two local celebrities died last week, both of them closely connected to the New Orleans music community.

Eaglin jazz funeral; photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune



The first was Snooks Eaglin, a blind R&B guitarist known for his virtuousity, who influenced many other musicians. This excellent article about Snooks includes a YouTube video of Snooks playing at his favorite venue, Rock 'N' Bowl, and simultaneously giving a music lesson to another local musician, George Porter, Jr. The video is vintage Snooks: he treats Porter--famous as a member of The Meters and considered one of the greatest living bass guitarists--like a newbie. (Porter was one of Snooks' biggest fans and loved playing sets with Snooks.)

The second celebrity we lost was Antoinette K-Doe, widow of Ernie K-Doe, who revived Ernie's musical career and reputation in his last years, kept his memory active after his death, and helped many musicians and others in the community.

Apart from their fame on the local music scene, Snooks and Antoinette had something else in common: Their funerals were held at nightclubs.

Snooks' funeral service at The Howlin' Wolf featured tributes, both verbal and musical, by numerous stars of the New Orleans music scene, and concluded with a traditional jazz funeral escort to the cemetery.

It was the Warehouse District nightclub's first funeral.

"We've had people laid out here before," noted Howlin' Wolf owner Howie Kaplan, "but they were still breathing."

(From music writer Keith Spera's blog on the Times-Picayune website)

Antoinette's wake was held at her own club, the Mother-in-Law Lounge, which she had made into a shrine for her late husband. Her funeral service was at a church, and she too had a traditional jazz funeral escort to her interment.

K-Doe jazz funeral; Photo by Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune

All the coverage of the events shows how much the funeral guests celebrated the lives of the deceased. There was sadness, but also joy and happy memories.

Celebrations.

Katrina Tattoos

I live in Metairie, a suburb that suffered far less than New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. As we approach the third anniversary of the storm, I can drive around Metairie and see few signs of storm damage except some empty lots where buildings have been razed, and the occasional FEMA trailer still remaining in someone's yard.

If I go into New Orleans, however, it's a different story. No matter where you go in the city, except perhaps the French Quarter, you cannot escape evidence of Katrina. First, many devastated homes and businesses remain, neither rebuilt nor razed. Second, the streets--in bad shape before the storm--now are truly dangerous, with enormous potholes, sinkholes, and other damage either unrepaired or worsened or recently developed. Third, there are the Katrina Tattoos remaining on many homes, even those that have been restored and are reoccupied.

(Photo from the International Journal of Health Geographics, http://www.ij-healthgeographics.com/content/5/1/44)

What I call the Katrina Tattoo is the marking made by Search-and-Rescue teams as they made house-to-house searches for humans and animals in the months after the storm. If you saw pictures of New Orleans in the months after Katrina, you'll have seen the S&R markings on houses. S&R teams supposedly searched every building in all the flooded areas. Many houses were searched twice, by official teams and by animal-rescue teams. To notify others that a house had been searched, S&R teams marked each building with spray paint in a specific manner.

First they sprayed an "X" on the front (or roof) of the building. In the photo, it's on the roof, which means that the water was so high that searchers could access the house only through the roof. You can see they had to hack through the roof to get into the attic of the house.

(In other cases, people hacked through the roof from the inside after being trapped in their attics by rising water. I know people who keep a hatchet in their attic for precisely that purpose.)

The letters/numbers inside the quadrants of the X have specific meanings. In the top (north) quadrant is the date of the search; in the left (west) quadrant is the search-team identifier; in the right (east) quadrant is a notation of any hazards or unusual conditions in the building; in the bottom (south) quadrant is the number of victims found and their condition, e.g., live or dead. You can find an official explanation in the Army's Catastrophic Disaster Response Staff Officer's Handbook.

Interpreting the X in the photo by these guidelines, we can see the house was searched by team CA-8 on September 11, the team had to break into the attic, and they found one victim, who was dead. I interpret the arrow at left of "1 dead" as indicating to subsequent searchers that the victim can be found inside the attic, through the hole nearby. On the right side of the photo are the pieces of wood the searchers removed when they hacked through the roof. It's obvious the hole is too small for the searchers either to have entered through it, or to have removed the body at that time. The initial searchers were looking for the living; the dead were removed later.

The second X, on the front wall of the house, would have been made after the water subsided. It indicates the body inside was removed on September 19 by "Kenyon."

Ray in New Orleans blogged about these markings a few months post-Katrina, with a couple of photos. I'm sure many other bloggers and articles have discussed the S&R markings, but I'm not going to take time to do a full Google search.

After Katrina's second anniversary Travel and Leisure magazine wrote in "Soul Survivor":

Even in mostly recovered neighborhoods, you’ll notice the persistence of "Katrina tattoos," the X marks spray painted on façades by rescue workers after the storm, noting when the property was searched, by whom, and whether any survivors—or bodies—were found. Most have been painted over, but some are intact, left deliberately as symbols of perseverance. One Marigny resident has even had his cast in iron and mounted by his front door.

They were documented most famously in Chris Rose's columns for the Times-Picayune, which he later turned into 1 Dead in Attic, a book chronicling the aftermath of Katrina on the populace as well as on Rose himself. (I did a blog entry on Chris's work when the book was nationally released.)

What makes me think of this? Well, of course, it's only a few weeks until the third anniversary of the storm. (We are daily reminded by local news media, even if we wanted to forget it.) And, as I said earlier, you can't drive through New Orleans without seeing Katrina Tattoos still present on buildings. Some people, even after renovating their homes and returning to live in them, have left the S&R markings on them.

What message are they sending? I think it's something along the lines of "Remember the Alamo" or "Remember the Maine": We suffered and we survived, but others died; we came back, but we won't forget, and we'll keep a reminder ever-present.

For those of you who thought this entry would be about body-art, rest easy. Tattoo parlors, both local and around the country, have reported a huge number of requests for Katrina remembrances since K-Day (8/29/2005). You can see some of the results here and here.


Finally, I came across this while searching for links for other things: the most poignant reminder of Katrina--Unidentified Victims from Hurricane Katrina.

The Running of the Bulls...er, Cows,...er, Roller Girls

(Photo from http://nolabulls.com/default.aspx.)

Ah, the Big Easy! New Orleanians are always coming up with new things to celebrate and new ways to wear costumes and get wild. The latest craze is the Running of the Bulls, New Orleans-style. Imitating the annual encierro in Pamplona, Spain, a local group has organized to celebrate the Festival of San Fermin by analogy to the bull-running made famous by Ernest Hemingway (The Sun Also Rises; Death in the Afternoon).

Like the runners in Pamplona, the participants here dress in white pants and shirt with red sashes and neck scarfs. Unlike the runners in Pamplona, however, the New Orleans runners are chased by the Big Easy Roller Girls, a local team of roller derby pros. For the event, Roller Girls (self-described by one Roller Girl as "a bunch of bad-ass chicks on wheels") carry wiffle bats and wear horns.

The Running of the Bulls, New Orleans style, first took place last year. I don't recall reading or hearing anything about it back then, so I was doubly amused to read Chris Rose's column on Thursday announcing it. The 2008 bull run took place on Saturday (July 12) and hundreds of people participated. The route goes through the French Quarter (of course), and includes stops at two "watering holes" (e.g., bars) along the way (of course).

I've come across some amusing blog entries on the run. Pontchartrain Pete calls it "a winner of a new tradition." Humid City has photos: Roller Girls in their bull costumes; the field of runners in their costumes. Local TV station WWL's website has photos of a guy in full toreador garb, as well as The Rolling Elvi--Elvis impersonators on scooters. And there are videos posted on YouTube, of course.

Looks like the Running of the Bulls will become one of N.O.'s midsummer draws: Last year 150 runners were pursued by 14 Rollergirls; this year there over 600 runners and 33 Rollergirls--exponential increases!

And animal lovers can rest easy: no real bulls are used.

(The official title of the event is San Fermin in Nueva Orleans. I briefly considered that perhaps the subtitle should be The Running of the Cows--since all the "bulls" are in fact females--until I realized it would have completely different implications. Dropped the idea quickly.)

Nero-esque Perspective

"Bush Fiddles While New Orleans Burns"

I came across this collage accidentally while net-surfing. The poster was created by Lojo in St. Louis and her partner a few days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and was posted on Flickr on September 9, 2005.

In case the photo doesn't enlarge when you click on it, you can see the large version here. Or, if you don't have time to go there, the text on Bush's forehead says, "As thousands of hurricane victims suffered and died, the leader of the richest nation on earth went to a concert."

The artist encourages anyone to download it and post it wherever they like, so here it is.

Memento Mori II: All Saints Day

Today marks the anniversary of my first posting on this blog. On November 1, 2006, I wrote "Memento Mori," in which I talked about our South Louisiana custom of visiting the cemeteries and remembering our dead on this day, All Saints Day. In keeping with our custom, I plan to visit my family's plot in Metairie Cemetery, one of the most beautiful and historic cemeteries in New Orleans. Buried in our plot are my maternal grandparents; my brother and a cousin, both of whom died in their early 20s; several uncles, an aunt, and other more distant relatives.

Setting aside any religious overtones, I find the practice of remembering our dead soothing and comforting. It's good to revive memories of those we loved. And don't we all hope we, too, will be remembered when we're gone? I shed a few tears when I follow the yearly rite, but tears are good for the soul.

For more information about New Orleans' cemeteries, visit "New Orleans Cemetery Tours" on my friend Sharon Keating's New Orleans for Visitors blog. The photo above is by Sharon Keating.

(Oh yeah, another good thing about All Saints Day is that I get the day off work.)

K+2Y: I got by with a little help from my friends

As you know, Wednesday (August 29) marked the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Here in the greater New Orleans area, it was commemorated by dozens of events--prayer services, memorial ceremonies, solemn convocations, art shows, musical performances, brunch/lunch/dinner gatherings, and assemblies of survivors. I observed the day by meeting a group of friends for lunch at VooDoo Barbecue (in New Orleans, nearly every event starts with food, ends with food, or centers on food). We adjourned for dessert to the home of one among us, Laura Joh Rowland. Laura's home, in the Gentilly neighborhood, sustained major damage, but has been restored. Originally we planned to head out from Laura's for a tour of some of the worst-affected areas--Chalmette, the Ninth Ward, Lakeview--but the sky was pouring rain and some of us were feeling our arthritis too much to go farther afield.

It was a good day. Being with my friends comforted me and lifted my spirits. There's an underlying sadness now to gatherings in this city; we always are aware--sometimes subliminally--of those who didn't survive the disaster and those who haven't returned from afar. Yet with each gathering we celebrate that we're still here, we still have friends here, we still have life. Love and human connections and our bond with This City are what keep us going.

In a followup to my August 28 post on Chris Rose, here's a link to "As Not Read by Oprah," his column published on Wednesday--the day he was to appear on the Oprah show. He was bummed out because they would not allow him to mention his book in any way. (They only wanted him because he went public with his bout of depression.) With his usual sardonic wit, he points out why they were wrong.

It's Carnival time!

The greater New Orleans area is in the thick of the Carnival season. The first Carnival parades ran a couple of weekends ago--the ultra-satiric (and raunchy) Krewe du Vieux in the French Quarter, as well as others in the suburbs--with bigger parades last weekend. Now we're into the real frenzy of festivity. Mardi Gras is next Tuesday--February 20--so this weekend is a huge pre-Fat Tuesday celebration. The most famous parades will roll on Saturday (Endymion), Sunday (Bacchus), Monday (Orpheus) and Tuesday (Rex and Zulu). In addition to the superkrewes, there are numerous other parades every night and, on Saturday, Sunday and Fat Tuesday, during the day.

If your idea of Mardi Gras comes from the Girls Gone Wild shows or other coverage that emphasizes only the lewd, rethink your concept. Most of the Carnival celebrations are family-oriented. Yes, if you go into to the French Quarter, or Canal Street, the nearby "main street" of New Orleans, you'll see all those sights you've seen on TV that make your eyes pop and your hair stand on end.

But go into other parts of the city, further away from the French Quarter, and you'll see lots of families, with children of every age...and the suburban carnival celebrations are even more family-oriented. To quote from a San Francisco Chronicle article by Craig Guillot, a native New Orleanian, "Despite the legions of naughty videos, rumors and the fact that the New Orleans' tourism board does little to deny the image, Mardi Gras is far from the adults-only free-for-all that it's portrayed to be. The reality is that -- outside of the French Quarter -- families far outnumber flashers and drunks, and the only breasts one is likely to see are those of fried chickens."

This year it looks like we're going to have pleasant weather for Mardi Gras. It's been downright cold for this area the last couple of weeks--temps in the 30s at night (to New Orleanians that's COLD). It's warmed up today (in the 60s, which I love) and there's a touch of spring warmth in the air. The prediction for Fat Tuesday is a high of 70, with cloudy skies but no rain on the parades. Ought to be a great day.

Sport as metaphor

Today I watched the New Orleans Saints football game, as I have done several times this fall. This is unusual, even extraordinary, because I am not a sports fan. I know enough about football to follow the game in a general way. (I'm glad there are commentators to clue me in on what I miss). In the past I never watched football games except for special occasions--such as going to a game with a date (long time ago), or being at someone's home for, say, a Superbowl party (pretty rare, since few of my friends are sports fans).

This year, however, the Saints have become a symbol of New Orleans' comeback from disaster. A serendipitous fate has combined a new, exceptionally shrewd and capable head coach (Sean Payton) with a new, talented, and highly intelligent quarterback (Drew Brees), as well as a field of talented players, from the running backs to the offensive tackles and defensive ends, etc. The combination, together with a real determination by the team to do well on behalf of the city, has resulted in the Saints having the best year they've ever had. Even when they lose a game, as they did today (to the Philadelphia Steelers), they play very well and put up a good battle. Not the Saints of yore, indeed.

And why have I started watching? Well, the notion that their progress is linked to the city's progress hooks me in. It's amazing that for the first time in their history, the Saints have sold out all the season tickets. It proves their importance to the populace. Whether their fans know it or not, they root harder for the Saints now because they need to see striving. They need to see achievement. They need to see success. They need to see victory. And, more than anything, they need to feel that the nation is behind New Orleans, just as New Orleans is behind the Saints.

Does my watching the games make a bit of difference to anyone else? No, but it makes a difference to me. I feel vicariously triumphant when the Saints succeed. And, like everyone else down here, I need that feeling.

Go, Saints...Bless You, Boys!

Memento Mori: All Saints Day

I have lived most of my life in the New Orleans area. One of our local customs is the celebration of All Saints Day, November 1, on which the living remember the dead.

It's a tradition arising from the Catholic faith. For Catholics, All Saints Day is a holy day of obligation: Catholics are required to attend Mass on the day. In addition, traditionally they refurbished their family tombs -- pulling weeds, whitewashing or cleaning the headstone or tomb, decorating the grave with flowers, praying for the departed. When I was growing up in the 1950s and '60s, schools, government offices, and local businesses were closed to allow families to pursue this devout tradition.

Over the last few decades, however, lifestyles and funeral customs have changed. Many people no longer observe All Saints Day. Schools, even Catholic schools, no longer take a holiday for it. Most government offices remain open (although most state courts still close). Businesses ignore the day. Cremation has become more common, so fewer people are interred after death. If cremated, their ashes may be scattered, or their family may keep the urn with the ashes at home. Others purchase a niche in a mausoleum in which to keep the "cremains." Even those who still have family tombs or cemetery plots no longer take care of them. Instead, they purchase perpetual care contracts and let the cemetery maintain the graves.

For New Orleans cemeteries, however, it is still the biggest day of their year. Crowds of people flow through the gates. For many this is likely their only visit to the family plot except for specific funerals.

I like All Saints Day. I like the idea of remembrance. I like to visit my family's plot in Metairie Cemetery and think about those who are buried there. Their names carved on the headstone are a visible link with them, a reminder of their lives. I like the peace of the cemetery and I like to wander around it, looking at the many fantastic or extravagant tombs, and meditating on those who had them built.

What I treasure about All Saints Day is our culture, which does not ignore death, but recognizes it as inevitable -- not to be escaped, but to be accommodated. In some other parts of the country, people are appalled by open-casket wakes, which are common here; or they are disgusted by funerals, preferring to ignore death and brush by it with little ceremony. To me, they are deep in denial. Our way is healthier. We remind ourselves that no one escapes death. By ritual and ceremony, we comfort ourselves on the loss of those we love. We contemplate and prepare for our own eventual entries into that "undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns."

Memento mori...