Looking for a way to give to New Orleans? Send your cheques to Maclean’s back-pager Paul Wells who has organized a benefit dinner for NOCCA, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Details at the link above.

And while you’re at it, read this week’s Wells column for some great N’Orleanian history.

The past speaks to you every minute in New Orleans, in tones that are not always sweet but often urgent. Constant reminders of slavery, race riot, colonial conquest, pestilence and flood. But also the distinctive tone of neighbourhoods as different as Mid-City, Marigny and the Vieux Carré. Extraordinary acts of generosity. Bloodcurdling acts of criminality.

Early in the last century, a miracle of geography put a kid named Louis Armstrong onto the Mississippi riverboats with his horn. He changed the world. It’s easy to forget. But if all you do is mourn, you dishonour the spirit of New Orleans.

UPDATE:

If you are interested in giving, send cheques made out to “Ottawa Friends of New Orleans” care of Paul Wells at Maclean’s, 150 Wellington St., Suite 403, Ottawa K1P 5A4.