Mitch Landrieu wants to turn beats into gold. He has taken on the mind-twisting task of trying to make a clean dollar from Louisiana's dirty music, food and other artistic voodoo.
Here's the foundation for the state recovery plan he's evolved:
1. Rebuild Louisiana to worldwide preeminence as a top tourist destination.
2. Make Louisiana's Cultural Economy the engine of economic and social rebirth.
3. Build better lives and livelihoods than before for all Louisiana's people.
4. Make Louisiana's recovery the standard for high performance, accountability, and ethical behavior.
Jazz, zydeco, Cajun musics, Carnival, Creole cooking. It is evident that Louisianians possess magical gifts. If only someone could make it pay off widely.
Landrieu cannot do it by himself. But the framework he's developed might help people like Panderina Soumas, a woman parlaying her Creole cooking talent into a revenue stream.
Landrieu will speak at Artspace, Wed, Aug 15, at 4:30 pm. There will be a press conference during which he pushes his World Cultural Economic Forum. At 5:15, says Stacie Leng, he will take a Trolley tour of Shreveport cultural sites.
Artspace will have music by the hard-traveling Bluebirds.
The Flett brothers, Buddy and Bruce, are exemplars of how to use cultural gifts. Possessors of the bayou blues tradition, they have worked like miners to make it pay off.
If you're part of the Bayou State cultural scene, you're used to doing it on your own. Today, someone's trying to help multiply your effort. See the Lt Governor / Dept of Culture, Recreation & Tourism / La Rebirth site. You may be surprised at the level of organization and incubation expressed therein.
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