New Orleans, Louisiana

"Program Change: Earth, Wind and Fire will perform today, ARETHA FRANKLIN WILL NOT APPEAR"

Yeah. Annoying.
     Still, Iman, Ellie and I saw reams of brilliant musicians at JazzFest this year, both inside and outside the festival grounds. The calibre of the average busker is incredible in the Big Easy, as is that of the bands playing the clubs in town- often an artist will play to the JazzFest audience, who've payed up to $60 apiece for a day's ticket, then head to Bourbon Street and play to people who got in for five dollars, or even for free.
     Trombone Shorty did it the other way around- on Saturday night he and his band Orleans Avenue played Tipitina's Uptown, finished at about five in the morning, had breakfast, then headed into the racecourse and did it all over again.
     The man does not have a single bad review. Everyone and anyone you talk to about Trombone Shorty will say how great he is, how fun the show is, and sometimes how they're personally linked to him. Raheem, our CouchSurfing Host's brother, told us to go see him in the bar, whatever the cost, whatever the stupid time of night, because we'd get a real intimate experience from it.
      After seeing him on the stage for an hour, we all regretted not having the intimate experience. A smooth voice, a sweet sound from the trombone, the trumpet and the piano, a love of his band and a collection of classic sounds formed into fresh songs make for a brilliant gig, and the pure talent of the ensemble is captivating.
     The bassist absolutely blew me away- here he is starting out his solo --

Then, as he gets more into it, his band starts egging him on

And finally pure jazztastic noise pours from the stage, and the guy is lying on the ground kicking his feet in the air

And I started thinking this is how music is meant to be.
     As you leave a bar on Frenchman street you're greeted by a brass or funk band, as you walk towards the festival people are jamming on up-turned icecream tubs and leading the passing crowds in singing.
     So yeah, it would've been nice to see Aretha.
          But New Orleans has so much more to offer the world than big names and bright lights

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The "9ème art" of the Graphic Novel

Images from the Cité du Livre website Festival de Bande Dessinée, Cité du Livre, Aix-en-Provence For some reason I've never been here before. For some reason it's taken this bibliophile seven months to figure out that there is a place in Aix-en-Provence devoted to literature, a place whose name in Google Translate produces variations on the theme of Book City, Book Estate and Book Ghetto. The books, they are huge. We have discussed before how I feel about books. Books which I recently blabbered about in a vlog are here reproduced in thirty-foot-high concrete form and act as a simple external wall to the Book Ghetto. They are huge. I felt a few tears when I first saw them. Hidden unjustly away behind the gare routière , the Cité du Livre played host this month to a graphic novel festival whose speakers ranged from authors to graffiti artists, and whose slightly shabby walls were transformed into booths full of first drafts, coloured panels and authors' not...

Calgary, Alberta

Yesterday I ran around the city a bit, trying to see as much as possible for as little as possible... It was hard. The walk from Sean's place in Renfrew was long but scenic. Cold and crisp, Calgary did turn out to be mostly suburb, with a pretty concentrated centre with all your usual tourist hangouts just south of the Bow river where a lot of money can be spent very easily. Like $14 for going up Calgary Tower, $9 for a student ticket to the Glenbow Museum, and all those malls! They're all interconnected, so you could probably walk from shop to shop most of the way across the city without having to see sunlight. This is probably the idea behind the Plus Fifteen, too- a heated walkway above the streets so the Calgarians don't have to freeze in winter. The Glenbow offered your normal mix of traditional art, weird modern stuff, rooms full of the extensive and glorious history of Alberta, all 150 years of it,...

Writing CV

Let's talk: jenni.ajderian@gmail.com Mild-mannered professional Linguist by day, crime-fighting writer and editor by night. Currently protecting the mean streets of Dublin from bad content. "She's one of the good ones" - FringePig "Best. Review. Ever." - @ObjectiveTalent "This interview has won #edfringe" - @FredRAlexander "I think this is the nicest review I've ever received." - @DouglasSits "Do you give lessons? Jus askin..." - @RockyFlintstone FedEx Digital Infinite Beta blog - 2017 I worked with FedEx Digital as a Technical Copywriter (more info on my LinkedIn Profile ) and produced sassy content for their Infinite Beta blog. The tone here is informal and personable, the aim being to show some personality and attract future team members to the company. How to explain your job title Automated content checkers Technology predictions for 2018 (I wasn't too far off) 3di Technical Commu...

Jenni Ajderian

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