Photo from the Associated Press.
From the Times Picayune in New Orleans:
Driving tours begin today of the 150 flamingo-colored fabric houses, stand-ins for actor Brad Pitt's Make It Right architectural project in the Lower 9th Ward.
The free driving tour, modeled on the Celebration in the Oaks holiday tour of City Park, features tent-like structures scattered between Tennessee Street and the Industrial Canal in the Lower 9th Ward.
All the structures are wired to glow from within, with constellations of lights spaced across the ground between them, representing the lives lost during Hurricane Katrina and in the flood that followed. All occupy sites where the Make it Right project intends to build new homes.
I will not make fun of Brad Pitt again. He is doing great work in my beloved home town, New Orleans. He's there, on the ground, talking to the people of the Lower 9th Ward, getting their input. The houses will be environmentally friendly.
Pitt explained that only one pink house thus far has its roof in place. The rest of the roof shapes will be lifted atop their companion blocks when the $150,000 needed to erect each real house is raised.
"As each house is adopted, the roof goes on," Pitt said.
As the houses go up, the pink awning material used in the tents will be recycled into tote bags and, perhaps, umbrellas by workers from the Lighthouse for the Blind to raise money for Make it Right.
Thank you, Brad.
A superb gesture and project - and one that cannot be missed from the ground or the air!
ReplyDelete"As the houses go up, the pink awning material used in the tents will be recycled into tote bags" They are missing a liturgical opportunity here, however. How many altars do not have rose pink frontals/vestments for Gaudete/Laetare?
Brad Pitt vestments. A whole new priestly fetish.
ReplyDeleteStrange, but oddly provoking.
ReplyDeleteJust by means of an illustration, the BBC News has a very good report on this story:
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7126350.stm
... Including a picture!
And I'll bet the vestments would be cheap, compared to those in the regular catalogs.
ReplyDeleteI should never sell my readers short in their capacity to take the threads in new and interesting directions. I think the vestments would be a great idea, even if they're used for only one Sunday in the year.
RR, the local paper did not have a picture as good as that from the BBC. Here's a link to the same site that might work a little easier. Scroll down to see the picture of the house.
Thank you, Grandmere, for the easier link to the BBC site. I was hoping that the comments box would allow me to use more advanced HTML but, alas, no!
ReplyDeleteRR, are you using quotation marks? Sometimes inserting quotation marks immediately preceding and following the URL will work.
ReplyDeletegood for Brad!
ReplyDeletean unusual sight.
RR, I called the diocesan office for disaster relief to suggest a use for the pick tent fabric, and the woman I talked to seemed taken with the idea. She's looking into it.
ReplyDelete