658. Scott Tilton, Part 2

658. Part 2 of our conversation with Scott Tilton. Scott is the Co-Founder and Director of the Nous Foundation, a platform for exchange between Louisiana and the French-speaking world. He lived the past several years in Paris where he worked as a consultant at Ernst & Young France on projects for the European Union, the UN, and the French Government. While in Paris, Scott launched and spearheaded an initiative that saw Louisiana become the first U.S. state to join the International Organization of the Francophonie (La Francophonie).

1. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 221 years. Order your copy today!
   
2. This week in the Louisiana Anthology. George Washington Cable. “Café des Exiles.” An antiquated story-and-a-half Creole cottage sitting right down on the banquette, as do the Choctaw squaws who sell bay and sassafras and life-everlasting, with a high, close board-fence shutting out of view the diminutive garden on the southern side. An ancient willow droops over the roof of round tiles, and partly hides the discolored stucco, which keeps dropping off into the garden as though the old café was stripping for the plunge into oblivion — disrobing for its execution. I see, well up in the angle of the broad side gable, shaded by its rude awning of clapboards, as the eyes of an old dame are shaded by her wrinkled hand, the window of Pauline. Oh for the image of the maiden, were it but for one moment, leaning out of the casement to hang her mocking-bird and looking down into the garden, — where, above the barrier of old boards, I see the top of the fig-tree, the pale green clump of bananas, the tall palmetto with its jagged crown, Pauline's own two orange-trees holding up their hands toward the window, heavy with the promises of autumn; the broad, crimson mass of the many-stemmed oleander, and the crisp boughs of the pomegranate loaded with freckled apples, and with here and there a lingering scarlet blossom.
3. This week in Louisiana history. December 27, 1814. Jackson's men repell a British reconnaissance force near Rodriguez Canal.
4. This week in New Orleans history. Jean Étienne de Boré (December 27, 1741 – February 1, 1820) was the first Mayor of New Orleans. His wife, Marie Marguerite d'Estrehan, came from one of the most prominent families of colonial Louisiana; her father, Jean Baptiste d'Estrehan, was the Royal Treasurer of French Louisiana. Etienne owned a plantation a few miles above the City of New Orleans. There he had originally cultivated indigo. But when this product lost its market as a result of competition from Guatemala, he turned his attention to the manufacture of sugar. On his estate he set up a sugar mill and there, in 1795, had, with the aid of two Cubans, Mendez and Lopez, succeeded in producing the first granulated sugar ever known in the colony, with the result that agriculture was completely revolutionized. He was appointed mayor by Governor William C. C. Claiborne in 1803; he resigned to look after his personal affairs the following year. He died at around 80 years old, and is buried in New Orleans' Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1. One of his daughters was the mother of Louisiana historian Charles Gayarré.
   
5. This week in Louisiana.
   New Year's Eve in New Orleans
   French Quarter
       There's no better time or place to welcome 2025 than New Orleans. Ring in the New Year with a spectacular free concert and fireworks display along the Mississippi River, while celebrations pulse through the French Quarter and downtown. Join us for beloved traditi