Sticks, Stones, and Camera Phones

    “The charges against your son are very serious, Mrs. Dédé.  The Gérémie family in particular is pushing to have him tried as an adult sex offender and unfortunately, they have some pull with the District Attorney.”

   “Yes.  Clarice Gérémie is Augustine’s first cousin but I’ve known Clarice since our cotillion days and she always was a spiteful witch.  My son is an honor student and a gifted violinist who just happens to be bi-racial.  Clarice is trying to lynch him because that alley cat daughter of hers sent him a few suggestive pictures and now everyone in our set is saying that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” 

   
Throughout her twenty-year career as a public defender in the juvenile court system, Cynthia Knapp’s greatest satisfaction had come from making sure that young people, especially young black men, got a fair hearing.  She worked hard to keep young brothers charged with petty crimes like constructed possession of narcotics out of jail and she pushed for sentencing provisions that would help even the violent offenders rehabilitate themselves. She regularly referred clients to psycho-therapists, GED classes, and job training programs no matter how their cases turned out and she kept a closet full of Goodwill suits and dress shoes in her office so that her clients could look their best in court regardless of their financial circumstances.  Money would not be a problem for the Dédé family, she surmised but the case was one of the thorniest she had encountered. 

    “The laws governing new social media technologies are not well defined, Mrs. Dédé.  Edmond has been charged with felony distribution of pornographic materials involving minors.  If you all could clarify for me how those pictures ended up on his Facebook page, it would help me develop a strategy for his defense.”

    “It’s all very simple but no one will listen to my baby.  They kicked him out of Saint Andrews even though he’s never caused a moment’s trouble before.  I’m going to sue them all from here to kingdom come as soon as this farce of a criminal trial is over.” 

    “Yes, but how did the pictures like this one end up on his page?” Cynthia asked, pointing to the evidence on her computer screen.

   “A bunch of sleazy girls got a notion to take naked pictures of themselves with their fancy cell phones and send them to my son after he starred in the school musical.” 

    “They started an Edmond Dédé fan club site.  It was a joke,” said Edmond. 

   “I should charge them with corrupting an innocent.  My baby never asked anyone to send him nasty pictures.  Did you, Edmond?” 

   Edmond shook his head.

    “But you did post those pictures to your Facebook page?” Cynthia pressed.

  
Edmond nodded.

    “And you invited your friends to see them?” 

 
  “Not my friends,” Edmond protested.

    “If they had access to your Facebook page, they must have been your friends.  Or friends of your friends.  Don’t you have any privacy controls on your account?” 

   “I don’t understand this whole Facebook thing anyway,” broke in Mrs. Dédé.  He has hundreds of ‘friends’ on there but he says he didn’t want his real friends to see those pictures.” 

   “So you posted naked pictures of these girls on Facebook to show to people whom you don’t consider ‘friends?’” 

  
“They’re just a bunch of guys,” Edmond shrugged.

    “But you wanted them to see the pictures even though you wouldn’t show them to your ‘friends?’”

    “I wanted them to stop calling me names.”

    “Did you anticipate that they would post comments and call the girls names instead?”

    “They think I’m a punk because my mom’s white and I play music instead of sports.  They kept posting nasty comments on the fan club site.” 

   “Oh sweetie, you can’t let other people label you.  It’s who you are inside that counts.” 

   “I just wanted them to stop saying I’m gay.” 

    “Well are you?” Cynthia asked, cutting to the crux of the case. 

   “I don’t know,” Edmond murmured after a long pause. 

***
What do you think about “sexting” cases?  Should juveniles who circulate suggestive pictures of themselves or their peers through social networking media be prosecuted for distributing child pornography?  If convicted should they be required to register as sex offenders?  Can a minor be held criminally accountable for receiving pornographic images even if they were not solicited?  How should parents, school officials, and the courts handle the kind of cyber bullying that drove Edmond to make a very poor decision?

***
The real Edmond Dédé was a free man of color born in New Orleans in 1827.  He moved to Europe in 1857 to further his musical studies and earned some renown as a violinist and composer.   He married a Frenchwoman and settled in France, returning to New Orleans only once in 1893.

Here is a link to a performance of Dédé’s “Rêverie champêtre:”

And if your dolls would like a sleek shag cut like Cynthia Knapp’s, here is a tutorial on making the wig:

 

 À Bientôt

Roux

“Just think, seventeen customers ordered Cajun deep fried turkeys for Thanksgiving.  I bet if we take out an ad in the Picayune, we can get even more orders next year.”

“But you will wear yourself out,” Naveen protested. 

Catering for a Knights of Columbus fundraiser over the weekend had almost run Tianna and Naveen off their feet.   The restaurant was closed on Mondays so the balmy November evening found them cooling their heels on a bench in the park.

   “I know your feet must still ache from standing over that gumbo pot all those hours.  “Let me attend to the suffering dears” said Naveen, drawing her slender calves into his lap and slipping off one sandal.  

“How do you like that?” he said as he removed the other sandal and began to gently massage her arches. 

 
  Tianna stopped balancing the accounts in her head and surrendered to Naveen’s tender ministrations.
 

He couldn’t cook.  He was all thumbs with a hammer, and he was likely to be off jitterbugging in some dive with his low life friend, Louis, just at the moment when there was serious work to be done but …

    Naveen’s fingers played lightly over Tiana’s body with the finesse of a master chef mincing celery and onions.  He improvised a medley of sensations, tossing a pinch of this and that into the gumbo pot and then he banked the heat so that instead of scorching, the sauce thickened in a rich blend of flavors.  “I think we have a fine roux,” he murmured as he savored the scent of her desire. 

    Suddenly he pulled Tiana onto his lap

and deftly stirred the pot, running his hands up and down her legs. 

Then he brushed her hair back from her face and gazed into her eyes:  

I’ll be loving you always

With a love that's true always.

When the things you’ve planned

Need a helping hand,

I will understand always

he crooned, tempering the red pepper with a little brown sugar.  He was about to sample the mixture when the pot came to a boil.  Tiana pushed her jitterbug prince down and kissed him, pressing in for a taste of his smoked andouille sausage.  He cupped her hips and pulled her closer.

Their legs intertwined as the gumbo steamed and bubbled…

  
“I think you folks better take the party indoors,” said Officer Waguespack.

Tiana and Naveen sat up sheepishly 

but after they got home they dished up loving spoonfuls for the rest of the night. 

***
I can’t promise a foot massage from Prince Naveen but you can make these sandals for your dolls by following the instructions in this tutorial:

Irving Berlin composed “Always” in 1925 for Ellin Mackay whose wealthy father opposed her marriage to a Jewish immigrant.  Berlin assigned the royalties from this song to Ellin so that she would have an income, always, but they remained married and deeply in love for sixty-three years until her death in 1988.

Here is the Ink Spots 1947 recording of this famous tune:

À Bientôt

The Cold Shoulder

Vivienne opened her eyes to a bright new day and reached out for the comforting warmth of her husband but he wasn’t there.

Abruptly she sat up in bed, ruefully remembering the argument that erupted the night before.

“Not now, Bernard,” Vivienne had said as she typed away on her computer.  “I have to finish this project for work.”

“Come on, Viv, you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder for weeks.”

“Bernard, I’m this close to landing a major account.  This project is really important to me.  I’ll make it up to you as soon as it’s finished.”

“Seems to me I heard that song right before you got the project you have now.  When is it my turn, Viv?”

“Somebody has to bring home the bacon.” 

Vivienne winced as the words echoed in her mind.  Bernard was a modern day troubadour.  He had won her heart by serenading her with original love songs and one of them had hit number three in the Billboard charts when a famous artist covered it.  For weeks everywhere she went she felt Bernard’s love pouring out of the radio.  He could move people to tears or make them kick up their heels and forget about their troubles.  From time to time royalty checks might rain down like a princely shower of golden coins but his work didn’t generate a steady income.  As she tried to brush out her tangled locks and emotions, Vivienne felt ashamed of throwing money in his face. 

She got up to dress but when she opened her armoire, she remembered the Saint Regis lace gown her Great Aunt Morgana had given her at their last monthly tea...

It was still folded away in the bottom drawer. 

She shook the gown out and held it against her body. 

“I’ll show you the cold shoulder,” she smiled, shrugging the gown on over her womanly hips. 

The deep burgundy lace set off her creamy skin and raven hair. 

The satin rose that trimmed the front matched the roses that bloomed in her cheeks as she planned an amorous reconciliation.  Then she heard Bernard’s footsteps in the hallway.  She stashed her pajamas under a pillow

and struck a beguiling pose on the bed

just as Bernard came through the doorway.

“Good morrow my lady.  Wouldst thou break thy fast?” he said with his blue eyes twinkling. 

Vivienne drank in his manly form and sighed.

“Bernard I’m sorry…” she began

but Bernard clasped her hand, 

raised it to his lips and began singing:

Lady, I am one of those who willingly endures
your wishes, so long as I can endure;  

but I do not think I can endure it for long
without dying, since you are so hard on me
as if you wanted to drive me away from you, 

so I should never again see the great and true beauty
of your gentle body, which has such worth
that you are of all good women the best.  

Alas! thus I imagine my death. 

But the pain I shall have to bear
would be sweet, if I could only hope, 

that before my death, you let me see you again. 

A long while later Bernard cradled Vivienne on his lap and tenderly fed her like a child.

“Corn crashos?”

“You know I can’t cook, Madame Ventadour.  But

Lady, if ever my heart undertakes anything
which may honor or profit my heart,
it will come from you, however far you may be,
for never without you, whom I love very loyally,
nor without Love, could I undertake it or know it.  

***
The lyrics above come from “Dame, je suis cilz”  as quoted in “Study Guide for Medieval Love Songs” created by Dr. Paul Brians, Emeritus Professor of English, Washington State University.  I named Bernard after Bernard de Ventadour, one of the most famous troubadours in the “courtly love” tradition.  He lived in the 12th century and was attached to the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine in England.  Vivienne was originally a Disney fairy named Vidia, but I named her and her great aunt after characters in the cycle of Arthurian romance tales.

If any of your ladies wants to show a valiant knight the cold shoulder, here is a tutorial on making the gown:

À Bientôt