There have been some exciting happenings in the
Noel Rockmore Project that have us quite
optimistic about things to come.
We are in the process of being interviewed by a major writer for a well known publication with a circulation of 250,000+.
An extensive article could appear this winter if all goes well. This would be the largest audience ever to hear about Noel Rockmore and his family in any publication to date. We have also begun
discussions with important curators across the US on the possibility of museum exhibitions and tours. Last but not least, we have begun pitching books, a documentary and screenplay concepts to folks that might be able to guide us or even help make things happen. If you know someone or have any ideas of
someone who might have helpful advice, please let us know.
There are some
major Rockmore jazz works coming up at auction this weekend at Neal Auction as well as The Mardi Gras Street Scene will be offered again by New Orleans Auction Galleries at a reduced reserve. There is one special item up for auction and that is of
Melvin (the porter)
at Johnny White's who was a French Quarter fixture for many years and loved by all, especially Rockmore. It has been a tough time in the art auction world and in the financial world for everyone as we all know by this point. The
good news is there are plenty of deals to be found before Rockmore breaks on the national scene and the economy recovers. The
bad news is who wants to spend precious resources in this economic time when most of us are struggling to keep our heads above water. We are
optimistic that
these times they are a changing.
The really
Great News is that
Gypsy Lou Webb (friend and confidant of Noel Rockmore) has found a home in Slidell Louisiana. Special thanks to all that participated in helping Lou get settled. It was certainly a long stressful process complicated by many variables most notably the need for Lou to be verifiably poor and complete paperwork for various agencies. She found an
angel named Bonnie (pictured below) who worked at the homeless shelter and took Lou into her own home as a renter and then helped her get her paperwork completed. Now, thanks to Bonnie, COAST and the Florida Parish Services, Lou's rent is covered for
the next 5 years! She loved all the cards and for those of you that enclosed $ she was most appreciative and she hopes she responded to all by mail. We visited her in early August and she was doing great and back to her old routines at the COAST Senior Center.
Her address is as follows:
Gypsy Lou Webb - PO Box 583 - Slidell, LA, 70458 -
So send her a card today!
On the personal front,
Sherm (our golden)
is in cancer remission and we enjoy each and every day with him.
Tee is hard at work on the new You Tube Video which will be a 10 minute overview of Rockmore for the throngs that will come to the website after the article.
Hats off to Tee for her
website redesign.
Rich is ready to engage FaceBook and will be contacting the
FaceBookers soon with breaking updates on
The Noel Rockmore Facebook Fan Page. We are also hoping to provide a
snail mail newsletter for all our non electronic friends as well.
Shirley is fully recovered from her early summer illness and has loved the
Summer of Perseverance and looks forward to returning to Louisiana in the fall. She would like an opportunity to see all her friends upon her return and of course so would Gypsy Lou Webb. To this end, we are working towards having a
Gypsy Lou & Shirley Birthdays in October Celebration on
Saturday October 9th from 1-6PM. We are not sure where just yet but will let you know if we can pull this off on no budget. There would be time to visit with them as we update folks in person on the Rockmore Project and we celebrate with these two French Quarter icons (FYI -It's not their official birthdays so no gifts are needed - just you).