For most of the year in New Orleans, the only weather issues we have to deal with are occasional afternoon monsoons and scorching humidity. The generally short-lived winter weather came a bit early this year, though, and since we in New Orleans have no idea what layering means, that’s usually our cue to huddle up in bars and living rooms.
Despite that, we were pleased to join a sizeable crowd of people turning up for New Orleans GOODFest at the outdoor Music Box Village venue. As photographers, we couldn’t be more excited about the space.
The space itself was reason enough to travel outdoors: a network of treehouse-type structures that themselves are musical instruments. Saws, chimes, and whirring turbines cohabitate in an almost ghostly neighborhood of small music huts that together function as a self-referential sculptures of the community inherent in music, a collaborative creation they’re themselves capable of.
The event was put on by GOOD and presented by Pixel, so we were even more excited about the opportunity to attend the event as Pixel photographers and put Google's new phone to the test. Tasked with capturing the night through the phone’s new camera, we immediately started exploring the unique architecture of the Music Box Village until the show started.
Familiar with the work of the evening’s featured artists--Gogol Bordello, TANK of Tank and The Bangas, and Nick Zinner of Yeah Yeah Yeahs--I was excited to hear what new and unfamiliar sounds they would draw out of these bizarre stationary instrument-structures. TANK started the evening off with a spoken-word version of Tank and the Banga’s piece “Human” that was so powerful that the crowd was immediately hushed. I was pleased to see that even in the romantically dim light of the performance space, the Pixel I was trying out let me capture high quality shots of this charged moment as well as the rest of the performance throughout the dynamic performance space.
After TANK’s spoken-word, the main event was signaled by Gogol Bordello lead vocalist Eugene Hütz’s iconically guttural voice as he emerged from a hut of wind chimes in an outfit reminiscent of the Old West--true to the piece’s billing as a “Dada Western,” a centennial homage to the art movement. What followed was a pretty magical and mobile combination of movement and music that saw Hütz and the rest of the performers travel from structure to structure telling a quite recognizably Western drama. The Pixel came in handy again here: it was really exciting to see all the details of the structures and costumes translate so well into photograph format.
With Gogol Bordello’s signature gypsy rock musical style (that, save for a couple guitars, came to life solely through the Music Box Village’s structural instruments clanging, banging, shaking, and whirring) the complete piece told an optimistic story of collaboration, community, beauty, and humanity. And if only for that hour, the surprise cold front I’d shied away from just hours before didn’t seem such a big deal. That performance and that venue generated its own intangible type of warmth that I was ecstatic to have been a part of.
Problematic homework question
A student’s brilliant homework answer outsmarted her teacher's ridiculously sexist question
From an early age, children absorb societal norms—including gender stereotypes. But one sharp 8-year-old from Birmingham, England, challenged a sexist homework question designed to reinforce outdated ideas.
An English teacher created a word puzzle with clues containing “UR.” One prompt read “Hospital Lady,” expecting students to answer “nurse.”
While most did, Yasmine wrote “surgeon”—a perfectly valid answer. Her father, Robert Sutcliffe, shared the incident on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the teacher had scribbled “or nurse” beside Yasmine’s response, revealing the biased expectation.
For Yasmine, the answer was obvious: both her parents are surgeons. Her perspective proves how representation shapes ambition. If children only see women as nurses, they internalize limits. But when they witness diversity—like female surgeons—they envision broader possibilities.
As Rebecca Brand noted in The Guardian: “Their developing minds are that little bit more unquestioning about what they see and hear on their screens. What message are we giving those impressionable minds about women? And how might we be cutting the ambitions of little girls short before they've even had the chance to develop properly?”
X users praised Yasmine while critiquing the question. Such subtle conditioning reinforces stereotypes early. Research confirms this: a study found children as young as four associate jobs with gender, with girls choosing “feminine” roles (e.g., nursing) and boys opting for “masculine” ones (e.g., engineering).
Even preschoolers avoided careers misaligned with their gender, proving sexist conditioning begins startlingly young.
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The problem spans globally. Data from 50 countries reveals that by age 15, girls disproportionately abandon math and science, while boys avoid caregiving fields like teaching and nursing. This segregation perpetuates stereotypes—women are underrepresented in STEM, and men in caregiving roles—creating a cycle that limits both genders.
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This article originally appeared last year.