Mud grips legs, twisting the drunk and the clumsy down to an earthy stain. It poured rain two days ago and the ground around many of Voodoo Fest's art installations still oozes with wet dirt.

Artist Emiliano Maggi bends his svelte frame just beyond the muddy ground surrounding a large Oak tree. With a slight Italian accent Maggi explains, “It really is unusual to show art at a music festival but I love doing something new in nature… There are ants all around our installation.”

NEW ORLEANS | The “Bull” and the “‘Bot” chase each other in the darkness of Voodoo Fest’s mayhem. The “Bull” shoots steam from its horns. Old friends and past loves watch the pair pass before drunken eyes then fold back into their lives in far away cities.

The electronic second line is a sexual, dark, fun flood of ass-shaking lights moving without reason, cajoling the costumed crowds to revelry on a Halloween night.

NEW ORLEANS | At Voodoo Fest on Friday, October 30th, 2009, I officially reached middle age. In the fading dusk of a rainy Friday I found myself standing with a collection of high school sophomores watching a twenty-something “mega” band. I feel like the oldest person on the planet. The band is Silversun Pickups and the music sounds overly produced and slick.

Sheets of rain fall from the sky in a downpour. I squint to find a smiling face. The audience around me is too callow, too lost, too full of disinterest. The driving rain covers our clothes with a smell of wet skin and sweat. Our individual stinks mix together and hang in the turgid air.

NEW ORLEANS | It is Wednesday night in City Park and everything is still. Voodoo Fest will start in two days, but for now the unlit stages sit ready and primed. From Friday to Sunday the audience will throng in inebriated costumed mass to hear international mega-bands such as Kiss, Jane’s Addiction, Emminem, Lenny Kravitz and Widespread Panic.

Yet a smaller stage featuring local talent – The Bingo! Parlor – rises as a yellow and red striped tent at the entrance of the Voodoo Music Experience. Set among art installations and next to a small lake, the Bingo! Parlor combines influences of Tom Waits, “Hee-Haw” and Pee-Wee's Playhouse to produce a tent full of musical vaudeville, of strip tease, and of New Orleanian-ness. Local celebrity and co-founder of the Bingo! Parlor Clint Maedgen explains, “(The Bingo! Parlor) is something of a family reunion... It is fun to shine the light on our friends.”

“Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” Genesis 4.16

NEW ORLEANS | As far New Orleans houses go, the façade of Dan “Noomoon” Sheridan’s is rather plain. His home, a red brick shotgun, is in the Marigny. His dogs play as Sheridan, 41, stands tall in the gated front yard, a stoic Mid-westerner in the Big Easy. You would never know it at first glance but Sheridan leads one of the most eclectic tribes in America: the Land of Nod Experiment.

Inside his home Sheridan explains that he is a musician, performer, event promoter and producer. Presently he is promoting Saturday's Land of Nod Experiment, from noon to 9 p.m. in the French Market’s Dutch Alley.

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NEW ORLEANS | On the Sunday afternoon of Labor Day 2009 a throng of New Orleanians surround the door of Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club. The heavy doors of Sweet Lorraine’s are closed and there is no music. Yet the crowd – held back by a metal fence – is eager and looking intently at the African decorated façade of the club. Today is the day of the Black Men of Labor’s “second line” parade, the first such parade of the season.

Media glut the front doorway. Cameras and iPhones are held, ready to click. HD video is laid onto memory cards. When will The Black Men of Labor make their appearance? When will the second line start?

NEW ORLEANS | Fred Johnson’s voice pierces the din of evening conversation. “Hey men, excuse me, excuse me, you all need to weigh in on this.”

The group – The Black Men of Labor, one of New Orleans’ premier parading organizations – hushes. Johnson, 55, is their leader and when Johnson speaks the congregated men in the dim light of Sweet Lorraine’s Jazz Club listen.