Bryan Batt plays creative director Salvatore Romano on AMC's Mad Men, and he's emerged as one of the show's most unambiguously sympathetic characters. A talented and expressive professional, he's also a deeply closeted gay man in an era and culture that keeps him very much on the down low -- even to himself. Fans were shocked when Sal was abruptly fired from ad agency Sterling Cooper after rejecting the advances of an amorous client, and his future on the show remains cloudy. Batt's prospects, however, have rarely looked rosier, as he enjoys both critical acclaim and domestic success with his New Orleans decor boutique, Hazelnut (co-owned with Batt's partner of many years Tom Cianfichi). Batt talks with us about his ideal return to Mad Men, hunky National Guardsmen making the best of Hurricane Katrina, and getting dressed to the nines.

It's been the year of the dead, the undead, and the plain old supernatural. There's the Twilighters -- the clan of vamps with their amber eyes and sparkly skin. And then there's HBO's racier version of blood-sucking, lots-of-sex-having vampires on True Blood, and the Vampire Diaries, the YA version showing on the CW. Given the major crush on the undead that the nation seems to have developed, it's no surprise that New Orleans, in conjunction with the Voodoo Experience festival, is calling all zombies to meet up this October 31.

Jazz Fest. Just those two words alone make my brain sweat. It's been a few years, but I recall there being an ongoing debate over which of the two weekends is better at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. I've disappeared into the depths of New Orleans for both jazz fest weeks before; I came out alive, worse for wear, and my life forever changed (it's true, there are really are some things you can never unsee). Tearing through both weeks is a physical and mental challenge where you need to pace yourself like a marathon runner, or maintain unhealthy daily rituals like a junkie. And the fact remains, these days, who can really afford to drop out for two weeks in New Orleans? So, you have to make a choice and pick one good long weekend to blow out the pipes.

Sitting across from Theresa Andersson at the Starbucks in downtown Austin’s Omni Hotel, I couldn’t help but notice how her eye makeup (hot pink shadow and cerulean eyeliner) really popped against the beiges and browns of her cardigan. The bold color combo didn’t surprise me. Everything I read prior to meeting Andersson painted her as a free spirit whose aesthetics and musical sensibilities are affected by color, textures, layers, and recreated sounds. Her kitchen in New Orleans, where she recorded the album Hummingbird Go! (Basin Street Records, 2008), is painted a light blue. She hand-stitched scraps of felt to create 1,500 album covers for I the River. Instead of buying a xylophone, she chose to save money by creating one out of glass bottles filled with water. She doesn’t perform with a band; instead, Andersson is backed by an intricate set of loops, pedals, and instruments (all played by the Swede’s capable hands, and at times, bare feet). Over coffee, I tested Andersson’s five senses -- sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch -- with a little game. Needless to say, she kicked ass.

Writer and performer Mark Sam Rosenthal, of the one-man show Blanche Survives Katrina in a FEMA Trailer Named Desire, muses on King cake, critics and the beloved Blanche DuBois. Now playing at the Soho Playhouse through March 15.

You were born in raised in Baton Rouge, so Katrina hit pretty close to home.
Half my family is in New Orleans—aunts, uncles, cousins. So I had a lot of personal connection(s) to the whole thing, which is the reason why I wrote the show. It was very emotional. My cousins spent four months at my mom’s. After the storm in Baton Rouge, I think 200,000 extra people were there overnight. It was crazy. And I think 50,000 have stayed and become permanent residents.

Was your family able to return to New Orleans?
One distant cousin’s home was totaled, but everyone else was able to repair eventually and return.

New Orleans' favorite beer is back on the Bayou (and in a few Yank bars).

My grandfather chased his bourbon with it, my father stocked his fraternity house with it, and it was my first stolen sip of beer as a kid. I can still remember the green and white label looking up at me from the bottom of an ice chest at a barbecue when I was twelve—magnified by a foot of water and the lure of the forbidden, promising Southern manhood by the ounce. Even at twelve, I’d heard the name enough to know that Dixie beer had a cultural significance in Louisiana on par with LSU football, gumbo, and humidity. Even Walker Percy gave it due reverence when he wrote that one can “eat crawfish and drink Dixie beer and feel as good as it is possible to feel in this awfully interesting century.” Dixie beer has been washing down Gulf oysters and boiled crawfish since 1907, but has been on a hurricane hiatus for the past two years since the brewery was flooded by Katrina and then dismantled by looters.