I wanted to create a couple of entries today to catch up on the last month here at Deveney Communication. This entry’s gonna focus on one of the biggest things I did almost immediately upon starting work, and then tonight I’ll do a post on our clients. Tomorrow I’ll either do a post on our office location or the New Orleans nightlife. We’re hitting up Port of Call again tomorrow night, so I’ll have some great stories.
But back to work! One of the biggest projects Deveney was working on when the associates
started work in June was the Grand Opening of Audubon Institute’s newest attraction, the Audubon Insectarium. The firm generated publicity for the grand opening and got media to attend the event. This place was apparently a big deal, being the largest museum of its kind in the U.S. and generating partnerships with entities like Terminix, which had a “bug blog” running for a couple weeks before the opening. Deveney attended the grand opening and facilitated media requests, interviews, shots, etc.
My fellow interns and I mingled throughout the “block party” (the city blocked off the street for the opening), asking questions of Insectarium employees and generating a buzz (pardon the pun) about the place for passerbys. Audubon actually had a brass band come out there, which was pretty cool, and they had this dude running around in a happy termite costume to hang with kids.
It was a big deal for the city apparently, because they had representatives from Audubon, Terminix and the mayor’s office there, in addition to Jackie Clarkson and Sonya Jindal. Crazy!
At first I didn’t know what to think about the Insectarium, because it just seemed like it wasn’t really a big deal. But the opening was a hit, with high-profile attendees and great attendance, and it was a fun event. I was looking for more immersion into the insects housed at the museum, more in the style of an aquarium, but the museum is just starting out.
There’s a bunch of cool things you can experience at the Insectarium. You can check out what it’s like to be a burrowing bug in the Underground exhibit, see some interesting things about Louisiana’s native insects and observe a bug’s journey through life in Metamorphosis. One of the cooler exhibits I felt was Butterflies in Flight, which is a sort of Zen garden secluded from the rest of the museum. It’s air-sealed and humidified, and you can walk through and see different types of butterflies; some might even land on you. It’s similar to Bellingrath Gardens in Alabama, so it was cool to see something like that come to Louisiana.
Finally, the Bug Appétit exhibit gave me an opportunity to get outside of my element a bit. Mainstream people generally don’t eat bugs, but they’re high in protein and are considered an ideal option for wilderness survival. So I wasn’t lost in the Amazon, but since I’m on somewhat of a health kick anyway, I figured, why not? How often am I going to have the opportunity to say that I ate Cajun crickets? So I seized the day and sampled a lineup of chocolate-covered crickets, leaf-cutter ants and, albeit extremely hesitantly, some form of fried worm fritter.
Oh well, Hakuna Matata…
…once you get past the fact that you’re chewing on insects, it’s not so bad. The Cajun crickets were by far the best item on the menu, and I found myself returning for more. They reminded me of the roasted pumpkin seeds that are a classic post-Halloween snack in my family, with just an extra Cajun kick. The chocolate item tasted just like Nestlé Crunch bars: chocolate-covered crispy rice treats. My coworkers Jessica and Brandon certainly didn’t want to get in on the action and were shocked I kept shoving crickets into my mouth.
It was a pretty cool way to kick off my summer career, but it wasn’t the last field trip I took! I’ll let you know about my Ruth’s Chris adventure later.
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