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weaponsofchoicenola

@weaponsofchoicenola

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A Reading/Writing/Thinking Lifestyle Store; A Distribution Company; CEO/Founder/Worker @thisisolivialilley 🌊 🪄;Located inside @siltnola; Open Soon

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We’re on the road to Opening @weaponsofchoicenola @siltnola a block from Jackson Square. This shit is a real life dream come true. I can still barely believe I’m here. This picture was taken inside of Silt back in June of this year long before it ever entered my mind that I would be doing this. So if you’re a fan of mine or if you’re a reader who loves coffee in the morning and Cinema and appreciate @charli_xcx’s attempts to bring all these cultures together and you happen to live (or be temporarily) in New Orleans, stop by. This week we’ve got construction but next week, definitely. taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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3 days ago

Do you subscribe to @currentaffairsmag? You should. It’s not just online. It’s also in print and sold @weaponsofchoicenola 🌊 🪄 📖 🎙️ 🔥 Listen to Episode 11 in Season 4 of @thefutureofartinamerica. It captures the first day I met brilliant New Orleanian, thinker, writer, renegade, magazine founder, @nathan___robinson. Then check out his podcast and sign yourself up to read the front lines of Democratic Socialism in the United States and other fun, thrilling things including lots of cartoons. 📸 by @gallowayphotographica taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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5 days ago

I will release my debut work of the gray area between fiction and non fiction, “The New Social Media” before the end of 2026. It will be exclusively sold in New Orleans @weaponsofchoicenola and @foundvernacularbooks (in person) unless you have pre-ordered. Then I will be shipping you your copy. @gallowayphotographica and I teamed up to create an expression of the book in visual form. 📸 by @gallowayphotographica and Creative Direction, Costuming, and Modeling by me. The book itself is designed by @cyrusfinegan🐊 🧿. More on that later. Can’t wait for ya’ll to have this story in your hands and this battle cry in your hearts. 🔥🔥🔥 🎙️ taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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6 days ago

She’s not done yet. She’s a work in progress. This has been a wild week of decades of dots connecting and appearing as a tangible object before me in my new store in a gallery @siltnola. From serving job to shopkeep to Content Creator to sleep to shopkeep again so forth and so on. I like this new rhythm. Here’s a bit of the mixed media present and future I see for myself and my little Reading, Writing, Thinking Lifestyle store @weaponsofchoicenola ⚔️ 🌟 This is about a quarter of the way in. @unexpectedred_studio continues the build today and all next week. Til’ the grand reveal of it all, watch as this caterpillar slowly but surely blossoms into a butterfly. Inventing something newish in the 21st Century is neat. Thank you to everybody who holds me up while I’m holding up myself. Stop in some time and see the transformation for yourself. 🌊 🪄 taken in Silt Gallery by @weaponsofchoicenola

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7 days ago

We @siltnola are open for Business 7 Days a week. I’ll be here Sundays through Wednesdays 11am to 5pm. (2:30pm this Wednesday for my other job.) @revvargvargas will be here 12pm til’ he decides Thursdays - Saturdays. 🌊 🪄 🌟 🌟 We got ART. We got BOOKS. We have JEWELRY and hand altered CLOTHING. 🎨 🎨 🎨 Welcome to our little world. I’m pleased to have made it here. 😌 901 Chartres Street. taken in Silt Gallery by @weaponsofchoicenola

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9 days ago

Tomorrow is my first day operating the store. It’s a training day alongside store owner @revvargvargas of @siltnola, but to me, tomorrow begins this road officially. Or really- this incarnation, this Level 2, if you will, of building the Distribution Business of my dreams. It is the business that started long ago as I scribbled visions on notecards and posted them on cork boards that I could see all the time. It is the business that started when I was a little girl looking up at the silver screen and also the bookstore and also the restaurant and thinking to myself, “I could make that, and I could do it better.” I am 37 years old. I only started thinking of myself as an Entrepreneur when I was maybe about 31, but it’s been in my bones my entire life. Tomorrow, I’ll be showing up there at 11am with my coffee. Lance or @revvargvargas will also be there, getting me acquainted with my new world, but tomorrow is not just the first day I’m selling, it’s the first day of the rest of my life. I’m taking the wheel at the next level of what I’m doing, what I have been doing on the Internet, in my episodes of @thefutureofartinamerica, of all the lessons I’ve been experiencing in my real life. All I have to say is thank you to all who have come before. Thank you to my New Orleans elders for welcoming me in once I proved myself (and still am). I am honored, and I am ready. Come see us tomorrow, and once it’s October 1st, come see me 11am to 5pm Sundays through Wednesdays at 901 Chartres Street. 🌟 🌊 🪄 taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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10 days ago

Last night, I tried @sofrito_project_hussle latest invention: his shrimp and beef quesadilla 😋😋😋 I cannot WAIT til’ you have your own restaurant, Terrell! I hope I get to be a partner in it someday. 🥹 We have both already come so far. 🌟 Can’t wait to have you as a guest on @thefutureofartinamerica in a couple of weeks. Everybody, you gotta go to @emporiumneworleans on a weekend night and get these incredible late night eats. One of New Orleans current best kept food secrets right here. Thank you for your encouragement and your friendship this whole time. 🙂 taken in Emporium Arcade Bar by @weaponsofchoicenola

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16 days ago

Thank you, @emporiumneworleans 🌟. Thank you, friends, customers, and allies. For everything. taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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17 days ago

@st._pats_irish_coffeehouse was there for me when I felt lost last October. As the busy season in New Orleans geared up, book sales in front of dive bars was dropping off. I needed a new French Quarter location. One day, I started coming here for my morning coffee, recording porch hangs time on my story, and waking up my mind slowly with a good book. Pretty soon, I met the family of owners who, it turned out, were just like me growing their multiple businesses. Luke, the eldest son, offered to let me pop up inside of their Irish History Museum for free anytime I wanted, so I started doing it. While here I sold books but I also sold Beanie Babies, and I wrote a LOT of @substack pieces inspired by the stories on these walls (pictured in the last photo) and memories of growing up with my Granny who was also FROM Ireland and emigrated when she married my Grandad. I stopped vending there when I started working in hospitality, and my life took me in other directions, but I wanted to properly thank the family and this space that you generously allowed me to have without any worry that it wouldn’t benefit y’all. You’ve owned this property since after Katrina. Ya’ll are truly French Quarter, NEIGHBORS, and I see you. I can’t wait til’ ya’ll are open all the time and selling Irish Coffee and Espresso Martinis again, but alas, I will have to wait. Don’t worry though. I am patient to a super human degree. In the meantime, let’s celebrate all that you’ve been and all that you are. 🌟 And ya’ll, if you’ve never had their coffee, it’ll fire you up and inspire you to seize your day. Pop in and see if Cassandra is there sometime. And if she isn’t, just admire the courtyard and take a picture. You don’t just stumble into a place this beautiful every day. 🌊 🪄 taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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17 days ago

The countdown to @weaponsofchoicenola in @siltnola continues. Today, fellow Small Business Owner @momma_minnow of @minnow_jewelry_bar gifted me some essential, pricey tools for my store. Since I started popping up every day a year ago and some change first @discodecatur, she has been an encouraging force. She is truly the Veteran in these seas of art and commerce. She’s a Warrior far at sea inside of the storms and riptides and currents of the merchant world that is The French Quarter and especially Decatur Street. I am so thankful for your friendship, wisdom, artistry, and attitude. You’re brilliant, and I can’t wait until people are wearing your custom jewelry in every city and cool hip town across the United States and beyond. Having you here in the quarter just down the street is making this seismic leap so much easier. To our many daytime chit chats past and to come. 🥂 Also, everybody listen to her episode of @thefutureofartinamerica. I’ll drop it at a link in my bio. 🎙️ 🔥 Here’s to chasing our dreams for real every single moment down here in New Orleans. 🌊 🪄 taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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18 days ago

Last year, from July through… November, @emporiumneworleans allowed me to do my book pop up 6-7 nights a week. Yes. They didn’t charge me additional rent. They gave me ice water (gallons sometimes thank you @sittinchicken 💓). They wanted me there, and they always made sure I knew that. The community that I befriended at Emporium is and remains one of my favorite, multifaceted crowds I have encountered in New Orleans. In February, l kind of disappeared. I needed a stable income so I got two jobs, and I didn’t have much time anymore for this work. But that’s all changing. I’m about to move the new version of my book pop up into a permanent storefront location (inside @siltnola). To celebrate all that @emporiumneworleans does for small businesses like mine (Have you tried the wonderful food of all the street vendors out there such as @sofrito_project_hussle and @7bossman7 @community__chef??), I am doing one last pop up there: Saturday September 12th, I’ll be out there for the first time as @weaponsofchoicenola 📚 📚 📚. That night, I will be selling books, accepting book donations, assessing book trades, and placing a dollar bin in one of my suitcases. If I haven’t seen you in forever, I would love to. I am anticipating many 🫂 and heartfelt words exchanged. 7pm to midnight. @emporiumneworleans crew, rise up! Consider choosing your next read as you wait for your pool table. Special thanks to the whole staff over there. I miss you, and I will be bringing gifts to demonstrate my gratitude for your roles in my journey. taken in Emporium Arcade Bar by @weaponsofchoicenola

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24 days ago

I’ve been working @thecelestinenola since the day after Mardis Gras. After my first year of entrepreneurship with the book pop up, I needed a break. I needed some time to recover. I needed a summer to think. This fountain has calmed many a writer over the centuries. Waking up at dawn and coming here has been a real respite. In just a few weeks, I’m leaving this job and returning to the fray only this time it’s inside of a gallery on Chartres Street a block from Jackson Square. Instead of popping up random nights, I will have set hours, and I’ll also be selling the incredible art work of @revvargvargas and other folks I will soon meet and get to know. I won’t have to brave the outdoor elements anymore, but new challenges await me as the busy season draws near. 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 I am ready. Thank you, beautiful boutique hotel, for being here for me when I needed it the most. I’ll miss you, but I’ll come visit, and who knows. Perhaps we will work together in the future under different circumstances. Perhaps @thefutureofartinamerica circumstances. 👀 🎙️ 🔥 Also, if you’ve never been to @peychaudsbar, I suggest you do it soon. This courtyard is also THEIR seating. Can you imagine a better place to sip a Vieux Carre or a Sazarac? Also, thanks Tennessee Williams’ ghost. You clearly led me here. Working a coffee shop named after you and your beloved Room 9 is like a warm hug every day from someone who knows. 🌊 🪄 taken in New Orleans, Louisiana by @weaponsofchoicenola

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a month ago