New Orleans reminds me of women I have known but not married. They are the bat shit crazy women, possibly made nuts by you and your own antics, yet they teach you about yourself and most important highlight your limitations. They come into your life in a blaze of excitement, they make you crazy and then they leave trailing relief, fond memories and a wistful feeling of “if only…” in your head.
I wish I had some pictures of the worst or even of the least offensive potholes in this city of madness. The thing is when you drive here this is not a city suited to casual steering or lack of attention to where you are going. This is a town designed to sap your morale and destroy your attention mile after mile after mile. GANNET2 has aftermarket suspension and ball joints for extra strength which is good but we roll and bounce and lurch mercilessly as we cross the city.
And then you get a personal crawfish pie for dinner from Orleans Brothers in the East City and all is forgiven. And that need not be all…unless you are married to Layne the not crazy one who knows what’s bad for me, and it turns out, pralines are decidedly not good. But they are on the menu sultry temptresses:
Everybody sells food in New Orleans and all of it is good. It may well cut your life or your mobility short with grease, and an abundance of this stuff will wreck you; but that is another hallmark of this crazy lady that is New Orleans. That and the music, the traditional jazz, the sounds of tourist town to seduce visitors into thinking New Orleans is approachable and easy going. It’s not; at least not to me. I am an alien here and totally at sea, out of my element and as fearful as most Americans are in Mexico. Mexico is easy compared to this city known to the over familiar as the Big Easy.
(Ruth and Naomi by Leonard Baskin in the Sculpture Garden at City Park).
Like all the exciting people in your life the Crescent City has a reputation and is unpredictable. Unless you know what you are doing the city will punish you severely. People used to wonder that I walked the streets of Key West at night. I don’t do that here. I stick to tourist areas, don’t get drunk in public, or even in private really, and we tuck ourselves up in a secure parking area by dark. Last night was Walmart. Weird but true and Rusty loves walking the parking lot in the morning. Another free spot is casino parking with the benefit of security guards.
We asked permission which was cheerfully given and we slept the sleep of the just. We spent Monday at the city park admiring sculptures.
Karma by Do-Ho Suh and some loud passerby explaining the piece to his friends. I’m not sure he got it right but I know nothing anyway. At the Besthoff Sculpture Garden.
So what is the appeal? New Orleans has a coastline on a featureless circular lake, the drives around southern Louisiana are flat and swampy and mostly elevated highways and levees. The climate is sultry in summer and cold in winter, always damp and swampy. Like any tourist destination New Orleans, like Key West, likes to try to retain the aura of having a secret locals code to discover the Real Thing. There is no real thing in Key West but whether there is in New Orleans I couldn’t say.
New Orleans does retain its aura of corruption and barely functional bureaucracy. But against all these negatives this is a city with charisma and culture. It’s a black city by population, two to one with whites in the minority and Latinos barely registering at six percent of the population.
New Orleans is vibrant and interesting and difficult and ignored largely in national politics. It’s a city that needs a new public works program, that needs to be cared for.
And then I ask myself why? Key West has shucked off the bohemian dis function that was thrust upon it and now the city is the home of not very interesting clean tidy wealthy people in a majority tolerating those that serve a purpose or have entrenched themselves too deep to shift. I suspect the same may be happening to New Orleans judging by the complaints of gentrification from the displaced.
We had gumbo with a friend who moved to north Florida to be close to her daughter and also to be able to afford home ownership. She misses her community on Spain Street and to hear her talk it was heaven on earth, friendly neighbors and a true sense of community. I ate her gumbo with relish.
I doubt I’m the first to say it but that’s New Orleans in a bowl, brown like English boarding school food, full of diverse bits and pieces and totally unappetizing. And then you taste it and rational explanations go out the window. Pam loaded us with gumbo to go and already I’m looking forward to leftovers tonight. It’s that good.
Just like New Orleans, so elusive yet so good you might as well try to catch it in a butterfly net.
3 comments:
When I was in The Service and stationed at Biloxi, Mississippi, I had a roommate that was from New Orleans. We spent many weekends and holidays at his home in New Orleans. Because he was from there, he knew all the back doors and hideouts the tourist never see. Some of those places make we wonder how I am still alive.
I’m glad you made it !
As a native Louisianaian, gumbo is a labor of love, and that bowl looks delicious.
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