Calliope Street

The best year yet

2012-01-05T06:40:00.000-06:00

Wishing all of you happiness and abundance in the year ahead. Thanks for stopping by every now and then. I resolve to be a better blogger in 2012. Promise.

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

2011-12-10T07:56:00.001-06:00

This post is dedicated to Charlotte, the Mermaid, for reminding me of our last big snowfall exactly three years ago today, and to Brother Berryman, my high school French teacher, for introducing me to Francois Villon many, many, many years ago. Who could predict I would grow up to be a blogger in search of a headline one winter's morning in New Orleans?

Houseguest

2011-11-26T08:04:00.000-06:00

One of the things I like about living in a ground-floor apartment in New Orleans are the fluid borders between inside and outside. This little fellow was discovered on my bathroom window yesterday, looking out over the green and bug-rich world of the patio. That's where he is today. I took this photo, fetched a colander from the kitchen and coaxed him to jump. Seconds later, sweet freedom.

Giving thanks for Mr. Okra

2011-11-24T08:29:00.000-06:00

Today, I am thankful for Mr. Okra. Because of him, we have PINE-apples...we have brocc-O-li...we have CEL-ery...we have MUS-tard greens...

Canal Street, late afternoon

2011-11-23T18:21:00.001-06:00

Your blogger's mouse was on the fritz and, after many weeks of not blogging, he felt like blogging. What to do? Walk up to the Radio Shack on Canal Street and get him a new mouse. Good idea, blog-daddy-o. Bring the camera? Why not. Hey, you know what, Canal Street can be pretty interesting on a late fall afternoon. He reports, you decide.

Bunny Men Occupy New Orleans!

2011-10-29T08:16:00.001-05:00

Blue on blue

2011-10-01T18:57:00.000-05:00

Unretouched photo of the sky over New Orleans on this first day of October.

Offering a chair

2011-10-01T08:21:00.000-05:00

Another forlorn object outside my door this morning. Never mind that the weather has turned chilly. The scavenger gods demand beach chairs and must be appeased.

The bicycle has a bad night

2011-09-10T10:23:00.001-05:00

From the sweatshops of old Cathay came I
To be stripped, abandoned, left to die,
Ignored by every passer-by.
Imagine how this feels?

Disintegration is near complete.
They’ve grabbed my grips and swiped my seat.
And just last night, some Sneaky Pete
Deprived me of my wheels!

My obligatory (and probably final) Katrina anniversary post

2011-08-28T19:09:00.000-05:00

"Buck up -- Never say die. We'll get along!" says the Tramp.

The bicycle speaks

2011-08-27T09:39:00.001-05:00

Quoth: "A mournful cry escapes my lips/someone stole my rubber grips."

Yes, we still have bananas

2011-08-26T18:03:00.000-05:00

Everything else on the patio is dead, dying or prostrate with the late August heat. Pulling on a tall glass of lemonade just now, I was so grateful for my healthy, shade-giving bananas.

Feast on the cheap

2011-08-20T13:29:00.005-05:00

I'm feeling a whole lot better about surviving the worldwide financial collapse and coming Great Depression II after a grand dinner for four last night that cost all of five bucks maybe.
   A charming (and extremely wise and frugal) companion dropped by with a brace of "pork steaks," plucked from Matassa's meat cases at $1.59 a pound. In normal times, I would have passed on this unpromising cut from the lowest end of a pig as the vilest form of trefe, but the C.C. knew exactly how to fix things. She blasted away all the fat and gristle over the hottest coals -- my God, you should have seen the flames! -- then smothered everything with KC Masterpiece barbeque sauce to slow cook with the lid down. Smokin' damned delicious they were, I must say.
   For sides, she threw together a salad of sliced red onion and cucumber, and I made a pot of Wal-Mart "Great Value" brand quick grits sprinkling in fresh-cut kernels from two ears of corn, chopped green onions, and some shredded Monterey Jack. These were served on white Limoges with gilt trim, a very pretty sight.
   The evening began with G & T's made with Gordon's gin and Wal-Mart tonic. I never serve top-shelf gin to my guests on the theory that the downtrodden sots and slatterns of Hogarth's day appreciated what I'm just beginning to learn, that cheap is good. Here's to more fun times in downgraded double-A-rated America!

Ode to an Abandoned Bicycle

2011-08-13T09:35:00.003-05:00

Little bike outside my door,
You’ve been there a month or more,
Tell me who you’re waiting for.

Where’s your rider? Lemme think.
Gone to Buffa’s for a drink?
Mugged a tourist, in the clink?

Oh, I wish I had the key
To unlock the lock and set you free
To roll the streets of Marigny!

"The Girl I Love Don't Pay Me No Mind" and other famous tunes. Pretty much the whole sad story of my life so far.

2011-08-07T08:54:00.010-05:00

Cryptic symbols of 21st century kids

2011-07-27T19:32:00.001-05:00

The boys came over this weekend to help me paint the hallway. But first my dear Jung-uns had to draw on the walls. Here's a sample. How come I never thought about this stuff when I was their age?

The Ouroboros with Star of David.

The Caduceus with skull fragment.

Full quote before paint-over: "We will be reborn in the cold womb of the ocean."

Anniversary

2011-07-24T09:23:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends,
I was having so much fun over the Fourth of July weekend, that I plum forgot to mark the one-year anniversary of this blog. I just want thank you all for dropping by from time to time, for your always fresh and entertaining comments, and for the great pleasure of your company online.
To my dawlin' Calliope, whom I first invoked from a doughnut shop in Gulf Shores, Alabama, on July 4, 2010, you've been the bestest muse a guy could ask for. I wouldn't be writing this without your sweet inspiration through 89 posts so far.
Yours faithfully,
C.S.

A Creole Goodbye

2011-07-24T07:46:00.000-05:00

My friend The Hungry Termite put up a heart-wrenching post the other day lamenting the end of Creole tomato season in south Louisiana. Alas, these delicious red and yellow beauties have vanished from our groceries and vegetable stands and won't reappear until next May. I feel your pain, dear disconsolate Termite. We shall walk together into our vale of tears, softly humming that old spiritual "Sometimes I Feel Like a Mater-less Child."
It's been a singularly bountiful and flavorful season for Creoles. I would buy them by the bagful at Dorignac's, picking out the gnarliest ones or the ones with scabs and scars. Beware any round and regular specimens posing as as our beloved Creoles. Chances are they're not Creoles at all, or some "Creole-hybrid" variety created by the wizards at LSU Ag school to accommodate easy picking and shipping. Why do some people feel the need to improve on perfection?
With our innate chauvinism, we think our Creoles are the best tomatoes in the land. I'm not so sure. Right about now, midsummer tomatoes will be hitting the stands in places like New Jersey and upstate New York. My mouth waters with the memory of these tomatoes of my youth; my belly churns with envy of those who live in more temperate climes. And just now, the words of Ernest Thayer, immortal bard of American summer pastimes, popped into my head:

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in N'awlins — the Creoles have run out.


Farewell my lovelies!

Missing Walter and Jesse

2011-07-17T08:19:00.001-05:00

I've been waiting months for the return of Breaking Bad tonight on AMC and I plan to invite a bunch of friends over who have been spending Sunday nights with Treme for some inexplicable reason.

A stunning new bridge

2011-06-26T20:22:00.000-05:00

Took a little Sunday spin up to New Roads for lunch today, but the real reason for our trip was to see and cross the magnificent Audubon Bridge over the Mississippi River at St. Francisville. Alas, the ferry there is no more. Should anyone care? Not me.

A Summer Cold Snap in New Orleans

2011-06-25T09:30:00.004-05:00

We had a freak cold snap here yesterday, temperatures plunging into the high 80s and low humidity. Perfect weather for a late evening swim and weenie roast at Pontchartrain Beach. The kids built this awesome driftwood fire, which was just going strong when the Orleans Parish Levee Board police showed up with bullhorns and chased us away.

Let's go get a sno-ball, I suggested. Nah, Lucien said, sno-balls are for daytime, "we eat ice cream at night."

So we packed up, piled into the car -- two sons, cousin Ninette, and a dear friend and charming companion -- and headed over to an ice cream parlor on South Carrollton Avenue. It's a good thing Simon wore his Russian hat; kept his ears warm, I suppose, and warded off brain freeze.

Comrade Simon and Cousin Ninette.

"Do you consider the eating of oysters to be moral?"

2011-06-18T20:02:00.005-05:00

A most charming companion met me for coffee the other day bringing news (from NPR, I think she said) about the invention of new artificial heart that does not produce a beat or pulse. Without a heartbeat, the story speculated, should the person who wears one of these things be considered alive?

   I rummaged through the high school Biology Department in my head for the orders of heartless, bloodless, pulse-less animals.
   "You wouldn't say a sponge is not alive, would you?" I said after several minutes.
   "No, I wouldn't," the charming companion said. "But did you know that some vegans think it's morally o.k. to eat oysters because they have no hearts?"
Really? I have to concede this excellent point to the vegans. Just imagine plunging your cocktail fork into a live oyster knowing there's a beating heart inside.
Walking back to the office, I was overcome by a feeling of deja vu. Haven't I heard this dialogue before? Yes! It was the famous bathtub scene in Spartacus with Larry Olivier as the lacivious Roman general Marcus Licinius Crassus and Tony Curtis as the wary slave and towel-boy, Antoninus. Here's the clip. You'll love how Olivier steers the conversation around to reveal that he's not only bivalve-ular, but also bisexual.

Channeling Hiroshige in Treme

2011-06-12T09:28:00.000-05:00

I must have made 100 views of the cupola of St. Augustine's in Treme last night. It's become a "project" -- nothing I want to post just yet, except that last night the moonrise really did surprise me.

Morning Glories

2011-06-10T22:37:00.002-05:00

Ah, the joys of walking to work in the Quarter.

My office is in the heart of the Quarter, on Jackson Square, about three-quarters of a mile from my home in the Quarter's most extreme lakeside-downtown block. Living in the grid is never boring. You can zig and zag, and not follow the same route twice. I'm Pac-Man.

Because I'm on one side of the street or the other, because the light is different, or perhaps because my mind is fresh and my eyes just opened from sleep, I always see something on these walks I've never seen before. Evenings are different lately. The hot dog-breath of summer and unfinished business oppress me. I often walk straight home and don't go out again until it's finally dark.

I left about 7:30 this morning and brought my camera, not knowing what I would see.

This is the Baure-Dupremont house. Been there since 1793. How do I know this? Because I stopped to read the plaque for the first time in my life

A favorite pair of dormers over the Nellie Deli looked especially good in the morning sun.

Some guys were already at work, scaling the ladder of success.

Other guys were not. One day, I will arrange my life like this.

Debauchery at Pontchartrain Beach

2011-05-31T21:11:00.016-05:00

A group of Russians and their volleyball. By night, we learned, they perform mournful Russian prisoner songs as the group Debauche in clubs along St. Claude Avenue. Can't you tell?

Literary Gents

2011-05-29T13:32:00.056-05:00

Facing a Saturday night alone – no kids, no date, no plans – I was desperate for a book. In particular I was craving Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom by Hugh Thomas. I had spent many hours absorbed with Thomas’ comprehensive and even-handed accounts of the Spanish Civil War and the Conquest of Mexico. His 1,700-page history of Cuba from the British capture of Havana in 1762 to the Castro revolution had been my guest bedside read during a recent sojourn in Texas. I was just getting hooked when I had to leave. I dared not ask to borrow it from my host’s library, however, owing to a serious abuse of that privilege some years ago (Larry, if you’re reading this, I’d like to get off the shit list and promise to restore the lost copy of that unmentionable book). If anyone in town had Cuba, I knew it would be Russell’s Arcadia Books on Orleans Street opposite the Bourbon-Orleans Hotel. I hopped on my bike and headed over.

Sextus Propertius

I didn’t find Cuba. But back in the stacks at Russell’s, I ran into a lost love from long, long ago, Poets in a Landscape: Great Latin Poets in the Italy of Today by Gilbert Highet. It’s a beautiful little sketchbook on the lives, loves, lusts, and rustic retreats of Horace, Catullus, Ovid, Vergil et alia that I first read in fourth year high school Latin when we finally graduated to poetry after three years of horrendously boring Latin prose. The “Italy of Today” in the title is actually the Italy of 1957 (!) when the book was first published, lending Professor Highet’s ramblings in the Roman countryside an air of quaint antiquity too. I'm thinking Vespas, fountains and Audrey Hepburn here.

This is a book to savor. I read one sketch every night for a week. They were all enjoyable, but my re-introduction to Propertius was absolutely mind blowing. It’s a shame he died so young (in his early 30s, around 15 B.C.) and left so little behind. Otherwise, we’d all be reading him today. His voice is fresh, almost “modern”; always passionate, sometimes macabre. Most of his poems were addressed to his lover Cynthia, a real she-cat. They were always sleeping around on each other. But they couldn't let go of each other either, even in death:

Ghosts do exist. Death does not finish everything.
The pale phantom lives to escape the pyre.
Yes: bending over my pillow I saw Cynthia--
interred that day beside the highway's roar.
Still sleepless, brooding on my mistress' funeral,
I loathed the chilly empire of my bed.
Her hair was just the same as at her burial,
her eyes the same; her dress scorched down one side;
the fire had eaten at her favourite beryl ring;
her lips had tasted Lethe and were pale.
She spoke, in a voice panting with life and passion: her hands
quivered meanwhile, the frail knuckles snapped.
"Cheat! Liar! false to me and every other girl..."

Cynthia's rage and jealousy subside. She tells Propertius to get another mistress and offers him a long and beautiful "consolation," a unique Latin verse form in which the freshly dead speak to the living and wrap up any unfinished business. I found myself emotionally exhausted and close to tears when I got to Cynthia's last words: "Though others may possess you, later I shall hold you alone/clutching closely, bone to bone."

Propertius wrote another profoundly moving consolation, the last poem of his life. It's in the voice of a virtuous and faithful Roman matron named Cornelia to her children and to her husband, the poet's friend, Paullus. She tells him:

You must be their mother and their father, Paullus, my darlings’ weight now clings around your neck. Kiss them when they weep, and add their mother’s kisses. And if you grieve for me, they must not witness it. When they embrace you, cheat them – dry your eyes. And, when you talk in secret to my portrait, speak and pause a while, as though I might reply.

Now you know why I could handle only one of these poets at a sitting. In between, I dug into a paperback copy of The Freedom Trap, a Cold War-era thriller by Desmond Bagley, which I bought for 35 cents on Russell's always reliable say-so. And how could I resist a cover like this? An exploding yacht, a frogman, a frightened redhead in a tight bikini? Perfect. Just the book I needed for a lonely-guy Saturday night.

River Watching

2011-05-13T22:05:00.010-05:00

Large crowds along the levee this evening to see the Mississippi River in flood.

High drama as the New Orleans Express successfully rounds Algiers Point. Note list to port in strong current. Props to the pilot and helmsman.

This little kid seemed worried.

This one didn't

Heading home through the deserted French Market, best skateboarding spot in the Quarter.

New Orleans Online

2011-04-29T22:28:00.001-05:00

10:17 AM, Galatoire's, Bourbon Street. It's the first day of JazzFest. Still, it's Friday and we're lining up -- proxies for hire, law firm runners, and some nice people actually waiting for their lunch.

10:42 AM, Walgreen's, Iberville Street. Four busy checkout lines, folks buying sunscreen and other festival essentials. I liked the little chapeau perched on this lady's head. A rare understatement this morning.

11:20 AM, Whitney Bank, Chartres Street. This is Sol Berman, owner of Jack's Metal Arts, the custom lantern makers on Decatur Street. I got in line behind him after taking this shot and learned all about lanterns and all about his dad, Jack, a Holocaust survivor who founded the company in 1959.

2:37 PM, Opposite Rouse's, Royal Street. These people are listening raptly to two Asian street musicians -- cello and guitar -- playing the theme from Masterpiece Theater. Someone please explain this to me.

2:45 PM, Gift Shop, Chartres Street. The proprietor's cat looking for customers. Line forms to the left.

My Dream Drug

2011-04-22T12:44:00.001-05:00

Props to Pfizer Labs for developing a marvelous new pharmaceutical, Chantix. It has both curbed my on-again, off-again urge to smoke and souped up my dream life beyond belief. I so enjoy this side effect that I can't wait to fall asleep at night. This morning, I woke up in the middle of a long and vivid dream about the P-38 Lightning fighter plane of World War II. I was the plane, I was the pilot and, in one terrifying Technicolor sequence, I was the enemy!

I wonder if any researchers are looking into the potential of Chantix to enhance human imagination and creativity in our waking hours? It's a Brave New World.

Palm Sunday Evening, Along the Cane River

2011-04-17T21:02:00.001-05:00

Palm Sunday Morning, Oretha Castle Haley Blvd.

2011-04-17T11:54:00.003-05:00

Got Dem Busted Flat and Paid the Taxman Blues

2011-04-15T18:48:00.000-05:00

That pathetic gurgling sound you hear is my bank account draining into the United States Treasury, pretty much to the last nickel. I wrote a big check to the taxman this morning and now there’s hardly anything left for my obligations in life, let alone indulgences. Meanwhile the government spends by the trillions of dollars – my God, the trillions!

Friday Night Stag at Sydney's

2011-04-09T20:03:00.001-05:00

Gaston Lachaise, Heroic Man, 1934

George Segal, Three Figures on Four Benches, 1979

Elizabeth Frink, Riace Warriors I, II, III, IV, 1983-88

Antoine Burdelle, Hercules the Archer, 1907

French Quarter Facade People

2011-03-21T19:12:00.077-05:00

A well-known Italian, 1000 block of Esplanade

Philosophers, 500 block of Bienville

Wonder what he's thinking about...

Le roi Louis IX, Pere Antoine Alley

Our gods are jealous gods, 900 block of St. Louis

Random Bloggy Goodness

2011-03-19T11:29:00.004-05:00

Sorry there hasn't been much to see on Calliope Street lately, so please wander off this reservation and find great amusement among blogging friends. I loved these recent posts:

Red the Corndog Gal's quick pix and fun comments on spinner wheels and pick-up trucks in Houston.
Libby's guide to termite gear and wardrobe.
Grandmere Mimi's fascinating story on corseting extras in Abraham Lincoln: Vampyre Hunter shooting here in N'awlins.

Nancy at Nanarama is the latest name on "Kindred Spirits" over to the right and deserves marquee status. She has created "a special world, indeed." I promise you'll enjoy everything she writes about everything.
Finally, a shout-out to dearest Kate in Brooklyn who's gone 9-to-5 and is sorely missed. Your snow and skyline pix are always wonderful. But I'm guessing spring is starting to pop in Prospect Park right about now. Hope you'll keep us posted, Kate!

Does it get any better?

2011-03-17T19:44:00.011-05:00

The moon is rising over the patio wall. Jasmine and sweet olive are in bloom. Charcoals are glowing in the grill; burgers slathered with Cattlemen's Master Reserve K.C. barbeque sauce. The boys have arrived for the weekend, bringing news that my eldest has just been accepted at the city's best public high school. Dad is very happy with this development. Very, very happy.

Travels in Texas: I Give It "Five Stars"

2011-03-09T08:17:00.003-06:00

Comes a Misty Morning to Esplanade Avenue

2011-03-04T09:14:00.006-06:00

Decked Out on Burgundy Street

2011-02-27T07:07:00.000-06:00

Carstop Confederates

2011-02-19T22:58:00.006-06:00

P.G.T. Beauregard by Alexander Doyle (1857-1922)

I found myself, with camera, way out on Esplanade Avenue tonight. Left a party and couldn't get a cab. Decided to take the City Park/Canal Street streetcar and ride it all the way back to the Quarter -- last stop to last stop. I waited, and waited, and waited. An hour or so. Just me and old P.G.T.

On World Famous Bourbon Street

2011-02-08T20:42:00.000-06:00

My Sputnik Moment

2011-02-02T06:14:00.003-06:00

Why was Obama's "Sputnik Moment" comment so irksome the other night? Is it because I actually remember Sputnik? Someday, when they're grown, I'm going ask my sons to sit down and tell me what 9/11 meant to them, and Hurricane Katrina. And I will tell them what October 1957 was like for a small, rather introspective boy like me.
My Sputnik moment happened a few days after the launch. The newspapers had published the expected transit of Sputnik over our hometown. My father, who was a seafaring man and who knew his way around the night sky, led my sisters and me out into the street in front of our house. Our neighbors were out there too. We all stood waiting, looking up, searching for the little speck the papers said would be visible to the naked eye. I'm not sure I actually saw Sputnik that night, but I recall going to bed worried that they had something up there and we didn't.
Things got worse for our side in the weeks ahead. We had pathetic little satellites the size of grapefruits that we kept trying to put in orbit with horribly unreliable rockets. The Navy had its "Vanguard," and the Army its "Redstone." And they all blew up in full view of the American public. I watched each disastrous launch attempt on our black-and-white Philco, and was shocked, fascinated and depressed as only a kid can be. What if we don't get this right? What if we lose?
Apparently the other side was watching too, cheering and gloating behind their Iron Curtains. I just found this Czech TV news clip on the spectacular Vanguard explosion of December 6, 1957. You'll love the triumphalist tone of the announcer's voice and music as flames fill the entire screen:

Try, try, try again. Eventually we succeeded. There was Explorer, then the chimp, then Alan Sheperd, Gemini, Apollo, a man on the moon...yay, America!
So what does all this have to do with the present moment? Very little, I think. The prevailing mood back then was a deep, existential fear. But at least we knew the source. These days, our problems seem to be entirely self-made. We are spending ourselves into oblivion and the President had almost nothing to say about how we change our ways.

Bears v. Packers

2011-01-21T13:04:00.007-06:00


Soldier Field, Chicago

I'm not the football fan I once was, which was casual at best. But I'm really looking forward to Bears v. Packers this Sunday, and thinking back: Lombardi, Ditka, Hornung, Butkus, Nitschke, Payton...just in my lifetime. But these two teams have been going at it since 1921, dumplins, 1-9-2-1! There's something ancient and Homeric about all this, like that big Bronze Age duke-out on the plains of Troy.

It's two degrees in Chicago as I write, and it's supposed to warm up to around 17 on game day. Perfect! I'll be watching on the new hi-def TV in the new Man-Kid Cave in the back of the house. Rooting for the Bears this time; for the Jets in the nightcap.

1.1.11 Ain't We Got Fun

2011-01-02T12:46:00.011-06:00

After the painful attack of acute paronychia, the long hours in the emergency room and mercifully quick surgery at Oschner on New Year’s Eve, I was ready for fun on New Year’s Day.

My friend and neighbor Georgia was fixing up a good-luck supper of ham, black-eyed peas and cabbage. So c'mon over, and how about we take in a movie first? The King’s Speech at Canal Place, four o’clock show? Capital idea! Let’s go!

We hook up with Penny and head out.

First stop, Penny and Georgia share Hand Grenades with giant tourists on Bourbon Street. Do you think this vile drink contains growth hormones?

Along the way, a New Year's visit with Russell -- bookseller, psychotherapist, and all-around good guy -- outside his shop on Orleans Street.

Holiday moviegoers at Canal Place.

It was dark when we left "the theaters," and a cold front had pushed through. But the walk back was just as fun. The sidewalks were packed with visitors (locals too), the bars and restaurants looked warm and inviting, and the shop windows on Royal Street intriguing.

The side room at Napoleon House, through a window.

A birthday guy and his pals in from Chicago.


More groovy headgear and a resolution: Get myself new pickelhaube with double-headed imperial eagle for New Year's 2012.

The boys join us back at Georgia's place, a beautifully unrestored(!) 1820 Creole cottage. She's a terrific cook and hostess -- the "Perle Mesta of Dauphine Street," I call her. We all feel at home.

Simon helps in the kitchen.

Lucien communes with Chappy, the rabbit.


Dishes cleared away, more good table talk.

All of a sudden, it's late. We take our leave and head home -- Simon and me on foot, Lucien on his new Christmas skateboard. I bought us a big flat screen TV for the "man/kid cave" in the back of the house, to which we retire and watch holiday marathons of the Three Stooges and The Twilight Zone until we fall asleep.

Lions in Winter

2010-12-24T08:13:00.008-06:00

What's wrong with this picture? It's December 24, C~~hristmas~~ Eve, that's what's wrong. Where are the the big beautiful C~~hristmas~~ wreaths hanging on the lions outside the Main Library on Fifth Avenue? Behind the library, Bryant Park is a warren of commercial activity, and every crappy stall is dripping with green garlands and tasteful little white lights. What about Patience and Fortitude out front? Needless to say, they're looking a lot less cheerful this season.

But there is joy among the nanny state code enforcers who make my make visits here a little less entertaining every time. As one bien-pensant New Yorker wrote to the New York Times this morning:

If in the fact the board omitted the wreaths because they are a symbol of Christmas then that would be a very good thing. The NY Public Libraries operate with tax dollars and should eschew all symbols of all religions.

And while we're at it, let's just eschew all happiness.

Great Halls of Mammals

2010-12-23T07:49:00.003-06:00

It's very cold here, but many animals were on the move along Central Park West. Lucien and I took turns shooting, and bagged a few with our trusty Nikon.

Favorite Season(s)

2010-12-19T21:57:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was my favorite kind of day (gray and cold) in my favorite season in New Orleans (not really winter, not really fall). The leaves have finally turned here, a little late this year. Not brilliantly as they do up north, but softly. Rust is the prevailing color, mixed with amber.

I was headed out the door to run some Saturday morning errands when I was struck by the cypress and crepe myrtle trees along Esplanade Avenue. I turned right back and got my camera.

On the 900 block of Esplanade.


Same block, opposite direction	.

I fetched the car and headed out Esplanade. How many times have I passed the Gayarre Triangle and never stopped?

Cypress and live oaks along South Carrolton Avenue.

Over the Huey P. Long Bridge, under the train trestle in Avondale.

Note to readers: I try to lead a purpose-driven life. Lest you think I spend all my Saturdays wandering around musing on "mists and mellow fruitfulness" and such, there was a reason why I left the cozy urbanity of my neighborhood for wild West Bank. All is revealed in the post immediately following.

Nice. Big. Fat.

2010-12-19T13:58:00.000-06:00

Your man about town was on a mission: Acquire fixin's for a pot of gumbo. That's why I crossed o'er the river to the seafood markets on Bayou Segnette in Marrero. Mission accomplished in short order, and on the cheap. Except it took me a while to decide if should I go for the BIG shrimp, or save a few quarters and make do with the NICE ones.

No time for captions. Gotta go kill, crack, and pick the half-dozen FAT crabs I bought for $1.25 a piece.

Sympathy for the Rat

2010-12-11T18:55:00.000-06:00

About a week ago, I was sitting at my dining room table when I caught a flash of a brownish-gray creature darting into a crevice in the old brick walls. The dining room is in the “slave quarters” – as people here used to say – right off the patio. I told myself it was an outsider, a patio mouse. But I knew it wasn’t, and so I called the landlady. “Don’t worry, Arthur,” she said. “The bug man is coming this week. We’ll get him.”

Last night we came home to the unmistakably awful smell of a dead rat. Luckily, we didn’t have to search very long for the body. It was peeking through a pile of dirty clothes on the floor of my sons’ bedroom, as if the rat had sought out a warm place in its last moments.

I freaked.

“Lucien, go get that can of Lysol spray in the kitchen,” I barked. “Simon, go get those big tongs by the barbeque grill on the patio.”

Simon came back with the tongs and picked up the rat. We hurried out to the patio. “Throw him over the wall, Simon. Throw him as far as you can!”

This morning we went searching in the middle of Burgundy Street to see how far Simon had thrown the rat, and to make sure it hadn’t landed in someone’s open convertible. As you can see, there wasn't much left.

The rat has been on my mind on and off all day. I had treated him shamefully (double my shame when I consider that my he-rat might have been a she-rat). In subtropical New Orleans, householders are accustomed all manner of small creatures wandering in. And sometimes they die. Palmetto bugs automatically go down the john. A toad, a lizard, a mouse? They get my respect -- into the dust pan, back outside, a quick flip into the banana stalks. Goodbye, little pal. I'm sorry.

Why the difference? In Nature's grand order, are some species just intrinsically loathsome? Or is our species programmed through evolution to react in certain ways to other species? I can't decide. But I'm beginning to think that the Jains in India are possibly the noblest people in the world.

Leaving Work

2010-12-09T22:00:00.008-06:00

A beautiful winter day in New Orleans. I had my camera at work and took this photo a few minutes past five o'clock as I was heading across the roof, to the back stairs and out the door. Dear God, thanks for being there again today.

Paranormal Activity

2010-12-01T00:31:00.040-06:00

TV Ghosthunters Jason and Grant

Lately the day job has brought me in intimate contact with the paranormal which, of course, I can't explain. But to prove I'm not making this stuff up, everything in this post was, or will be, on television.

Tonight I spent several hours with the Syfy Channel's Ghosthunters who were looking for several entities said to haunt a certain large Greek Revival building just down the street. There was poor Mumford, the Martyr of the Confederacy, who was undeservedly hanged on this spot in 1862; a jailed bootlegger known as "Lonesome Larry," who can be seen taking nightly cigarette breaks on the balcony, and an unlucky federal employee who was crushed to death in a massive coin press. So now you know where we were.

Simon with Tango and Amy

Simon joined me for supper with the crew. It turns out that my son is a HUGE fan of the show and knew every Ghosthunter by name -- all seven of them. He brought along a little clay ghost he had made long ago in preschool and asked them to autograph it. They graciously obliged. Simon was thrilled, and Dad was pleased to have provided this indelible life experience.

Then, in the predawn hours a few days before Halloween, I met up at another ancient pile here in the Quarter with TV newsgal Chriss Knight and the noted thanatologist and author, Victor C. Klein. Again the subject was spooks, namely "The Hanging Soldier" who was a member of Pakenham's ill-fated invasion force of 1814.

Victor and Chriss with Padre Antonio,
the Grand Inquisitor

I happen to be a HUGE fan of Victor Klein's books, including New Orleans Ghosts, New Orleans Ghosts II, and New Orleans Ghosts III. In fact, I can't walk or drive around this city without passing some horribly haunted place that Victor has meticulously researched and written about. The weirdness around here is just too much sometimes.

It was great fun chatting up Victor between takes for ABC Channel26. Naturally, I asked for his views on the afterlife. "I think there are two possibilities," he said. "Either there's nothing, or we're all in for one helluva surprise." And that's the most satisfying answer I've ever heard on this question.

Clothes Horses

2010-11-25T17:21:00.000-06:00

What a delightful opening day this was at Fairgrounds! I loved everything about it -- the paddock, the post parade, the beautiful sights and sounds of horses running on green turf. It doesn't get much better. And I came home $28 to the good, thanks to Populist Politics, No. 9 up there on the left. The irony was too rich not to bet him.

The people watching was wonderful too, especially in the grandstands where the Thanksgiving Day dress code is ever and thankfully, slightly outrageous. I loved these handmade paper hats on the girls, and admired the peacock nonchalance of the guys.

A Mass Turkey Fry in Metairie

2010-11-24T20:45:00.015-06:00

I found these images on my screen this morning from the cellphone camera of Chriss Knight, the delightful early morning news diva at ABC Channel 26. They record the process of deep frying 600 turkeys -- that's right, 600 turkeys! -- by the Krewe of Carrollton at a Lions Club hall on Metairie Road.

Chriss is such a trooper and so good at what she does that her four-part series on industrial-scale turkey frying -- that's right, four parts! -- is as fun and fascinating as anything you'll see on Modern Marvels (see link below). But looking at these photos, don't you think there's also something slightly bizarre going on here?


Sixteen pots of oil have been heating since 3 a.m. Krewe members call it "the grease."


Before going in the grease, the birds are injected with Tony Chachere's Liquid Artery Clog.

Let there be propane! I count ten tanks. How many can you find?

Love that purple caste around the legs and thighs. Yum!

It takes about an hour to fry each bird, three to a pot. They begin to look really delicious at this point, degreasing on piles of the Times-Picayune. Great job, Krewe of Carrollton!

And now, here's the TV story. Thanks, Chriss, and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

http://www.abc26.com/news/local/wgno-news-turkeyfry,0,3953092.story

Lucien at his best

2010-11-20T18:05:00.006-06:00

I'm so proud of my son Lucien I don't know how to describe it. He's 13 years old now and that's brought a few issues, as parents of teens have warned me. But today he finished third among 100 or so public middle school kids in the latest New Orleans citywide debate tournament, and he's feeling on top of the world.

It's a lot of hard work and prep for the students, and great entertainment for the audience to hear the kids go at it on existential questions like these:

"John Cage's 4'33: Is it music?"
"Graffiti is art, not vandalism."
"Mardi Gras is a waste of time and resources."
"Wal-Mart is good for America."

I love it that a fair number of seventh and eighth graders in our city are thinking and arguing about John Cage. So here's another proposition for the table: "Public education in New Orleans is making great strides since Katrina." Do you think?

Great French Authors, Unexpurgated!

2010-11-17T22:16:00.008-06:00

Plague Season

2010-11-13T13:31:00.002-06:00

There is something really nasty going around New Orleans lately. Nearly everybody I know is coughing, wheezing, sneezing, and generally feeling like crap. Your blogger was down for three weeks in this condition and incapable of posting anything you might want to read.

I swear the only thing that restored me was a plate of Dr. No's Radioactive Sushi at a Japanese restaurant several hundred miles north of the center of infection. If you've suffered enough and desperately seek a cure, I will reveal the location.

Meanwhile, it's great to be back, dear readers!

Night Birds

2010-10-27T08:26:00.015-05:00

I was up very early this morning (around 4 a.m.) and met this little fellow out for a stroll along St. Ann Street on Jackson Square. He's a Yellow-crowned Night Heron, naturally. Here's what my Book of North American Birds has to say about his kind:

The bird's cloak is the color of pewter in moonlight, and his legs look amber-glazed. Surprised at close quarters, the bird will often freeze rather than fly, studying the intruder with sleepy, half-opened eyes. In turn, the lucky intruder wins a rare opportunity to study a bird of uncommon beauty.

Just so.

Pretty Plantations All in a Row

2010-10-17T21:10:00.005-05:00

I've always admired the 18th century plantation houses on Moss Street with their West Indian style, hipped roofs and graceful second floor galleries. For some reason, I thought there were only three. But on an early evening walk on Bayou St. John today, I discovered two more. I felt like an amateur astronomer finding a new comet or asteroid. More astonishing was that these houses are all within four blocks of each other.

I was so glad I brought my camera. So here they are, starting from the Esplanade side of Moss Street:


Number 1: The Pitot House, built around 1800.


Number 2: The Rectory of Holy Rosary R.C. Church	.


Number 3: This one was new to me, but it's been there since 1784 tucked away on the corner of Grand Route St. John.


Number 4: I had dinner in this house once, a guest of the former owners. It's every bit as elegant on the inside.

Number 5: And how did I miss this beauty for so long? Hiding in plain sight at Dumaine and Moss.

Nicholas Cage Prepares for Death

2010-10-03T13:24:00.010-05:00

You wouldn't think there was any real estate left for development in thickly-settled St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, but leave it to some Hollywood type to snap it up. Here is actor Nicholas Cage's new tomb in New Orleans' oldest bone orchard. It's only six months old, and already huge cracks are developing along the sides and foundations -- the humbling effects of our perverse climate and soil. My jaw dropped when I saw it this morning and it got me wondering how arriviste Nick will pass eternity with all those Crozats, Janviers, de la Rondes, Charbonnets and countless other dead Creoles potted nearby. Dear readers, this is a folly so rich that I hope for reincarnation as a fly on those ancient walls.

Perfect Day Mid-City

2010-10-02T22:31:00.009-05:00

We're driving down South Broad on our way to City Park to play touch football with Harrison and Jake, the LeBlanc brothers. Simon says: "Stop the car, Dad." Homage is paid to superior beings, the Bunny Men of the old Falstaff brewery.

First stop, lunch at the original Bud's Broiler on City Park Avenue. Public service announcement: It's now open 24/7. Remember where you heard this.


	I say to the kids: "Hey, let's visit Arthur Smith's grave, it's right across the street." We find this desolate scene at Holt Cemetery. What's happened to Arthur? Is he finally dead? Sick? Has he just lost interest? Does anyone know?

In City Park, we meet Ashley Brown and her pastel ball python, Colonel Mustard. Beautiful girl, beautiful critter.

Let the games commence, at last! Final score: Blogger and son, 21, LeBlanc brothers, 14. Like I said, a perfect day.

The Bachelor's Beach

2010-09-26T15:13:00.021-05:00

Summerfall Winterspring

I proposed to the Gal Pal last Sunday that we drop Simon off at his cousin’s place in Pass Christian and then hit the beach. Or maybe load up the kayaks and paddle out to Deer Island, so tantalizingly close to the Biloxi shore. “Sorry, babe,” she said, giving the answer I expected. “It’s too damned hot.”

The G.P. has been in deep summer hibernation for going on six months now. I know we’ll venture outside in daylight again, in November maybe. But it’s got me thinking that some sort of split-season gal-pal arrangement may be in order – a Proserpina to my Pluto, or a Princess Summerfall Winterspring to my Chief Thunderthud. Cowabonga, kids, I do like this idea!

So I went alone, which also turned out to be a good idea because my sentimental journey to Henderson Point and other long-ago haunts on the Mississippi Gulf Coast left me so despondent that I was unfit for anybody’s company, including my own.

Ah, Henderson Point! It was the scene of many Sunday picnics and smooch sessions during that wonderfully free and prosperous period in the late 1980s remembered as “My Happy Bachelor Days” – between marriages, before kids, in love with love as a constant state. I drove a convertible in those days, a 1970 Olds Cutlass Supreme, red with white leatherette interiors, and a big V-8 that still had compression to spare. Magic wheels to the magic spot with the top down and mellow old school R&B on the radio – Anita Baker, DeBarge, the Delfonics – only then it wasn’t “old school.”

I was curious to see how the Point had changed over the years, especially since Katrina. I parked the Honda CR-V (how the mighty have fallen!) and strolled down the beach. The stately Murphy Oil Company family compound had been swept away and not rebuilt. I can’t say I blame them. With their millions, the Murphy heirs could build park themselves on any beach anywhere they wanted from the Lido to La Jolla. Wouldn’t you?

There used to be a breakwater made of huge concrete culverts that one luscious former picnic date called “The Noodles.” It had been beaten down to a thin line of rubble. With heavy heart, I began to feel the passage of time in geologic terms as well as my brief span of life. I suddenly remembered that I left my lights on (I didn’t) and beat it back to the car – after all of 15 minutes on the Point.

I took Highway 90 back to the city. I wanted more time to brood and to feel the pleasant click-click-clackity-click slap under your tires as you cross the small bridges Huey P. Long built on the many-fingered Pearl River delta. That was fun. I also wanted to check out the funky little camps along Lake Catherine and Lake Borgne, with their amusing and often off-color place names. But they were pretty much gone too, gone with “The Passing Wind.”

On the B-list in wonderland

2010-09-19T18:14:00.024-05:00

From Tom Strider's Wonderland series.

Have I mentioned that I work in the French Quarter too? At a real job, in a real office on Chartres Street. I love walking to work and every morning I see something new on these old streets. But workweek routines can also get, well, pedestrian. In true Lower Quarter Rat fashion, days and days drift by before I see the other side of St. Peter Street except to visit my money and sweet Ephyania at the Whitney Bank Morgan Branch.

This Thursday was different. I left work early, walked home to fetch the car, and headed out for an evening on the town way, way uptown.

First stop was an open house at Audubon Charter School in Carrollton, where both my sons are in the French language immersion program and mooching a first class education from the French taxpayers. Lucien's eighth grade class has been reading 19th Century French literature. From Madame Carole, their teacher, I learned of Lucien's keen interest in the later works of Guy de Maupassant -- especially that period when the writer’s end-stage syphilis had so infected his brain that he shifted from the droll ironies of everyday life as major themes, to tales of fantasy and unspeakable horror.

Beaming with fatherly pride, I drove down St. Charles to meet the Gal Pal and take in Tom Strider's new show, "Wonderland," at the Collins Diboll art gallery at Loyola. The show consists of dozen or so magnificent caterpillars in oil, and some larger drawings of same. The paintings get even better on close view. The surfaces have a curious crackling feature that reminds you of the tiny hairs on a caterpillar’s back. Beautiful, intriguing work. Well worth a visit.

We wound up at the packed opening of Salu, the new "small plates" restaurant and wine bar in the 3300 block of Magazine Street. The food was fabulous, the wine flowed, the joint jumped. But l felt somewhat chagrined to learn that I hadn't been to the opening at all. There had been a soft opening at Salu several weeks ago "you know, to get the buzz going," as one of the organizers told me when we hit the sidewalk.

Opening night at Salu

My Social Status was laid bare at last: "B-list, second-tier city." I am not as bothered by the situation as you might think. It's probably like warming the bench for the Zephyrs, I imagine, watching the game from the dugout, kibitzing with you folks now and then. Play is more intimate here in the minors, and more fun.

We said good night. I bought a Klondike bar for the drive back to the Quarter and was home and in bed by 11 o'clock, pretty much as always.

* * *

Tom Strider's paintings are on view through October 21 with "Couples," a portrait series by Carol Leake.

Imagine no religion?

2010-09-14T19:49:00.031-05:00

Have you seen this billboard looming over Canal and Rampart Streets? The dimwit sponsors aim to be "thought provoking," and for the last week or so, I've been mildly provoked into thinking about humanity without religion.

Oh God, where to begin? Imagine no Anghor Wat, no Parthenon, no Great Pyramid; no Mass in C. Minor, no most of J.S. Bach, no Mahalia Jackson singing "Sweet Little Jesus Boy"; no Dalai Lama, no Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, no Theresa of Avila (no Bernini's heart-stabbing masterpiece, either); no Ovid's Metamorphoses, no Dante's Inferno, no Diary of a Country Priest, novel by George Bernanos and movie by Robert Bresson; no masks, no ritual objects, no sinuous mud-daubbed shrines to their ancestors by the Dogon...well, you get the drift.

I may go to hell for my irreligion, but I'll be damned if I want to live in a world that would deny so much of human feeling and imagination.

On the Ninth Ward Riviera

2010-09-12T08:48:00.004-05:00


With low water, beaches are reappearing along the River.

Looking downriver.

This lucky guy caught three big catfish while we were there.

Sauce piquante: In praise of women who blog

2010-09-04T11:26:00.007-05:00

"I long to hear that you have declared an independency,” Abigail Adams wrote to John on March 31, 1776 just as her husband and his Founding Father cronies in Philadelphia were getting down with the idea of starting a new country. “And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.”

To use John’s favorite pet adjective, methinks the “saucy” Mrs. Adams would have made a great blogger if Ben Franklin had invented the Internet long before a certain crazed sex poodle of this era.

Abigail’s wonderful letters surfaced from memory this morning as I did a little housekeeping on the blog roll in the lower right column. It suddenly occurred to me that that all the blogging voices I admire and proudly follow in public, save one –- my dear friend, Arthur Einstein, the advertising guru and original “Mad Man” –- belong to women.

Why? I honestly don’t know. Perhaps someone will comment on my feeling that women do better at this medium than men. In the meantime, I urge you, dear readers, to take leave of Calliope Street immediately and hear what they have to say. Smart, funny, insightful, sometimes inspiring, and refreshingly, in a neo- or post-feminist way, saucy.

All at sea with Spike Lee

2010-08-18T23:20:00.020-05:00

The Gal Pal and I – with Rebecca, Brian, Kim, Ruby, Gael, Charles, Rachel’s Mom and dozens more of our acquaintance – were among a select 2,000 few to see the world premiere of Spike Lee’s Katrina+5 documentary If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise last night at the Mahalia Jackson Theater. I knew exactly how the e-vite from HBO Documentaries came my way, but other favored folks we met were completely clueless. Then there was Rachel’s Mom, who said she won her admission “in a contest.” We all liked that answer.

There was an open bar and abundant nibbles, making for a warm, happy and vocal New Orleans crowd. We yay’ed and hoorayed for the good guys on the screen (Brees, Landrieu, Gen. Honore) and booed the baddies (Nagin, BP’s Tony Hayward). The early going of Da Creek Don’t Rise was like that, all emotional ups and downs. Lee chose some amazing images of the 2005 catastrophe (the audience gasped at one view of flooded Canal Street). And he really lets go on the 2010 Saints championship, both the game and the celebration. The Who-Dat Nation never looked better. Such great fun to watch and savor.

The big swoon happens around 40 minutes in. You begin to tire of all the talking heads in Spike’s new joint, the same go-anywhere-for-a-buck historians and thoughtful-looking anchor types who are as boring and irrelevant as they are on TV just about every goddamn night of the week. Why bother with these guys when the locals are so entertaining, insightful, and well…involved with daily life in New Orleans?

Even worse, Spike Lee can’t seem to break from the stereotype of New Orleanians as everybody’s favorite victims. Why do we applaud and encourage such fictions (my main beef with HBO’s Treme too)? It’s 2010, dumplins, as Julie Marsden would say, two thousand and ten! Time to change this picture. We’re not the doomed and helpless flotsam of America, tragically oppressed by greedy oil execs and evil politicians. We’re more like the fractious drifters in a Lifeboat. And just remember what happened when they all started pulling together.

Courting Clio at old St. Alphonsus

2010-08-14T18:52:00.044-05:00

Don't be jealous, I pray thee sweet Calliope, you've been so good to this unworthy blogger. I confess I've been thinking of starting a new blog called "Clio Street," to serve your sister muse and share my passion for the history of our beloved home. Speaking of passion, way, way down on the brainstem is another blog called "Erato Street" (for a preview, see the Guys & Dolls tag at right). For now, better stick with history. Church history at that.

I had the great good fortune recently to join the board of the Friends St. Alphonsus Arts & Cultural Center, housed in the ~~de-sanctified~~ church (Blogger's note, May 17 2011: I have just learned that the church is neither de-sanctified nor de-conscecrated. My apologies, faithful readers) on Constance Street built by Irish immigrants in 1855. A one-time parishioner of St. Mary's Assumption, the symbol-rich German immigrant church right across the street, I've always loved this tightly packed complex of beautiful Baroque churches and attendant schools, nunneries and shrines. Sundays past were a pilgrimage back to the womb of Roman Catholicism in America's most Roman Catholic city.

We had a committee meeting today and I brought along my camera, and my son and trusty tripod-bearer, Lucien, to shoot a few pictures. Here's one of the pulpit and side altar:

And here's the apotheosis of Alphonsus himself, the center cameo in the ceiling frescoes by Canova -- not Antonio, the genius and sculptor, but his nephew, Domenico, the painter, who also adorned a lot of banks, hotels, and homes around New Orleans in the late 19th Century. We're trying to raise about $1 million to restore the frescoes. Your support of this worthy effort is much appreciated. But I have to say I do like the looks of St. Alphonsus as is, with all the peeling plaster, chipped gilt, and other signs of great age and benign neglect. That's history after all. Very New Orleans, too.

The small museum off the main altar has many curiosities. I admired this fine Celtic cross, fashioned by an Irish political prisoner from matchsticks and bits of phonograph records during "The Troubles." Also this porcelain presentation cup from 1900 featuring the well-fed and contented looking Archbishop Blenk.

The Center is open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 AM to 2 PM. It's free and well worth a visit.

Thinking about Katrina, five years later...

2010-08-09T18:20:00.008-05:00

THE GIRL: What's the use of trying?

THE TRAMP: Buck up -- never say die. We'll get along!

An answer to "The Moviegoer"

2010-07-29T17:49:00.012-05:00

In case you can't make out the cover lines on this first edition copy of Walker Percy's acclaimed novel (ranked 60th on Time magazine's list of the "100 Best Books" of the 20th Century), here they are verbatim: "Why is the hero of this novel a moviegoer? Why does an intelligent, successful young New Orleans businessman go to the movies avidly, fiercely -- even to silly movies. The answer..."

Why, Binx Bollinger, why do you go to the movies? You mean you don't know by now? And you too, Holden Caufield, haven't you figured out where the ducks go in winter?

Exasperation pours from my brow when I see really dumb questions answered with unreadable and unnecessary books. Dr. Percy spends 200-odd pages swimming through the kelp forests of Kierkegardian thought, dragging poor befuddled Binx from one defunct neighborhood picture show to the next, from Gentilly to Carrollton to Lakeview every damned night of the week. "What is the nature of the search? you ask. Really it is very simple; at least for a fellow like me. So simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life."

Sorry, Binx. The answer is even simpler than that, so simple that I'm almost embarrassed to break it to you. We go to the movies because they're fun and entertaining. Okay, you missed the big picture, so to speak, but I will grant that you were often brilliant, Binx, on the peculiar pleasures of movie-going in New Orleans.

I've been meaning to post on this facet of life in our beloved town for several weeks now, occasioned by two memorable evenings in the dark -- with Simon and Lucien and an immense tub of popcorn at the Prytania for Toy Story 3, the best of the franchise so far, and with the galpal to see the dark and absorbing Girl Who Played with Fire at the hip new Theaters at Canal Place. We bagged on the overpriced arm rest fare and irritating wait staff. Instead, we smuggled in a couple of York peppermint patties, a Snickers bar, a box of Raisinettes, and a liter of Perrier. All this was purchased at Matassa's on the way over for $5.40.

We left feeling wise and frugal having chiseled the concession stand by means of those cheaply-acquired goodies out of Sally's handbag. We were also feeling a little hungry. And this leads to a great point about the movie-going experience here: There's always somewhere to go after the show. Tonight, a Sunday, we decided on Yuki, the tiny Japanese barroom and small-plate eat spot on Frenchmen Street. The place was popping when we arrived and the sidewalk outside was thick with night people, locals mostly. We ate fried chicken thighs and some kind of marvelous octopus thing bathed in a velvety wasabi-flavored sauce, while glancing now and then at an old samurai-meets-geisha movie projected on the wall without benefit of sound or subtitles. "Wow," I said, "I bet there's not another place like this for 900 miles around. Okay, maybe 500 miles around." Tell me if I'm wrong here.

Like everything else, movie going in New Orleans is a social event. In bigger cities and in foreign cities, you can luxuriate in anonymity. I like that, a lot. But I also enjoy the local groove of running into people you know and sometimes haven’t seen for years. Sure enough, at Canal Place, we met some very talkative friends who were deep into Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy and could bring us up to speed on the characters and their histories. It was welcome information. But I was glad to get off the elevator before they said too much because the next installment – and denouement, unfortunately – promises to be a doozey.

I confess my first brush with the series came just a few weeks ago, on a road trip into the Heart of Darkness of north Louisiana with my movie-making buddy David. He bought a copy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo at a Wal-Mart in West Monroe and was instantly hooked, which might explain his admirable composure through our many perilous adventures. Larssen’s rapists, murderers and sex traffickers set such a high standard of evil that the toothless, hollow-chested throwbacks we met along Redneck Blvd. must have seemed to David more pitiable than dangerous. And that’s all I’m going to say about what happened up there, unless I put it in a novel someday.

Streetlife: On the 900 block of Kerlerec

2010-07-21T18:10:00.015-05:00

Starring Djali and Esmeralda.
Now we know what became of them.

Que es mas macho?

2010-07-17T17:04:00.042-05:00

Looks like it's going to be one damned thing after another here on Calliope Street. So let us review the penultimate post ("Cocktails and field guns at 7:00") as prelude to today's topic: The precarious state of manliness in New Orleans.

What we all were drinking last Monday night at French 75 went unmentioned, out of my deep respect for your tolerance of these small details of my life. But now it may enrich our thinking to share that I ordered my N/A "usual" that night -- club soda, twist of lemon, dash of bitters. When my drink arrived made with Peychaud's bitters instead of Angostura, I was mortified. And when Sally said she liked the interplay of the rose-colored contents of my old-fashioned glass against the sea-foam green of my polo shirt ("Makes you look sort of, uh, metrosexual," she told the whole freaking table), I sent it back.

This morning I was doubly happy to have made this small stand for yang over yin around here when I saw New Orleans' pathetic showing in "America's Manliest Cities," an annual ranking of 50 cities based on NASCAR viewership, home improvement centers per capita, pick-up truck registrations, and other random but easily measurable indices of supposed maleness. The survey is a pure PR confection for the Mars candy company -- makers of Snickers and Dove chocolates. And yet it doesn't seem all together bogus. Chaw-chompin', Panther-lovin' Charlotte, North Carolina is their No. 1 muy macho town. We must accept that. Clean, green, left-leaning Portland, Oregon is dead last No. 50 (that's news?). New Orleans shows up as No. 22.

This troubles me. It's not that we're ranked squarely in the ambiguous, androgynous middle -- a Pat city, or a Pat city to borrow from another old "Saturday Night Live" skit. No, I read this stupid piece of fluff against more serious bad news lately. And it stoked my fears that New Orleans is at risk of slipping into a charming and too-feminized version of hellholes like Camden, New Jersey or Flint, Michigan.

New Orleans used to make and fool with some bad-ass big boy's toys -- warships and oil tankers, huge rocket parts, giant offshore oil rigs that are now sailing away forever thanks to our capricious Interior Secretary and his boss. It's time to man up again, New Orleans, or else. Apply some overarching testosterone patch to the city lest we all end up scrounging for work in the ethereal "cultural economy" like those irritating self-victimizing characters in HBO's Treme. In short, someone's got to invent, fabricate, and profit from high-priced he-man stuff to pay for all the other goodies we so enjoy. Will it happen? Not optimistic.

Whew, my first rant! And while we're at it, who's to blame for that awful "Running of the Bulls" spectacle last week here in the Quarter? All that huffing and puffing after butched-up babes on roller skates, what a ridiculous way to waste a hot summer day. And look who's wearing the horns, guys? Look who's wearing the horns!

Cocktails and field guns at 7:00

2010-07-13T23:04:00.014-05:00

Whenever I need to pretend that I live in a vast, romantic, sophisticated and important city -- instead of dear, battered little old New Orleans which is, don't get me wrong, a wonderful place in most respects -- I head up to the swank French 75 bar at Arnaud's on Bienville Street. I find so much to love about this place: the warm lighting, the hex tile floors, the polished woods and big swinging doors with etched glass panels, the starched livery on the barkeeps, career professionals all. And every table has an ashtray. Picture Harry's New York at Sank Roo Doe Noo in Paris. That's two vast and important cities in one mention. See where I'm going?

Depending on the day and the hour, French 75 can be packed and rowdy, or quiet and cozy. Last night, a Monday, it was quiet when I drifted in to meet my friend Sally, and her friends in from Atlanta, Joyce and John. How demure and beautiful these women appeared roached up together on a Charles X settee covered with animal skins as twilight's last golden glow poured through the windows facing Bienville Street! I pulled up a chair, and so began a most convivial hour before going for sandwiches at Cochon's butcher shop.

Alas, I gave up the drink many years ago and can no longer indulge in the signature cocktail of the place -- the potent "French 75," made here with champagne, cognac, a dash of Cointreau sometimes, and served in a flute. Another recipe calls for champagne mixed with gin. Either way, I can still remember the sparkling audacity of this concoction and more vaguely, its effects.

The bar and the drink were named for the legendary French 75MM field gun of the First World War. It's quite a story. During the late1890s, French engineers labored in secret in their state-run arsenals to develop an advanced recoil system that virtually eliminated any "kick" -- from the gun, of course, not the cocktail. Thus, there was no need to re-position and re-aim after each round, permitting an extraordinarily rapid rate of fire. The gun's powers were kept secret for more than a decade until the very outbreak of war with Germany. In 1914, the 75s were unleashed in the pivotal Battle of the Marne to rain torrents of shrapnel on the advancing Hun, stopping them before they reached Paris and conquered France. Ah, sweet victory, drink up mes amis!

The 75 was also used by British and American forces, including our city's own Washington Artillery who brought a few pieces home after the war. I've heard there's an antique 75 somewhere in the Jackson Barracks at the butt end of St. Claude Avenue. Hopefully it's still working and pointing downriver should we ever need to defend Orleans Parish from St. Bernard Parish.

Now for the fun part. Here are a few clips of the French 75MM in heat. You'll love the slow-motion horses and caissons around .45 seconds, and the amazing rapid-fire sequence that follows. Boom, boom, boom.

Doofus for hire: "Do as I say, not as I do."

2010-07-10T12:16:00.011-05:00

I swore to myself and my long suffering friends that this blog would be a 100% politics-free zone, but today's news that former mayor C. Ray Nagin has set up a management consulting practice with offices 26 floors above Poydras Street and has also signed with a top-flight Washington speakers bureau is just too rich to let pass. Besides, haven't you all been concerned for his whereabouts and career prospects?

The new firm is called CNR Initiatives -- that's "C" for Clarence, "R" for Ray, "N" for Nadir, Narcissist, Numbskull, Nitwit, No-account, Nothing-burger, etc. etc. -- and offers an awesome store of expertise including "disaster recovery advice and management; Internet communications (in league with disgraced kleptocratic tech czar Greg Meffert); radio, TV and movie development; green technology research and development," and on and on. Sounds great, Ray, now about that day rate...

Meanwhile, Keppler Speakers in D.C. is flogging Ray's "first-person insights into effective crisis management" for that all-important board retreat you've been planning. Supremely original dumb-ass remarks such as "I'm a vagina-friendly Mayor" come as lagniappe, I suppose.

Shot in Louisiana: The Essentials

2010-07-07T20:58:00.010-05:00

Josie. Lee. Vera. Billie. They are the Swamp Women in Roger Corman's 1955 B-movie classic, one of his first pictures. Busty bad girls loose on the bayous are a perennial theme in Louisiana-made movies. More to come from the amazing movie poster collection of the Louisiana State Museum. Meanwhile, don't you love the way Billie has a hold on her man? I really want to be that guy.

Eternal smoke, climbing pandas

2010-07-05T08:31:00.022-05:00

Shopping a first class Southern-fried fireworks shack like Sharkey's in Foley, Alabama, is so much fun I wonder why I do it only twice a year. Sharkey's was packed yesterday on the 4th of July, and the good-natured help in their sparkly red-white-and-blue party hats were literally giving stuff away. We copped eight free flash-bang Roman candles on top of the $82 worth of firecrackers, M-60s, bottle rockets, artillery shells, whiz-bangs, and assorted exploding crap Simon bought with money he had saved for just this occasion. We all thanked Simon for providing our holiday entertainment in his generous way, also praising his sense of life priorities and ability to delay gratification.
As always, I was much amused by the fanciful brand names and packaging that the Chinese apply to their pyrotechnics. The fountains and novelty items carry the most poetic names. You can almost see Eternal Smoke or Climbing Pandas lighting up some emperor's garden way back when in the Han dynasty.
The bunker-buster super-duper combo packages were also to drool over. But they have a completely different, aggressively Westernized brand positioning. I liked Mind Games, Beyond Reality, It's All About Power, and Wow! Then there's Winner Take All! What's with the Old Master portrait of the guy with a Hapsburg jaw and van Dyck stache? We need a re-brand here.
Call it Thirty Years War: Winner Take All! and splash the package with the magnificent "Surrender of Breda" by Velasquez. Or dial back a few days in June, 1625 to the actual siege of Breda, the better to advertise flames, gunsmoke, and wholesale destruction.

An invocation

2010-07-04T10:16:00.011-05:00

How to begin? How else. Sing to me, sweet Calliope! From time to time, as you wish, dear Muse, for my aims are modest. Nothing epic or lyric. Some occasional mispronouncing about life in our beloved New Orleans, my family and friends, the big world out there.
But hark, sweet Inspiration! Don't you live here too? In divine sisterhood along the shabby lower reaches of St. Charles Avenue? Forgive the Homeric apostrophes. I'll keep it simple. I know nothing about blogs or blogging. Can you just help me out here, Dawlin'?