Category: New Orleans

  • Walking Home

    The first overcast morning in New Orleans feebly sprinkles tiny, warm droplets. It’s early and quiet. Something about rain, in New Orleans is strange, even as light and harmless as it’s falling now. My mind tired from a late night, drenched in green, gold and…

  • A Long Drive

    I keep driving and writing. North through Alexandria, east to the cold cobblestones of Natchitoches, through dark pines and green grass. Then south. Tired of the cold rain, I head back south to the water and endless bayous. At my hotel in New Iberia (where…

  • Bayous and Backroads

    A big paper map in one hand, the steering wheel in the other–I amble off the main highway for something less traveled. Today I want to see what’s behind the tourist brochures and swamp tours. So I fly down lonely roads of crushed, white shell…

  • Leaving the City

    I left the black asphalt 100 miles ago. Since then it’s been warm, ruddy concrete framed with bright emerald-grass. Against the red background the yellow line in the middle is that much more intense and brighter – and I follow it blindly. I have general…

  • I Won’t Hesitate No More, No More

    Up bright and early, bags packed, and a nice walk to St. Louis Street—-past the street cleaners and sweepers, preparing for the weekend crowds—to pickup my rental car. On the way, I help some grateful tourists find their way to Toulouse Street. I got a…

  • Move if You Wanna, Move, Move

    Food and music. My favorite things about traveling are discovering and enjoying both. The street musicians on every corner are phenomenal. The other are the street performers and the (dirty South!) hip hop. Walking through stately Jackson Square. I’m greeted by a loudspeaker, broadcasting the…

  • The Second Line (Life & Death in New Orleans)

    Barbara dropped the paper off yesterday, Look. A second line on Frenchmen St. It’s tomorrow. So I wrapped up work early, locked up shop at 1pm like everyone else in town, to walk down to The Spotted Cat, to watch the funeral procession, trying to…

  • Hey Lady!

    I was walking home from the French Quarter. Had a craving for lemonade, baguettes and raspberry sherbet, decided instant satisfaction was well worth the beautiful walk to Rouse’s at sunset. Walking through the meandering streets, past pepto-pink stucco, worn brick and peeling paint of the…

  • Trained Killer

    She calls him the trained killer. The brother of the woman next door who’s come to stay in the other room at the bed & breakfast. When I meet him, he pulls away from his cigarette to shake my hand. The sleeve of his black…

  • All My Shortening

    An afternoon like any other, Tom and Barbara had made their way to the front porch, drinks in hand. I’d just returned from gumbo and reading in the French Quarter. We sit outside and listen to the river boat calliope play playful, ghostly melodies as…

  • Dynamics of Katrina

    Tom offered to drive us, a resident tour-guide. The lower 9th Ward is not as far from Marigny as I thought it would be. Houses get gradually rougher and less ornate. Floor to ceiling bars now grace the front porches of many a front stoop…

  • Katrina

    Listening to Barbara and Tom’s own horror stories of feet of water, trees through the roof, on alert for looters, fighting rising waters to save elderly parents – all while 70 themselves – it was strange to try to imagine something worse. But there it…

  • In the Midst of it All…

    There is a steady stream of volunteers, grass roots groups making a noticeable difference–from cleanup and re-building to mowing back overgrown lawns. New houses are slowly erected and homeowners move back in. Most notably is Brad Pitt’s “Make it Right” organization. Modern, crrrrrazy-futuristic looking, super…

  • In the French Market

    Louisiana sluffed off the chillier weather and temperate breezes blow gently through blue-sky days. The morning routine starts at 7 or 8 am (5 or 6 am Pacific Time), coffee with chicory, shutters opened to let in the light of the day. Door left open…

  • The Hairspray’s Just Better Here….

    By the end of the first day, we’d tracked down a mini-mart and stocked up on feminine essentials: shampoo, conditioner, etc. The next morning’s shower was glow-or-ious after traveling for the previous couple days. Jamie realized it first: the girl products just smell better here.…

  • You Gotta Give All You Got!

    A thoroughly satisfying day of working behind us, another delicious dinner, we walked arm in arm down Royal to the tiny shops on Frenchman Street, in search of a grocery and a bottle of wine. Interesting thing about New Orleans, grocery stores are few and…

  • Forging the Great Mississippi…and back.

    On my list of things to do in this life, I’ll admit, crossing the Mississippi River never ranked very high. (Ok, maybe it wasn’t really on this list at all…). But with the interwebs not working correctly at 2216 Royal, I needed a solution –…

  • The Orange Couch

    Sometimes, after wandering block after block, you realize the best things are right there in front of you all along. This is true for coffee in Marigny. A couple blocks from the house is an ageless building newly transformed by fresh, snow-white walls, bright green…

  • The Scene

    Waking up the first morning to the sounds of the south. Ok, maybe it sounded like any other street—a car or two, a bus, unapologetic sunshine peaking through the half-closed shutters of gigantic windows, the constant bluster of a freezing northern wind that had swept…

  • Southern Hospitality

    The rental owner, our gracious host, Barbara appears through the crack of one massive shutter, waiting for us. Short gray hair and lipstick, a commanding way of talking to you that makes you feel both welcomed and taken care of in the same instance. She…

  • Make Some Big Jumps (Living in New Orleans)

    Our taxi driver from the airport, born and raised in New Orleans, is soft spoken with that soft lilt that teases the most mundane words into something soothing and seductive. It’s the voice of my grandfather, the voice of a southerner. In a very un-scientific…