Confabulation

The art of confabulation is a tricky thing.  It is the discipline of inventing memories based on reliable fact.  In New London, Conn. and in New Orleans, Louisiana, it isn't difficult to make more of things than they seem on the surface.  It is often hard to keep everything straight.  Life in both places is like a fever dream.

Life is more than what you make it.  It is what you remember after you live to tell the tale.  It takes independent study, a lot of time in the library, a lot of time on the street, many bleary-eyed sleepless hours meditating while stumbling through a city and taking whatever comes your way to craft flights of fancy informed by hard knocks.

Have I mentioned before that it is good to be Whalehead King?  Have I mentioned before that it is good to live in New Orleans?  I would like to reiterate both facts and hammer them home, like tacks mounting a butterfly.

I don't find I need to fill in too many details or conflate the absurd.  If life is a conundrum to be recollected fresh, it is also a dish best served chilled after introspection and after a point of remove.  I was stumbled into a second line parade under the Claiborne Avenue overpass today.  The Rebirth Brass Band was blowing loud.  Later, in the dead of night while I was snug in my bed, three teenagers marched up my street apropos of nothing blowing a trombone, a trumpet, and the third was shaking a tamborine.  What was the occasion?  We were all in New Orleans on an early February night and the weather was balmy, just like the city.  I heard their approach and sat on my front porch.  As they passed, I blew a kazoo to accompany them though I didn't join the march.

Happy Carnival!
WK