Walk Like a New Orleanian.

O Mighty Isis!

There is a temple to Isis in New Orleans.  Isis.  The Egyptian goddess.  The one who brings floods to the Nile every year when she weeps over the death of her husband, Osiris, Lord of the Underworld.  


Egyptians will be happy to tell you that they are not Arabs.  They are Egyptians.  They are Africans.  They still keep their traditional calendar.  Just as our months are named after Roman deities, and our days after Scandinavian ones, Egyptians name their months and days after their own ancestral traditions, older than anything else around aside from the mountains, and the sea, and the sky. 

New Orleanians will be happy to tell you that, while they are dyed-in-the-wool Americans, their city is a world apart from the rest of the continental United States and Alaska.

More Mardi Gras Indians from 03/20/2011

Today, I'll post the second third of the Mardi Gras Indians we had the honor to witness as they paraded through Central City this past Sunday.  Again, no commentary.  I can't add anything to their nobility.  I can only stand in awe.

Mardi Gras Indian Parade

Saint Joseph's Day was yesterday some of the tribes and chiefs paraded today in Central City, New Orleans.  Let their majesty speak for itself.

This is just a fraction of the Indians who turned out.  Their route was Simon Bolivar Avenue to Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, Claiborne Avenue, and then Washington Ave to complete the circle.

A city of the future in love with its past: New Orleans

Shanghai, China is not New Orleans, LA.

Say what you want about the Chinese, but I think they can build a city.  Their architects craft cityscapes informed by the aesthetics of 1930s pulp science fiction magazines.  As much as I like old places, I daydream what it must be like to stroll around Shanghai.

The lady of the house has lived in China, in a city of several million that you've never even heard of.  China is like that, a riddle wrapped in an enigma, going its own way unperturbed by the rest of the world.

New Orleans is like that too though more low-slung and closer to the mud.  I think everyone in the world has heard of New Orleans.  If not, they have at least heard of Louis Armstrong who was the biggest hearted man you could ever hope to meet.  New Orleans is like that too.

New Orleans doesn't seem to be a place of soaring ambitions with anything to prove.  It hunkers down to do what it does best, live the best life available while darning the consequences.  Things usually work out for the best, at least eventually.  Rallying against any setback, Orleanians know how to play the hand Fortune has dealt them and walk away pleased, if sometimes a bit lighter in the pockets then fuller in spirit.

I was talking to a bald man with a head shaped like a bullet.  He said, "I was born and raised here.  I lived in Chicago for awhile and I hated it; too cold and the people were the hardest people I've ever run up against.  I lived outside St. Louis too for a few years.  Man, I couldn't wait to get back to New Orleans.  Now that I'm back I'm never going to leave.  I love it here."

I've never lived in China nor St. Louis.  I spent a few months in Chicago and left unimpressed.  I've only lived in New Orleans six months and I feel like this guy.  I love it here.

New Orleans is a blessing

You may have noticed that the past few day's I haven't been writing up any lengthy reports.  I'm too busy living in New Orleans.  Words can't capture the experiences.  Greater writers than I have tried to describe what it is like to  be alive in this wonderful city and they've failed.  What dram of insight can I add?

I'm not despairing at my lack of ability.  Rather, I am reveling in it.  Bombarded with so many sights, smells, sounds, tastes, changes in air pressure and temperature... Blinkered by sudden shocks and delights and mysteries around every corner...  Besotted by kaleidoscopes and cornucopia and cacophony in the light of day and the dead of night...  I am rendered dumb by the mixture of joy, beauty and resilience that courses through New Orleans' neighborhoods, main streets, side streets, alleys and concourses.  The tap rooms and living rooms, the shops, the libraries, the front porches, the riverfront, the parks, the markets, the offices and their lobbies...all of New Orleans is soaked through with the sustaining ether that pervades every action and every moment.

Rather than write, I live for the moment in the moment.  I am delirious, dizzy and devil-may-care.  If a city can be a sinful place, New Orleans is a blessing.  I am not debauching or pursuing hedonistic, libertine delights.  I am going about my business, running errands and sharing conversations with my fellow citizens in this most delightful metropolis in the whole, wide world, a place where the mundane is magical and the miraculous is more common than pennies on the sidewalk.

If you've never been to New Orleans, everything you've heard, positive or negative, is true but bigger, better, more robust and vibrant.  If you've spent an hour here, you know what I'm talking about.  If you were sitting next to me we'd nudge each other and wink in agreement.

'Nuff said.
WK

Central City, New Orleans

I spend a lot of time in Central City, New Orleans.  Most streets look similar to the picture above.  There are plenty of abandoned buildings that obviously used to be groceries or bars or other neighborhood oriented businesses.  Heck, the whole neighborhood is self-contained.  There isn't a national chain on any of its blocks.  

Central City is organic.  It isn't the "best" part of town.  When I tell people I enjoy patrolling the neighborhood either by motorcycle or bicycle they tell me to be careful.  During the day, everyone has been polite and friendly whether they are walking down the street or sitting on their front porch.  I've only been through the area by motorcycle at night, not because I'm nervous my bicycle won't be able to outrun any attackers or because my light skin stands out.  I take the Ninja because I'm passing through to somewhere else.  I cut through Central City at night because I enjoy it during the day.  

It is another New Orleans though, very different from the Garden District.  The other night we witnessed a cat fight and it wasn't between felines.  We pulled up to an intersection and the road was full of long, black hair.  Two young women were fighting and one had pulled the hair off the other's head.  People had gathered to watch and/or break up the hostilities.  Any treaty was soon abandoned as the more aggressive of the two would tackle her victim and they would roll around on the sidewalk until someone was brave and strong enough to separate them.  

I killed the engine and kept the headlight on.  My passenger urged me to head home but I replied we might be of use.  This went on for ten minutes before the police showed up.   They commanded the situation without my assistance so I left the scene.  The girl who lost her hair was bald on top by the time the fray had ended.  No one paid us any mind.  We may as well have been an oak tree that has stood in the neutral ground for the past century.

I understand there is a lot of crime in Central City but this is mostly invisible to me.  I'm sure the NOPD has a better grasp of the statistics than I do, but my anecdotal evidence is that Central City is relatively safe and fascinating, at least during the day.  Except for the cat fight, I've never witnessed anything out of the ordinary at night either except for people minding their business.  Color me naive, but I've always found most people just like to be left alone and that very few people wake up in the morning intent on doing the wrong thing or being a bad person.  Even criminals hatching their schemes seem to do it with the best intentions: supporting their families, getting ahead, making a little scratch.  The means may be questionable but the goal would be considered worthwhile if channeled through more respectable, tax paying enterprises.  

I'm not one to judge.  Unless personally confronted with a moral dilemma, I reserve the right to be neutral in "victimless" crimes.  One native told me, "When you go on the other side of St. Charles Ave., you'd better be careful.  Who knows what those people will do."  It's easy to demonize a neighborhood but I'd rather not demonize the citizens who live there.  It may take one bad apple to spoil a barrel but we're not talking about fruit.  I've encountered some of the nicest people in New Orleans in Central City and I'll continue to visit, to buy goods and services, to chit chat on stoops, and block traffic at busy intersections so that children can ride their rickety bicycles through.  

I still have all my hair despite all the time I've spent in Central City.  

Jazz Po-Boys

There's a stretch of Washington Avenue in Central City that is home to a cluster of po' boy shops and sno-ball stands.  Taking Fourth Street, which runs parallel to Washington Ave., a two story, ramshackle looking, gray building has a handmade sno-ball sign mounted high on its back wall.  Jazz Po-Boys.  What could it be?

It's Jazz Po-Boys.  The sign mounted high on the rear of the building is echoed by another piece of cut and painted plywood on the ground.  This is a shop that obviously doesn't just serve po' boys.  They serve sno-balls too.  The rainbow concocted sno-ball is the common way they are depicted on signs.  I've never seen anyone eat one of these though I'm sure this tutti-frutti option is available if a skilled syrup hand is crafting the treat.  In reality, they seem to be eaten one flavor at a time.  Two at the most.

Here's the view from the corner of Fourth Street and Magnolia.  Washington Ave is a block away.  Note the classic Coca-Cola sign paired with the handpainted wall advertisement.  The awning sports the colors of Mardi Gras: gold, purple, yellow.  These are the joyful colors of a sunny disposition.  Don't bother with the door on the corner.

Jazz Po-Boys has a take out window (closed in this picture unfortunately).  This is the Magnolia Street side.  Notice the cobblestones alongside the sidewalk.  They are home to streetcar rails.  The street is paved in the middle and the cobblestones and abandoned rails run along the opposite sidewalk as well.  A streetcar once ran down Magnolia Street.

I've driven down Magnolia a number of times.  It is a picturesque avenue that has seen better days and more traffic in its time.  One can only hope, especially the residents, that the New Orleans Master Plan will revive this streetcar line.  It will be good for business for Jazz Po-Boys and be easier than schlepping down to St. Charles Avenue to catch a ride for the residents of this corner of the city.

A block away from this corner, on the other side of Washington, new homes are being built.  A lot of them.