An incurable disease

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us.

New Orleans' good cheer is infectious.  This is why everyone is welcome to spend some time in the Crescent City.  New Orleans matters.  There is nowhere else like it on earth.  The more people catch this contagion directly, the happier everyone will be.

Knotty and Nice in New Orleans

A typical New Orleans Street.

Knitting is knotty, but no one is naughty in New Orleans, Louisiana.  If anything is racy, it is happening at the Fair Grounds.  If anything is innocent, it is happening on Ursulines Street.  If anyone is happy...well, that could be anywhere between Hollygrove and Holy Cross.

You have a friend in New London, Conn.

It's New London, baby.  Mare liberum!!

New London, Connecticut is a city that knows no rival, It is Connecticut’s Whaling City.  It is a good fishing place off the west bank of Connecticut’s Thames River, where the shad and the alewives run thick with the eels, in season.  It is a city built on a foundation of spermaceti and spunk.  Like a plate of spaghetti, there is no way to separate all the tangled, slippery propositions in New London’s try pot.  

New London, Connecticut is hygienic.  New London, Connecticut is pure and clean.  East New London is to the north of the city’s center.  Powder Island is made of granite and generations of guano sedimented into tall tales close to the waterline.  There are a few ledges in New London, Connecticut, and there are plenty of lights.

Just Under The Goldstar Bridge Overpass (JUGBO), on Central Avenue, in New London, Connecticut, life unfolds with the same graceful splash that reigns over the whole city.  Husbands love their wives on Adelaide Street.  Husbands love their husbands on West Street.  Wives love their wives on Hempstead Street.  Parents love their children on Jefferson Avenue, and children love their parents on Ocean Avenue.  People who live alone find solace and comfort in Bates Woods, or in Cedar Grove.  

New London, Connecticut is a small city, and it is a very hip city.  It has chosen to stay true to its flukes.  New London, Connecticut is for lovers. 

If anything is true in New London, Connecticut, it is that you never know what tomorrow will bring.  If you get turned around in New London, Connecticut, you will always find your way.  Head toward the ebb and flow of Connecticut’s Thames River.  Breath the New London air.  The sun is always shining on New London, even when the clouds are raining.

They should be riding motor scootes.

Life in New London, Connecticut is opera without soft soap.  Life in New London is good.  Life in New London is better.  Life in New London, Connecticut is a healthy salt bath in sack cloth and garters.  A day in New London, Connecticut is like a day at a health spa.  Nothing relaxes like an hour walking Bank Street on a New London day.  In New London, Connecticut, The Parade is the goal of a pleasant stroll.  There are public restrooms located in the train station.

New London is elegant.  New London is beautiful.  New London is for lovers.  New London soars as high as the halo over the Mohican Hotel after midnight.  New London is an open clam shell slick with whale oil.  New London wears a pearl necklace and a corset strung with baleen.  New London has a long tail.  When you expect the worst...POP!...everything is better than before.  That is the way things work in New London, Connecticut.

California Fruit?

There is an old song that was popular in the Gay Nineties.  It was called, “I’ll Never Forget My First Old New London Gal.”  It was popular on the vaudeville circuit, and sailors sang it while they were climbing the mizzen heads on the lookout for Ledge Light.  Some nights, at 2:00 AM, after the Dutch Tavern is locked up for the night, the bartender will sing “I’ll Never Forget My First Old New London Gal,” while he mops under the card tables.

Nobody ever forgets their first day in New London, Connecticut, and no one forgets their last day...unless they die in New London, Connecticut.  In that case, they are in heaven.  


Nobody forgets New London, Connecticut for long.  Every poison has its antidote.  If a spermatozoa were as large as a whale, it would be as large as New London’s heart.  That measures out to be a filament more than five square miles and miles and miles of heart.  

Lamplighter Of The World, New London, Connecticut is a place better lived than learned.  Whatever you read between these lines is but a rainbow on a puddle compared to the slippery slope up Town Hill past the courthouse on a December night when the sleet is blowing fast off Long Island Sound.  The spirit of Nathan Hale inspires the good folk who live on Granite Street.   

Kanesha Murphy kisses her daughter goodnight on Vauxhall Street.  Otis Shear says his prayers with his son on Ashcraft Road.  Mickey Finn is nursing a pint at the Polish American Veterans Club on Central Avenue.  Joan Morrow is heading home after a late shift at Shallett's Laundry.  A party of eight is enjoying pizza pie at Illiano's.  Everyone is healthy at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital.


A third-class pharmacist's mate from 1906 could get off the train at the foot of State Street today and know exactly where he is.  New London, Connecticut is eternal.  New London, Connecticut is for lovers. 

A Five-Star Whale Production.!

Lamplighter of the World, New London is for lovers.  There are no rivals when all is fair in love and peace.  There are no enemies when everyone is a neighbor.  Fellow-citizens work together.  Fellow-citizens make good neighbors.  New London is for lovers.  New London is where it is at.  Home is where the heart is.  New London, Connecticut is a fertile garden where flowers bloom like spume year round.

The Real Esplanade Avenue, New Orleans, LA

Our Lady of Prompt Succor.

When people say they live on the sunny side of Esplanade Avenue, they mean they live on either side.  The side with even-numbered addresses is as chipper and convivial as the odd-sided one.  Esplanade Avenue, running along the panoramic high ground known, locally, as Esplanade Ridge, is the slenderest slice of New Orleans that is a world unto itself.  No street in America is named more truly than Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Unlike Saint Charles Avenue, the street both closest to, and furthest away from, Esplanade Avenue’s sensibility, Esplanade Avenue is a street that is made for walking.  Its length, between City Park and the Old U.S. Mint, is rarely visited by tourists.  If they chose to, they could absorb a few centuries of New Orleaniana in an hour and three quarters.  Esplanade Avenue’s economy is based on neighborhood interaction.  Its story is self-contained, both part and parcel of the whole city in microcosm.

Saint Charles Avenue is a long, run-on variation on a theme, a tinkling on the ivories.  The only people who live on Saint Charles Avenue are the ones who inhabit it.  Esplanade Avenue is a self-contained story told in four acts, starting with picturesque introduction and concluding when there is nothing left to say.  The people who live on Esplanade Avenue love it.  When musicians march on Esplanade Avenue, they play brass and snare.  A perfect street stokes platonic passions that sizzle, under the skin, from one august day to the next.  

Bisected down its neutral ground, the even-sided half of Esplanade Avenue is the Sixth Ward, and the odd side is the Seventh Ward.  The Sixth Ward’s landfill trash, and the household trash meant for recycling, gets picked up at curbside every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  The Seventh Ward puts its trash barrels on the curb every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.  Esplanade Avenue is very picturesque.  

Between BMC and Check Point Charlie, rhythm and tympanum compliment each other in contrapuntal harmony.  

Fed by the dedicated exit ramp off the Claiborne Avenue Overpass, traffic does not jam on Esplanade Avenue, with its many, patience-inducing traffic lights.  Everyone smiles.  There is plenty of change to spare along a stretch of road that is as old as the city itself, and older, still, in some places.

Between the statue of the Muse of History and the house that Edgar Degas lived in for five months, where Bayou Road, the oldest street in the city, goes from Treme to the Fairgrounds, where the neutral ground narrows at the jag in the lanes after South Galvez Street, bus lines converge and transfer passengers.  Communication and commutation between New Orleans’ distant parts is enhanced and enabled along Esplanade Avenue, where wards converge. 

Different flavors, and different shades, as it traces its patched-pothole track, Esplanade Avenue is consistent in its diversity, and surprising in its tranquility.  If you can imagine peace on Earth, you can imagine a stroll along Esplanade Avenue.  The rat slumbers next to the hen, and eggs are on the breakfast table with red beans and grits, every morning.  Children go to school in waves, and they head home, later.  Adults wander to and fro, morning and night, on their errands.  Conversations unfurl, and connections are made, along Esplanade Avenue.

Between the crumbling high school and the abandoned nursing home, diagonally across from the donut shop, behind the new Rent-a-Center, where a locked, empty church keeps its welcome sign out, business blossoms.

Esplanade Ridge, an unmeasurable, natural wonder of elevated dry land, as majestic as any ineffable, topographic feature, runs somewhat askew of the Crescent City’s curved street grid.  Triangular parks scale Esplanade Avenue’s sides as it runs its straight line to end up near Storyland.  Great things happen on Esplanade Avenue, but they rarely make the news.  

Between two supermarkets that cannot be bothered to compete with each other, and two Spanish restaurants that are as far apart as Minorca and Majorca, a twinkle of whimsy tickles one length of Esplanade Avenue, and one length of Grande Route St. John, and one half of Mystery Street.

Between Saint Louis Cemetery No. 3, and Cabrini High School, devotees of Our Lady of the Rosary pass every day, whether they know it or not.  

Esplanade Avenue rolls over Moss Street and crosses Bayou St. John in a soaring arc atop a utilitarian, cast-concrete bridge.  The view is breathtaking, as is the traffic circle that loops around itself, with stoplights at each cardinal point.  If you ever need to get your bearings, travel the length of Esplanade Avenue from front to back.  What you lose in perspective, you will gain in experience.

When Esplanade Avenue ends, it does so with a command.  A statue of P.G.T. Beauregard, himself, astride a charger, points his saber to the river,.  Any surveyor licensed by the State of Louisiana can plot the course of Esplanade Avenue’s middle by just that saber tip’s angle, alone.  Any symbolic instruction is unintentionally implicit.  You do not have to graduate from Delgado Community College to learn what lies on the other side of the Storyland Railroad’s tracks.

Behind the stalwart, noble figure of General P.G.T. Beauregard, CSA (ret.)(d.1893), is a nexus of rest, relaxation, rejuvenating exercise, picturesque surroundings, family reunions, amateur sporting events, gardens, benches, trails, lagoons, an art museum, and a golf course.  Wars have been fought to preserve civilized life.  Fate runs a weighted lottery.  New Orleans City Park is many things to many people.  Sometimes it all boils down to zoning.  If there are nutria, there is raw, spiritual nourishment available for the inhaling.  Ducks do not live by breadcrumbs alone, and New Orleans needs a grand City Park.  A city that is, itself, a vast testament to vibrant perseverance, should be freckled and speckled with the relics of its permanent past.  

To General Beauregard’s bronzed, right flank, the Canal Street streetcar stops its run with no transfer, but for a a bus.  The only bell that rings on Esplanade Avenue is the church bell summoning parishioners to mass.  Streetcars do not clatter down Esplanade Avenue.  It is a street that finds its identity in unhurried modes.  The loveliest, most thought-provoking, six, sunny-side miles in New Orleans are down one side of Esplanade Avenue and up the other.  A great city’s heart has many arteries to keep its pressure pumping where needed.  Some neighborhoods are scabbed over and scarred, and some have undergone cosmetic surgery.  Some neighborhoods have a fluttering pulse, while others throb with expanding contractions.  Some neighborhoods are husks of empty shotgun shells.  Some neighborhoods are empty, still.  Some neighborhoods make for a pleasant walk at all times of day and night, at all times of the year.

Esplanade Avenue is alive and well.  It is a world both apart from, and, a part of, the rest of New Orleans.  There is no more New Orleanian street on the map, or off the radar.  Esplanade Avenue makes an impression that will inspire a career track for those who can recognize beauty in its polished rough.  A human promenade progresses along Esplanade Avenue.  If New Orleans is beautiful, and it certainly is, its essence is distinctly distilled without a trace of stink, in the perfume that lazily wafts along Esplanade Avenue.  Time does not stand still.  It evolves.  A rough oyster shell holds a pearl.

Esplanade Avenue starts at the Mississippi River, as most everything in New Orleans does.  It ends in art, as most everything in New Orleans does.  There is plenty to see along the way.  Every journey is full of distractions and temptations.  Every journey is worth taking.  If you are lucky enough to walk Esplanade Avenue, you know what it means to have your senses alive.  What is life, but experience?  What is experience if it does not lead to knowledge?  What is knowledge if it does not lead to more questions?  There is always more to learn.  Lessons are dealt every day along the sidewalks of Esplanade Avenue.  Autodidacts, university scholars, and sages wise beyond their credentials find something to savor on Esplanade Avenue.  

Moonlight and sunlight, streetlight, and strobe light, in brightest day and blackest night, Esplanade Avenue is welcoming, peaceful, and secure in its community.  Pelicans, chickens, and pigeons call it home.  So do many, many people who have nowhere else to go between up and down.  The length of Esplanade Avenue runs a pleasant gantlet that invites wandering.  The destination may be unknown, but there will be a welcome respite at journey’s end.

Ursuline Concord

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, hasten to help us!

From Hollygrove to Holy Cross, New Orleans glows.  The city radiates a magical aura from the bend in the river to Pontchartrain Park.  The sun rises in the east, a flower blossoming.  The sun sets in the west, locked away in a tomb.  If you can get from the West End to the Lower Ninth Ward in an evening, you will be back again the next day.  Desire is a state of mind that has nothing to do with Florida, but plenty to do with sunshine and retiring from the concerns of the workaday world.  

New Orleans dreams

New Orleans in a shot glass.

They say Hollywood is a dream factory.  I see why.  For different reasons, in very different ways, I think New Orleans, Louisiana is a dream factory.  Living here, day after delightful day, I feel untethered from the reality that rules every other place I've lived.

I spent some years in Naples, Italy, an outsider speaking only English, in a city with more than a million inhabitants, that has only one McDonald's and two Chinese restaurants (when I lived there, least).  Different rules applied to life in Naples.  Different rules apply in New Orleans.  It is a world like none other.  The rest of the world is out there, it just doesn't matter very much.  A living city is a microcosm.

When I hear a trumpet player keeping himself company along his, or her, long midnight walk home, I hear the heartbeat of a living city.  It sings.

I spent a few years in Boston.  That city calculates and studies.  I've lived in Queens, a part of a city that schemes to make a buck.  I've lived in Newport, Rhode Island, a place apart, that stuns with its beauty.  I've was nurtured and came of age in New London, Connecticut, a place where no one visits, unless they mean it.  I've lived in Chicago, and there was nothing wrong with that, except the weather.  I've lived in Houston, and I never want to go back.

I live in New Orleans, now.  I never want to live anywhere else again.

I live, alive, in New Orleans, without a care in the world.  New Orleans incubates dreams.  It fledges dreamers when they are ready to soar between Riverbend and Hollygrove, between Bayou Sauvage and the slippery shores of the mighty Mississippi River.  If an idea has legs, it will be able to swim.  New Orleans is a dream factory filled with small entrepreneurs looking to mint something more than coin.  It a city in which dreams come true.

New Orleans Voodoo

People walk down Esplanade Avenue every day.

New Orleans: a living, breathing city in which miracles only seem to blossom spontaneously.  The brass band marching down Barracks Street this evening has prepared for months for this unscheduled parade.  Only the uninformed are caught unexpected.  Only the neighbors come out to join in.

A salute to Tyler, TX

The imposing skyline of Tyler, TX

Tyler is a city with the profile of a busted kidney in the heart of Smith County, Texas.  Tylerites call their city the “Rose Capital of the Nation.”  Their claim is justified.

As the capitol of Smith County, Tyler serves as a hub for surrounding cities many people are familiar with.  These include:  Lindale, New Chapel Hill, Whitehouse, Edom, Bullard, and Chandler, and Brownsboro.  In contrast to the unpredictable East Texas climate, Tyler is as stable as the East Texas bedrock.  Just as tectonic plates lift mountains, Tyler’s reputation as a great place to live has increased the population from 83,650 to 96,900 in only ten years according to the latest, official U.S. Census Bureau statistics.  

Money doesn’t grow on trees in Tyler, but many businesses find that the same ground that grows roses is also fertile for other profitable pursuits.  Two thousand one hundred employees diligently work night and day to keep communities in four states outside Tyler’s borders well fed.  Walmart is the sixth largest employer.  If there is anything a Tylerite enjoys, it is a bargain.

Don’t believe for a minute that Tyler’s economy revolves solely around the fickle service industry.  Several heavy industries have located their operations in Tyler’s business-conducive atmosphere.  Among them are: the Tyler Candle Company, Tyler Products, and Greenberg’s Smoked Turkeys.  Good wages and plentiful opportunities abound in scenic Smith County, Texas, and Tyler is the center of it all.  

Interpretive signage along Tyler’s magnificent “Azalea Trail,” and at the Cotton Belt Railroad Depot Museum, will deepen your appreciation of Tyler’s rich and diverse history and culture.  If you follow an interstate highway, you are bound to hit Tyler.  Once you cross the outer loop of asphalt that surrounds the city, you will be sure to pass the inner loop, and so on.  

Turn on your radio as you drive through Tyler to enjoy the sounds of Hot 107.3 Jamz.  Tyler is a city large for its stature.  Tylerites enjoy urban contemporary music that is both old school and today’s R&B.  On the other end of the dial, 89.5 KVNE is the voice of encouragement to a large proportion of the community.  Big city sophistication rules the air in Tyler, Texas.  

Of the 204,655 lucky people call Smith County home, 96,900 are the luckiest of them all.  They live in Tyler, Texas, a natural beauty. 

Carriage Ride Through The French Quarter.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

“I need to have a car,” she says.

I ask why.

“I need to pick my granddaughter up from school” she says, “then I need to pick up my son from his school.  Then I need to pick up my daughter when she gets off work.  Then I need to take her to babysit her boyfriend’s children.  After that’s all done, I have to get here, to work.”

She is telling me this as we take a carriage ride through the French Quarter.  She is driving the mule, so she is in charge.  It was quite the tour.  We passed by the statue of Saint Joan of Arc.  I don't remember much else.

City Park Eel Expose, New Orleans, LA

City Park eels.

An excerpted preview from a profile I'm writing after spending a lot of time in City Park on assignment...

How does one eel man let another know that trouble may be afoot?  

Marcel explains. “We’ve got a system for ourselves.  See this here?  This ain’t no dog whistle.  It’s a penguin call.  You know there aren’t any penguins in City Park, right?  If you ever hear a penguin, that means an eel man has spotted a park ranger.  All spears are hidden.”

Planter's Grove, New Orleans, LA

Planter's Grove, New Orleans, LA.

Who is that seated in the park where Euterpe Street meets Simon Bolivar Avenue? Let's take a closer look shall we?

The Planter's Grove sign inset on the boardwalk with authentic New Orleans' tile.

Mr. Peanut.  New Orleans.

Well hello, Mr. Peanut.  What are you doing in Central City?

Mr. Peanut close up.

And a fine day to you, sir.  A pleasure to make your acquaintance.  

A New Orleans Painter's Lament and Hope.

President Martin Van Buren.

Why Martin Van Buren?  Because I am fond of the Little Magician from Kinderhook, NY.

I have all sorts of photos to upload onto the blog, but I can't find the little device to connect the card to the computer.  It used to be much easier when I just had a shoebox full of snapshots.  Of course, I couldn't share them all with an uncaring world with a short attention span then.

I started painting again in February, after a five-year hiatus.  When I turned 40, I decided I did not enjoy attending gallery openings, I didn't enjoy discussing my work, I didn't enjoy hobnobbing.  I love to paint.  Since February, I have 23 good paintings in my portfolio.  I counted last night and decided to go for 24.  I now have 24 good paintings in my portfolio.  Some are better than others, but all of the good ones meet my semi-exacting standards.  I am not counting the duds that I have produced during the same time period.

It is nice to be painting again.  I gave it up because I don't like to talk about the work, but I live to make it.  Time drops by the wayside when I am painting, and the clock cannot measure the moments spent dabbing colors.  I am surprised by how easily I slip into that other, creative dimension where just the doing is all that matters.  The results matter afterward.  Luckily they are mostly good, but when engaged in the act, all that matters is the complex internal equations that I formulate as I go along to make a picture work and express what I want it to say.  Will the viewer take the same thing away?  Probably not, but that is not my concern.  My job is to paint like my life depends on it.

Getting New Orleans.

A Mardi Gras Indian, Super Sunday, 2011.

While I have rarely lived in a big city over the course of my life, I am a city person.  The raison d'etre of urban living is wired into my DNA.  I grew up in a smallish town, small by some standards, but larger than many cities in Oklahoma.  I lived close to the center of town, and I thought nothing of walking to the store.  The American cities I have spent the most time in are Newport, RI and New London, CT, both of which have roughly the same populations, around 25,000, in a similar area, less than 9 square miles.

When I moved to Boston, I had cracked the local code after two or three weeks.  I understood the city, and I moved about it naturally.

I was recently in Washington, DC, and when I stepped off the train, I felt like I was in a city again.  The landscape felt natural and the rhythms of pedestrians and buses and cars and trucks made sense.  Walking for blocks between multi-story, antique, brick apartment buildings, hemmed in but busy gaping around at the stores on the ground floor and all the people on the street, was nice.  So was having a subway that was quicker than walking, and discovering the beauty of its convenience and fare schedule.  But then it became too much of the same.  I could have been in Boston.  I definitely was not in New Orleans.

A year later, I still don't get New Orleans.  I love it, and not a day goes by that I don't say to myself , apropos of nothing, "I love it here."  I still haven't figured it out.  Every day is an adventure that brings unexpected surprises.  Every day I learn more about my new city, and about myself as I adapt.  It is a very nice place to be.

Saint Expedite, New Orleans, LA

Saint Expedite Medal

I've grown fond of thinking about Saint Expedite, and of looking at his statue at Our Lady of Guadelupe Chapel on North Rampart Street.  It is the only Catholic Church in North America to hold a statue of this saint.

While Saint Expedite does not have the most sterling reputation, I located a cache of medals that implore him to pray for us.  I've been using these in paintings, and to make magnets, and sewing them onto tee shirts.  It seems to be working well for both of us.

Many people don't know what to make of Saint Expedite, hopefully, by making his medals available, I will be giving him a bit more exposure.  He is the patron of those who need speedy relief.  Though his veneration has been tied up with local, New Orleans voodoo, I find him a reassuring presence, even if I have yet to pay him in pound cake and rum.

His full story can be found at the link on top of the (your) right hand column of this page.  It is available in kindle format.  I am happy to print up and sign an author's manuscript for anyone interested.  The price is $5.00 including tax and shipping.  It could be an heirloom someday since it will have the author's dated signature affixed to every one of its pages.  It is a short and informative read if you want to learn a bit more about New Orleans culture, and the history of this questionable saint.

Manuscript edition of The History of Saint Expedite in New Orleans, LA.

The Algiers Ferry - New Orleans, LA

Crescent City Connector

I took the ferry to Algiers the other day.  I could have taken the bridge (pictured above) but it's so darned windy up there on my little motorcycle, and there is nothing really to see.  I prefer the ferry, which costs the same.  The toll to get to the West Bank of the Mississippi River is nothing.  To get back to the East Bank, it costs a dollar, whether you choose bridge or ferry.

This isn't to say that the bridge does not offer panoramas.  It does.  It is wiser to pay attention to the cars and trucks zipping by, and the road conditions, than it is to enjoy the landscape below.

New Orleans World Trade Center

Notice that I refer to the East Bank and the West Bank of the river.  The ferry runs from New Orleans to New Orleans.  Algiers is a neighborhood within the city, though it is separated by a wide ribbon of water.  It's a different world over there, but one that I feel comfortable in.  It is New Orleans.  The bridge has an Algiers exit, and then the highway runs through Jefferson Parish, which includes the City of Gretna, and then miles and miles of unincorporated places.  As a New Englander, I have little patience or respect for unincorporated places.  Jefferson Parish is wide and vast, and if the people who live there cannot be bothered to form a government, I have a hard time taking that seriously.

Of course, the views from the ferry are beautiful.  Another photo, that would be fit for a tourist brochure:

Saint Louis Cathedral.

There is some talk about doing away with the tolls on the Crescent City Connector because the dollar is too much an imposition for the people on the West Bank.  Crimminy!  A dollar!  When I paid the first time, I almost got off the Little Ninja and danced a jig!  From East Boston to Boston through the Big Dig Tunnel costs $3.50 the last I remember, and they are both part of the same city.  To get into Boston from the Massachusetts Turnpike is even more.  The last time I crossed the George Washington Bridge in NYC, it cost nine bucks!

People will disagree, but I think if you want to live in the suburbs and pay your property taxes there, while working in the city, you should pony up a little to keep up the infrastructure and opportunity to continue to do so.  Yes, it does cost five dollars to spend a work week in New Orleans, or elsewhere on the East Bank.  That is the equivalent of a draft beer and a tip that gets spent in thirty seconds.

Let's meet our New Orleans City Council

The following images and designations were taken from the New Orleans City Council website, this morning.  Its address is .com vs. .gov for some reason.

City Council President (according to the website)

City Council Vice President (according to the website)

District A

District B

District C

District D

District E

I don't want to put too fine a point to this photo essay.  The reader can make his or her own conclusions.

Finding a good reuben in New Orleans.

A good reuben.

A good reuben sandwich is a thing of beauty.  New Orleans has a long history of active and robust Jewish community, but the kosher fare, or even a good Jewish deli, is hard to come by.

There is Stein's Deli on Magazine Street.  They make a good sandwich, but I haven't tried their rueben.  Stein's is pricey, and they tend to go heavy on the meat.  This isn't a bad thing, as any New Orleanian will tell you, but I prefer balance over a heavy hand at the slicer.  For this reason, and for this reason alone, I have resisted the temptation to try Stein's reuben.

You might think that I would also avoid Parkway Tavern's reuben sandwich, but you would be wrong.  While Parkway is famous for its messy, overstuffed sandwiches (as I have happily reported elsewhere in the archives), the corned beef is mellow and savory, and everything else is added in just the right amounts.  A reuben is the sandwich I order most often at Parkway.  This hasn't stopped me from looking farther afield.

We went to the Kosher Cajun today, at 3519 Severn Avenue in Metairie today.  Already, my New England fustiness about what constitutes New Orleans, disqualifies the Kosher Cajun's sandwich from being the best in the city, but other people are not so particular about municipal boundaries.  It is a nice deli, don't get me wrong, but like anything, some things get lost in translation.  The bagels, for instance, are frozen and flown down from the New York metropolitan tri-state area.  I'm not saying which state is their point of origin, but it isn't the Empire State, and it isn't the Nutmeg State.  There is nothing wrong with this, but, being the stickler I usually am, if I get a New York bagel, I expect it to originate in Queens.  So it goes.

The Kosher Cajun makes a good reuben.  It isn't the best I've ever had, and I still prefer Parkway's.  I will certainly be going back to this deli when I am in the neighborhood.  That is a rare occurrence, but it does happen occasionally.  They do carry the full line of Dr. Brown's soda, and I love to slake my thirst with a Cel-Ray, so there is icing on this cake.

Celery tonic.  Cel-Ray refreshes!

I have heard rumors that the best reuben in New Orleans can be found at Cooter Brown's in Riverbend, of all places!  They take their beer and their oysters seriously.  There is no reason to think they don't take their pastrami seriously.  From what I can gather, Cooter Brown's uses pastrami rather than corned beef.  This is not a concern.  Rumor has it that the pastrami is shipped special delivery, COD from New York City on a regular, weekly basis.  I don't see the reuben listed on Cooter's menu, but you never know until you try.  I foresee an exploratory errand in my future.

Credit where it is due:  The first illustration, of a reuben, is courtesy of stickygooeychef.  That, my friends, is a really good sandwich.

Pay attention to urban redevelopment.

I was going to write about the Little Magician today, but I got sidetracked by this interesting circular argument video that I thought I would share.  It is a bit didactic, but it sums up many conversations I've had in the past.  Maybe tomorrow, I'll tell you about the Sage of Kinderhook.  Enjoy, and pay attention.  This is how urban planning works.

Henriette de Lille - New Orleans

Blessed Henriette de Lille

I spent the last week in a city that had 200,000 more citizens than New Orleans prior to August 2005.  It now has twice as many.  I walked along blocks lined by ten-story buildings for miles.  There was traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian.  I took trains that were faster than bicycles.  While I know how to navigate that terrain, and it felt very comfortable to do so, I missed New Orleans.  After only a year, New Orleans, a place like no other, seems natural, despite my life experience earned elsewhere.  Once you get New Orleans, it gets you.  It is a city like nowhere else, playing by its own generous, gregarious rules.

Today's illustrations are taken from Saint Louis Cathedral, the archdiocese seat of New Orleans.  The subject is Blessed Henriette de Lille, the first African American proposed to be recognized by the Vatican for her sainthood.

While I did visit the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception while on holiday, I did not see any representations of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, the partroness of New Orleans and Louisiana, there.  Nor did I see any evidence that Blessed Henriette de Lille had made a mark on Christendom.

I was reminded of Henriette de Lille because I rode my motorcycle through New Orleans East today, to get reacquainted with my home city after a week away, and I passed the convent where the order she founded makes its headquarters.

New Orleans is a very Roman Catholic city.  Boston is too, but it is more Irish-Catholic than indigenous Catholic.  You can't swing a broom in New Orleans without coming across evidence of a local saint.  It is rather nice.

I did see plenty of statues of this gentlemen this past week:

Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, and our 7th president.  He was a good president for his time, but he was no humanitarian.  A bitter man and a notorious Indian-hater, a man who could hold a grudge and a man who was anger personified.  He honored Our Lady of Prompt Succor for her aid in the Battle of New Orleans, and he is honored in the Crescent City.  He doesn't really have a place here though beyond his equestrian statue in Jackson Square.  New Orleans is about acceptance and getting along.  Jackson was a soldier if there ever was one.  That is who you want fighting to defend you, but it isn't who you want for a neighbor.

Henriette de Lille, pray for us that we may be a holy family.

Everyone loves Hubig's Pies.

Are there any recorded songs that mention Hubig's Pies?  I don't listen to the radio, so I don't know if Hubig's jingles rain down from the airwaves.  I'm sure live, scat-laced rhapsodies are composed off the cuff in New Orleans parking lots every morning, and extended riffs are played out on saxophones and snares in smoky venues after the witching hour, but is there an official Hubig's song?  Something to march to while carrying one of these treats in one's hand?  A Marseillaise dedicated to the overthrow of pastry despots determined to thwart the common man from the food he loves as much as he cherishes liberty, fraternity, and equality?

The pies are ubiquitous.  I saw someone eating one with relish this morning down at the French Market.  By that, I mean gusto, not the condiment.

Sweet and neat, 
They're the treat that can't be beat.
Somewhat nutritious, certainly delicious,
Filled with fruit, they're the route to a hoot and a toot.
They'll put a spring in a step and some step in your boot.


You can trust what's in a Hubig's...
You can love what's in a Hubig's...
You can share what's in a Hubig's...
Or you can keep it all for yourself (boom-boom).


Twice as nice
As pies that need to be sliced,
They are savory and flavory, 
Extra-ordin-ar-ily favorite-y,
They're the pie that'll make a smile
on your face...
Any place! (hoo-ray!)


It's Hubig's, the name you can trust,
It's Hubig's, the pie that's a must,
It's Hubig's, with the quality crust,
Eat it up when you've got it, or share it with your chums (boom-boom)!
Just remember to save a bit and share it with your mum (Aw, Ma!).
She'll love you.


Every day is happier,
Slap-dappier happier, 
Effervescently, messlessly, carelessly happier,
when you put a bite of Hubig's past your gums (boom-boom) (hoo-ray!) (Aw, Ma.).

This lyric is not officially affiliated with Hubig's Pies, only in mouth-watering, soul-satisfying spirit.

Pick one up today!!