Noteworthy in Nola

Sunny Pirate’s Alley, French Quarter

Tess — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:32:26 +0000

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Go Fourth on the River

Tess — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:15:30 +0000

Our 4th of July celebration is a pun. It’s no wonder Charlie loves it here.

I’m usually resistant to going down to the French Quarter for the dueling barge displays of fireworks, but off we went- and it was really nice. The heat was oppressive, but at least it kept the crowd to manageable levels. The fireworks were impressive as always, though my photos don’t really cover the scope of them- there was no way I was lugging a tripod down and doing it right, so we’ve got what we’ve got.

One thing New Orleans knows how to do is throw a party, and there’s fireworks at pretty much every big event- and some not so big. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been minding our own business and suddenly heard the booming, and wondered what could be so exciting on a random Tuesday evening that it rated fireworks.

In a market where NPR’s had all kinds of stories about cities who’ve cancelled their displays, it was pretty amazing.

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Michael Jackson Second Line

Tess — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 01:08:44 +0000

Well, the King of Pop didn’t really have a New Orleans connection, but we threw him a party anyway. Like we do.

Normally, a Second Line follows after a funeral or memorial service, but since he’s not being buried here regardless, I guess they decided to just go ahead and do it now. After all, is he even being buried? I remember hearing talk about a cryogenic process, but who knows if that was truth or tabloid fodder.

Whichever, it was held on Sunday afternoon in ungodly, stifling heat, but that didn’t stop everybody from dancing up a storm and having a great time. (to be fair, not everybody. I wimped out at home, in the AC, which is why I’m cheating and using the Times Picayune’s video.)

VIDEO: Huge second-line honors Pop King Michael Jackson

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Chris Rose on Bultman’s

Tess — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 23:25:08 +0000

I never did do an update on Bultman’s, its conversion to a Borders completed in the fall.

I guess I haven’t revisted it because my feelings about it are complicated. First off, it’s amazing that it didn’t have to be torn down; I can’t even imagine how much money it took to convert and repair it, and there aren’t many places with pockets (or will) that deep. So a huge thank you to Borders.

But at the same time we have tons of phenominal little book stores around the city- Garden District Books, Octavia, & Maple Street Books are all particular favorites. The idea of going to Borders seems disloyal to all the little guys who’ve struggled along and built something really great.

All of that aside, Chris Rose’s writeup on the strangeness of it all was pretty interesting, tho:

“My mother was right there under the Seattle’s Best coffee sign,” Wiltz says, leading me into the cafe that lines the Louisiana Avenue side of the building. “My father and I had an argument over whether it should be an open or closed casket. He’s Catholic. Catholics like open, for the most part. But she had specifically said: Do not open the casket. So he and I are standing right here having an argument over my mother’s dead body.”

Right here, under the Seattle’s Best sign, where a woman who no doubt never knew Wiltz’s mother eats a cherry Danish and reads Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love.”

“My daddy was over in this room,” Pecot says, moving us toward the cash register and muffin display counter. “There was a chapel, pews. They could do an altar right there by the sign that says, ‘It’s Summer, Get Happy.’ And he was laid out right under ‘Smooth Roasted Coffee.’”

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1964 Drag Queen

Tess — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:28:31 +0000

Or, possibly this isn’t an actual, general-purpose drag queen, but just drag for Mardi Gras day.

This came from a big lot of slides from 1964 and thereabouts that did include some Carnival photos, so, even back then, anything goes on Mardi Gras day. Similar Posts:

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Tess — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:05:05 +0000

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This is just to register for Technorati. Thanks!Similar Posts:

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Bentley’s Neighborhood Mini-store and Restaurant (now with bullet holes!)

Tess — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:15:56 +0000

I found myself out in Bywater earlier this week, in an area I don’t usually visit, when I came across this jem:

Bentley’s is, apparently, a real one-stop shop!

A sample from their extensive selections?

All manner of paper goods: toilet paper, napkins, etc
All manner of fried items- shrimp, fish, chili cheese fries, etc. I cannot imagine how hot/unsafe that is in those cramped, enclosed quarters.
Candles
Cheese (what do you mean, what kind?)
Various fruits and veggies: Onions, Tomatoes, etc
“Can Cold Drinks”
Pickles
Pigs lips (but are they pickled?)
School Supplies (?)
And several things that didn’t make the written list but are cleverly “hidden” in the illustrations- things that, even if you take a wild leap and assume this is a fully inspected, insured, licensed food vending establishment wouldn’t be legal:
- Cigarettes (God only knows what they go for!)
- lighters (no flammables allowed anywhere near these kinds of trucks)
- Something that looks very much like a beer can
- A cell phone? Maybe? In the lower rear corner?

All joking aside, access to shopping remains a problem in this neighborhood, so I’m sure Bentley’s does preform a service, though I’d assume it’s at a steep markup. There’s no big grocery store nearby, and many locals don’t have cars to get to those further away. This area of Bywater didn’t flood in Katrina, but the hurricane did exacerbate their built in problems- poverty being chief among them.

Closeups of the truck (including the bullet holes in front and in back) here.
AnthonyTurducken has a collection of more of Bentley’s vehicles here on flickr.
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And in case you’ve never heard the Pine Leaf Boys…

Tess — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:51:34 +0000

This is what the Fest sounded like today. You don’t get more down home than this:

For anybody on a reader, the Youtube link is here.Similar Posts:

French Market’s Vieux-To-Do Number 2

Tess — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 03:35:12 +0000

I’ve been down with a cold and in overall recovery mode this weekend, so I sent Ali off to check out the latest big New Orleans festival. She took the camera and when she got home from a day of running around, her semi-bored answer to how it went was: “Oh, you know. The usual. Tons of food. Music. Free. You know- the usual.”

One day she may come to realize just how not-usual all that is.

But that’s for somewhere down the road. In the meantime, the second annual Vieux-To-Do combined three festivals that used to go on seperately- the Creole Tomato Festival, the Cajun/Zydeco Fest and the Seafood Fest, all held in and around the French Market and Old US Mint, at the very edge of the French Quarter.

Food is always front and center in these things, and her pics made me wish I’d braved the heat and the sniffles after all:

That would be a thin toast with a slice of Creole tomato and local fresh shrimp, broiled and looking amazing.

And the Pine Leaf Boys were keeping the crowd dancing even while they sweltered:

So, yeah, it looks like Alison was right. Just another typical NOLA festival.

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Old Absinthe House circa 1950s

Tess — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:50:29 +0000

I think the above photo might have originally been a postcard; all I have is the scanned version and I haven’t been able to locate the original, but if you look closely, you can see a weave pattern that would’ve been consistent with an older postcard.

The building sits at the corner of Bienville & Bourbon, and, built in 1806, it began operating as a coffee house and saloon in 1815. It didn’t became famous until 1874, when their ‘mixologist’ Cayetano Ferrer invented the absinthe frappe.

The drink was favored in particular by artists, and, according the their website:

Many celebrities have been welcomed through our doors in the nearly two centuries since its opening — including Oscar Wilde, P.T. Barnum, Mark Twain, Jenny Lind, Enrico Caruso, General Robert E Lee, Franklin Roosevelt, Liza Minelli and Frank Sinatra.

The place went through a long, rough period, starting with the banning of absinthe in 1912- 8 years before the start of Prohibition. Although the bar was broken into and ransacked, the bar itself was saved and kept in a warehouse, not to be returned to its original home until 2004.

This is another eBay slide, marked as being from the early 1960s:

I love the detail in it- the older people in their hats, the old Bourbon Street sign, the Bus Stop pole (there haven’t been buses in the Quarter in decades). The place has been spiffed up a bit since then, but you can still see the funky charm underneath.

And now history’s come full circle and now that absinthe is again legal, you can go sit at the worn bar and vegetate with a cold Absinthe and watch the world go by outside those huge wooden doors.Similar Posts: