New Orleans III

Here's a picture of the red beans and rice and Abita Beer to which I treated myself late on Saturday afternoon. Earlier in the day I'd had some shrimp and cheese grits for lunch, but I stopped for this afternoon "snack," figuring that I couldn't leave the city without partaking of this traditional favorite.


New Orleans--the French Quarter--is both a feast for and an assault on the senses:

Sight--lights, people, historical places, street performers, the poor

Sound--music (all kinds from every doorway), the tops of voices, car horns and sound systems, motorcycles, carriages and the clopping hooves of mules

touch--bumping into people thronging Bourbon Street, tired feet meeting sidewalk and street, everything handled and contaminated by far too many people

smell--food, soured garbage, perfume

taste--nothing bad yet

New Orleans Images (from a Saturday afternoon walk):

• workers in black & white on the Iberville Street sidewalk at the back door of a restaurant
• "Come in, sir, come in! Let me show you what I have in here, sir!" A glance through the doorway into the darkness reveals long legs in high heels walking on the top of a bar
• carriage driver plugs one nostril with a finger and blows snot toward the sidewalk as he carries a couple on a romantic ride along Bourbon Street
• a band of young vagabonds--"urchins" might be a better word
• the Mississippi River
• a bad recorder player somewhere outside in the dark
• a group of Charles Brockden Brown scholars, wine glasses in hand, on the balcony of the Rex Room, a private, for-hire dining room
• a group of revelers on a balcony at the corner of Bourbon and Conti, tossing necklaces of beads in an attempt to "ring" fire hydrants or pedestrians on the street below
• the full moon over Bourbon Street
• the full moon's broken reflection in gable windows above Bourbon and Conti
• a plate of chicken with crayfish and rice, white wine . . . key lime pie and coffee
• the faces of friends and colleagues I gather with every two years

It was a good conference and a good visit in the city.

Now I'm full and a little tipsy and ready to go to bed, where I'll hopefully get sleep in this noisy New Orleans night and rest for tomorrow's ten-hour drive.

I'm ready to be home.