Interlude: New Orleans

21-24 February 2008

While New Jersey was being snowed upon, Jack and I were in New Orleans at the annual South Central Society for Eighteenth Century Studies (SCSECS). I follow Jack to these things whenever the city is interesting. I'd never been to New Orleans before. Kevin, Dale, and Sean were there, too.

Our hotel was in the French Quarter. Scheduling around conference panels leaves only a few hours at a time to really go exploring, so we didn't get too far out or take any tours.

Sean, Jack, and I walked along Bourbon Street on our first day, in search of lunch. What we found was a lot of noisy bars in the pouring rain. Even an hour-long rain shower sends water out with nowhere to go. Clear streams of rainwater ran up to the curbs. This city is below sea level and it's a wonder it exists here at all. We found a place off of Bourbon to dry off and watch the rain for a while.

Hurricane Katrina is just under the surface of everything, even in places that seem to be thriving. In the French Quarter, at street level, the shops are busy. But one story up, the windows are empty, the spaces vacant. We've been told that New Orleans was falling apart even before the hurricanes. From where we sit in the restaurant, I can see it in a tilted street lamp. Beyond it are leaning shutters and mildewed porches.







Jack's publisher took a group of us out to dinner on the fist night, to one of the fanciest restaurants in the city. We ate under a massive crystal chandelier, surrounded by angled mirrors and opulence. My entree was $18. Katrina had lopped off $20 from the price.

Our hotel, too, was opulent. Our final bill made my eyes bug out, but I know we'd have paid more anywhere else. Our bathroom was done in granite; the sink was of the same stone as the floor. The lobby was chandeliers and mirrors.





We talked to a few people in the city who had survived the hurricane. Everyone is grateful that people are coming back to visit. Everyone we encountered, from famous zydeco musicians to housekeeping staff, was friendly, and not in a fake sort of way.

Our second night there was a zydeco concert at the conference hotel. The organizers apparently had paid big money to get Rockin' Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters to perform. One of the organizers was a big fan of the band, and the band knew her.

Half the crowd was dancing. A tiny woman that Jack knew came up to me and tried to pull me onto the dance floor. "I don't dance," I told her. She pouted at me, staring, but I didn't blink. "I don't dance," I said again, and she finally left me alone.

In between sets, most people left, but about a dozen of us stayed. Jack and I moved to the front of the room. Rockin' Dopsie jumped down to the dance floor for his final song. He grabbed my hand and pulled me up. "I don't dance," I said. I stood on the side, next to Jack, who doesn't dance either.




The next day, Dale, Sean, Jack, and I got to the Garden District. On the way, we saw some cats in a yard and started to play with one of them. "That's Mr. Kitty," a woman said, emerging from her porch. Mr. Kitty performed lazy love circles around our legs as the woman gave us a friendly lecture about her Katrina experience. I don't remember many of the details, just the impression that she was one of the lucky ones who carries the sadness with her and wants to tell the world.

The Garden District survived the floods. People hang Mardi Gras beads from fences, from sculptures, and from trees.







Where we were, Katrina isn't in the seeing, it's in the telling.

Kevin was looking out a window when a housekeeper commented on the beautiful day. "It reminds me of summer," she said, "And that scares me."

At a souvenir shop, the Voodoo Mart, where I stopped for some beads and voodoo dolls to take home for friends, I saw a book of Katrina photos on the counter. I flipped through it, horrified. "I see those images every time I close my eyes," the cashier said.