Frolic: jazz, books, food

Jazz, Books, Food, and the Writing Life

Blogging from New Orleans, La

27 November 2005

I’ll be returning to New Orleans in January to teach. It’s possible that Tulane will have a spot for me on one of the cruise ships that they rented.

No doubt it will be glamorous accommodations, but listening to Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” play endlessly on the PA for six months might get old.

I’m also not sure if I want to share a ship with hundreds of undergrads. As a faculty member, however, I will no doubt be allowed to dine nightly at the captain’s table.

Posted by Todd at 3:21 pm | Comments (1)

21 November 2005

I’m gathering ingredients for our Thanksgiving feast this Thursday. It does seem odd that Thanksgiving falls in late August this year. Time has been a little out of whack, however, every since the hurricane.

This year, I’m making a heritage turkey. Personally, I can’t stand turkey. This bird, though, is sold as actually having taste. It’s the kind of bird people used to eat before modern breeding deformed the turkey with a breast so heavy that it can’t even fly.

I stopped by Target to get a roasting pan for the turkey. Target has always been more upscale than Wal-Mart, but even I was surprised to see Veuve Clicquot on the shelf. Is the champagne maker after a wider market?

This is the second time we’ve hosted our entire family for Thanksgiving. Last year we served a Turducken. I’ll let you know how the heritage turkey stacks up.

Posted by Todd at 10:22 am | Comments (3)

17 November 2005

Casamento’s has reopened! Metroblogging was there for the big day. When I was in New Orleans recently, there were no oysters to be found. As soon as I return, I’ll down a few dozen on the half shell.

Posted by Todd at 12:50 pm | No Comments

14 November 2005

For the last few months, Michael Tisserand’s Submerged series has been one of things I look forward to most each week. Michael was the editor of the Gambit Weekly before Katrina hit. The Association of Alternative Newsweeklies hired him to write a ten-part series about New Orleans after the storm. Last week, he ended the series, although he vows to come back in February and report on Mardi Gras.

If you only read one installment, don’t miss “Ground Zero.” This is the most powerful piece of writing I’ve seen in the onslaught of elegance that followed Katrina.

Posted by Todd at 12:10 pm | Comments (2)

11 November 2005

In lovely column, Chris Rose remembers that he first arrived in New Orleans as college student fleeing a storm that frustrated his beach vacation.

Posted by Todd at 12:48 pm | No Comments

10 November 2005

Did you hear that FEMA fired Mike Brown. Yesterday. Yep, the fashion god will no longer be drawing a $148,000 salary.

Posted by Todd at 5:01 am | Comments (1)

3 November 2005

We went back to New Orleans last weekend. The traffic is unbelievable coming into the city. Everyone speeds 80 miles per hour along I-10.

The first landmark is a sea of blue roofs. The tarps seem to cover every house. Even since I was there a month ago, things have changed. A self-storage facility that had been ripped open was reframed with fresh two by fours. I could have sworn that some buildings along the highway had already been leveled. I can’t swear to that. Everything just looked a little off, so it was hard to remember what was there before. Was it the lack of limbs on trees that made the views a little bit different?

Uptown was hopping. The streets were full of out of state tags and more new cars than New Orleans has ever had. Half the businesses might be closed, and half the houses are probably vacant. But any place that was open was packed and parking could be hard to find.

People I met kept searching for a way to describe Uptown. Some called it a bubble. Others dubbed it fake town. One said it was like living in the Truman Show. We had dinner at Herbsaint. Drinks at Lucy’s afterwards. Beignets at Cafe du Monde.

Move outside of Uptown, and New Orleans is a wasteland. We took the destruction tour. Midcity. Lakeview. Eastern New Orleans. It’s all a ghostly gray. We’ve all seen the water lines reaching halfway up houses. Boats sitting on streets. What no picture can convey is the scope of the damage. For miles, there is nothing but emptiness and destruction. I can’t imagine those area recovering for years and years.

We were lucky enough to be in town for the first major post-Katrina party. Voodoo Fest, despite all expectations, managed to pull together a one day festival in the park behind the zoo. Most of the big names dropped out, but plenty of local musicians were on the bill. Kermit Ruffins closed out the festival and then led a second line back to Tipitina’s.

It was hard going back. Seeing the destruction wasn’t easy, but the worst part was sensing enough of the city’s old spirit that we felt like we could live there again. It felt like home, and we weren’t there.

Posted by Todd at 2:40 pm | No Comments

I know that there has been more news about NOLA than anyone could digest, so you might have missed these headlines: “N.O. Public School Reports No Drop in Attendance,” “Jesuit High Roof Pool Moved to Basement,” and “Aaron Neville Relevant.”

The full stories can be found at The Creole Tomato, the yat version of The Onion.

Posted by Todd at 7:41 am | No Comments