So that picture was actually taken in Memphis, but I packed my extra camera batteries in my checked bag, which is currently god knows where, and my poor little camera just ran out of juice, so I can't upload the pictures from yesterday, which are splendid, I assure you.
Friday morning we left Biloxi and drove an hour and a half back to New Orleans, and stayed on St. Charles Ave. We walked back to the French Quarter, and went on a cemetery tour with Tamara, and her mule, Jolly. Jolly's girlfriend, Christmas, is also a working mule, so whenever they'd pass each other in the streets, Jolly would bray to her. I imagined he was saying things like "I'm hot". "I'd like some carrots", or "hey baby, nice manure bag, that new?". The cemeteries are down by Basin street, and apparently aren't safe for self-touring, hence Tamara. I'm glad we went with her, because she had a ton of fun facts. So because most of New Orleans is below sea level, bodies have to be buried above ground. Back when Louisiana was being settled, pre-civil war, there were several yellow fever out breaks which killed tons of people, who would be thrown into a burial pit, only to rise up again at the whim of the tides.
Now people are buried in vaults, in wood coffins. Here's something fun. So during June, July, and August, the vaults get anywhere between 300-700 degrees. The bodies undergo a natural cremation, and so the tomb must remain shut for a year and a day, afterwhich the remains, mostly ashes, are shovled down a center crevace, and the tomb can be used again. Most of the individual tombs are passed down through family members, but poor people who can't afford their own tombs are buried in "benevolent society" tombs, which are bigger, but operate in pretty much the same way as the little ones. I do like the space saving techniques. Oh, and because they like to be difficult, the Protestants said screw you to the tombs, and bury their dead underground and place a big slab of marble or concrete over the bodies to keep them from popping back up.
So at St. Louis 1, there are some famous remains (well, probably not anymore, but you know what I mean) including Homer Plessy, he of Plessy v. Furguson, Ernest Morial, the first African American mayor of New Orleans, and Marie Laveau, the voodoo priestess (who was also catholic). People leave gifts to Marie, asking for her favor and help with problems, and some of the gifts we saw included shoes, beads, cups, and my favorite, a muffin. Mmm! If I were a ghost, I would totally accept muffin tokens! So I think Marie saw me coveting her muffin, because as we left her tomb a palm leaf sliced open my elbow, and I left a little blood offering to Ms. Laveau. I assume that my elbow will have supernatural powers now. Don't mess with me or I'll point my elbow at you. Those of you who know me well know that I already have what my sisters have termed "the power", that is, people who are mean to me tend to meet very bad ends (fires, car accidents, death death death) so Marie's probably enhancing that a bit.
So after the bloodletting I needed a snack, and so we went to cafe du monde, which is famous for its coffee with chicory and beignets. It was too hot for coffee, but I'm always up for pastry, so we replenished our blood sugar, probably to an unsafe level. My verdict was tasty, but nothing to write home about (though they are something to blog about, apparently). It was pretty much like the fried dough you'd get at the circus, if you were into creepy things like the circus.
After snackage we hung out by the Mississippi for a while, chatted and watched the barges, and also a fish that Lizzie noticed that was flipping out of the water, as if he were a whale or something. "I'm breaching!" That's my kind of fish, thinking big.
We walked and walked and walked and walked for the rest of the afternoon until dinner time, and then when back to the hotel to change our shoes and rest before we hit the "party street", which we were planning on observing from an anthropological point of view. Burbon street is flanked with bars and nekkid-lady clubs, and the streets are packed with drunk people by 8pm. It was like faneuil hall on steroids, and open later. I found it completely unintimidating and unispiring, and just sort of sad. We went into one bar for dancing, and a stupid frat boy stuck his paw in my vodka tonic, so I had to throw it out and elbow him (with the magic elbow) and now he's probably lost some vital body parts. Speaking of vital body parts, the band leader was a fella of about 50, but was in good shape which made him appear younger from far away. His shtick, though, if you will ,was to gyrate his crotch in the audience's general direction, which seemed to be working for some people, but just made me sort of want to sit him down and talk about if he has castration anxiety, since he seems to think that the locus of all his power is in the junk-region.
Other Bourbon st highlights--there was a middle-aged skinny guy who was clearly on meth and was doing the dance-punch thing, as if he was at a dropkick murphy's concert and was in the mosh pit. Of course it's Burbon st, so whatev, just let him knock someone out. I was thinking about using the elbow, but I don't want to use it all up in one day. Also, there was a older white dude who was trying to (figuratively) pick up a black woman (who was a whole lotta woman, by the way) and did so by taking off his outer shirt to reveal that he was wearing a Barack Obama t-shirt underneath. "Look! I like Barack Obama. He's black. You're black. Let's do it!" I'm sure he meant well...or not, but she was not impressed. She did ask some folks to take their picture together, though, and this involved stomping on my foot and shoving me into a pole. I thought to myself, "what would my sister do?" and so I photo-bombed them, though not my sister's preferred obscene version. I gave them both finger antennae, and the photographer didn't blow my cover, so I hope she enjoys that upon development (it was an old-school disposible camera).
Home again, Home again. It's Saturday now, and we're at the NOLA airport. We're flying through Dallas, and then I'll go on to Boston, and Lizzie will stay in Dallas for work. I'll post some of the cemetery photos upon my return, and also my pictures of touch-down Jesus, which is a famous statue that has Jesus with his arms outstretched in the football ref TOUCHDOWN position. He lost a finger and thumb in Katrina, but they were subsequently located nearby, and will be reattached once recovery is more complete.
See you soon!
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