NEW ORLEANS

A LITERARY AND PHOTO ESSAY

New Orleans is a haunted city.  When there one feels an eerie, uneasy sensation like after a midnight rainstorm, when cool air seeps through window screens and candles flicker in warmly lit corners.  It’s a place with centuries of history, murder, slavery, mansions, plantations, war, jazz, cemeteries, and some of the best cuisine found anywhere in the world.

My first encounter with New Orleans was in the summer of 2001.  My girlfriend, a Louisiana native, was my tour guide through the cobble stone streets of the French Quarter, the eateries, and the cemeteries.  I quickly learned that New Orleans is much more than Mardi Gras.  It’s about noshing on sloppy roast beef po’ boys at Mother’s (on Poydras), bona fide Jazz in Preservation Hall (a hole-in-the-wall on St. Peters Street), or drifting through the streets at night, each one illuminated by gas light, while on a New Orleans Ghost Tour.

One of the first tidbits of information I learned in New Orleans is that the city is 16 feet under sea level, which is why the dead are not buried under ground.  Decades ago, coffins rose with the water and rapped against the bed stones as they bobbed up and down.  The early citizens of New Orleans used to think that the dead were trying to rise from their tombs.  Mausoleums became and remained the only way to bury the deceased.

During the day, Jackson Square is alive with the jazz stylings of the Jackson Square Jazz Band blowing and singing at every single tourist.  At night, Jackson Square becomes creepy and mystical as fortunetellers and palm readers sit waiting for business.

Then there are the cemeteries filled with tales of bizarre deaths and supernatural haunts.  There is the grave of Marie Laveaux, a Voodoo priestess who had the power to stay young nearly all of her life.  While at her grave, one should do something three times or leave three items of gratitude.  Many people leave pennies, etch the letter X, or chant spells – all in threes with the hopes of attaining fortune, health, or love.  These small ceremonies will only work for true believers.

New Orleans is more than music, myth, & lore.  It’s also incredible food and coffee.  Café Masparos’ offers a delicious fried shrimp sandwich and red beans and rice that stick to your ribs and comfort your soul.  Café Du Monde is the place for beignets and coffee, and its open 24-hours a day.  Usually, a jazz musician is right outside playing jazz standards from Brubeck to Ellington while the floor is coated with powdered sugar.

There are also accessible art galleries of famous artists.  There is Rodrigue, whose Blue Dog seems to be the pet of the entire French Quarter, and Michalopoulos, whose depictions of the galleries and Quarter homes contain as much texture and color as the city’s residents.

There is no place on earth like New Orleans.  All of its attractions are part of its culture.  They are part of the architecture, the design, the art, and the spirit, from the Mississippi River steam boats to the street musicians to the haunting figures (both living and dead) that wander its avenues and corridors.  New Orleans is the home from which I should have been born.