Monday, November 07, 2005
Flooded with Memories - plus a genuine ghost
If I may make a prediction: there will be, I predict, as a result of this year’s un-global-warming-induced, bible-belt-destroying storm activity, a significant change in how some gulf coast land is used - or left unused. But I further predict that, by and large, people will return whence they came, and the south, much as it was before – at least, around the Katrita region – will rise again. This is because, without in any wise minimizing the tragedy and loss suffered in the storm zone, the one thing that was truly unique, that was absolutely irreplaceable and iconic, the regional international cultural heritage site – the most precious land withstood the fury of heaven. The French Quarter was spared.
Turns out, although the Vieux Carre (as they so quaintly call it) lies right next to a riparian leviathan, yet it survived – because the river didn’t flood the city: the lake and canals did. The river is high ground, and the Quarter was safely arrayed along its bank. It was damaged, but it was not destroyed.
Consequently, a new dynasty of partying hard will inevitably be eventually overlaid upon the wreckage of the old. This is what New Orleans brings to the world. Some places seem to lack a civic soul, a depth to the life of the city; many describe Los Angeles this way. Then again, some places feel dense and textured, its citizenry and architecture blending into a form of permanent performance art. New Orleans – the French Quarter, at least – is definitely in this category. Being there accentuates the experience of being alive. It puts more out there for you, and pulls more up and out of you. It can make you stop thinking and start living. Anyway, that’s how it was for us at Felix’s.
There weren’t a lot of things we knew that we wanted to do on our short stay in N.O. back in the early ‘90s, and most of those had to do with food. Crawfish and muffoleta and oysterloaf po’boys, something file’ and something etouffe’, coffee and beignets from Du Monde on the levee of a river that looks like a moving inland sea…. The only thing I think I wanted to eat but that Kel didn’t, was oysters. I’d heard Felix’s did a good job with them and I wanted to try the genuine article.
After a few days of increasingly insistent whining, I got Kel to come with me to the famous old café with that special way with bivalves. We sat at the bar, a long lustrous vein of heavy dark wood. It felt comfortable and well-used, a nice contrast to the airy whiteness of the rest of the room. A man soon appeared behind the bar before us, a calm smile on his broad face, the picture of gentility and attentiveness. He didn’t need to ask us anything. When we were ready to order, we would do so of our own accord. He just warmly wished us a good afternoon, and waited. For not too long, though.
I knew what I wanted, and I ordered it: a ½ dozen on the half-shell. The man’s eyes flicked to Kel to gauge her response, her involvement: she was locked in a rictus of shy declension. She didn’t want to deal with him, and she certainly didn’t want to deal with raw oysters. The man’s eyes flicked back to me and his smile brightened a few candle-feet. He stepped to a nearby cooler and pulled out a handful of heavy closed shells, cut them open for me, laid them out on a plate of ice with a little red sauce on the side, the whole confection gleaming with the promise of oral gratification – except….
“Here you go, sir,” he’d proffered as a platter of five oysters was laid before me. Five? Before I could say, “you guys use a 12-oyster dozen around here, right?,” though, he brought up a smaller plate of crushed ice with one of my oysters set aside by itself, blinking blankly from its opalescent shell. “- And this one’s for the lady.”
Damn but that was smooth. I have to figure out how to get away with saying that line at some point in my life. But the point here is, he said it and gave Kel one of my oysters. It was not what she’d been looking for. She was there to keep me company on my weird quest for a N.O. oyster fix. Now my connection was offering her a hit of the hard(-shelled) stuff too. The oyster guy seemed really cool, too, the kind of guy you’d hate to let down. It would involve a lot more dealing to tell him no, than to cave and slurp the damn thing down.
So, that’s what she did. She hoisted the cold rough shell with short-lived trepidation, because she realized as soon as the soft delicate flesh touched her tongue that what she was eating was essentially bayou sashimi. Her eyes widened and then nearly closed; her posture softened; she smiled. She swallowed and her eyes opened on the guy behind the counter. He was smiling too. She ordered another half-dozen. The man blasted a few more watts through his smile and served us promptly. Every one of those oysters was delicious, and tasted better right there than they could have anywhere else in the world.
And that’s how I know that things are going to come back just fine after those storms around Louisiana: The French Quarter persevered. It will be the nucleus for the regeneration of the whole region. Any place that could have gotten my wife to enjoy her first (but hardly her last) raw oyster, is capable of making any kind of phoenician regeneration. There’s too much spirit there to be drowned. The French Quarter is a manufacturing district – it manufactures the essence of life. A storm may be bad, but can’t wash out the joy pumping out of those hardy historic blocks. Party on, New Orleans. I will catch you on the flip side.
First, I didn’t take that photo of Felix’s, though I wish I had. I just found it on the web. Also, this post does not reflect upon the extensive damage done in south Florida by Hurricane Wilma, which left my mom without power for five days and the entire region in a state of devastation with which it’s just starting to come to grips. My heart goes out to all those who have been touched by the string of disasters rocking humanity all around the globe these days. But New Orleans is a special case and I wanted to treat it specially.
Anyway, honestly, since last week was Halloween, this all was just a lead-in for me to show you a photo of a real honest-to-goodness ghost. This is an unretouched digital photo (okay I boosted the contrast a little) of a “film” photo Kel took of me when I sat down to absorb the atmosphere for a few moments at a cemetery in New Orleans – perhaps the St. Louis cemetery, I don’t recall. None of the other photos we took during that trip came out like this one. I’ve only had this happen one other time, when a strange light-form showed up in one of the photos we took at Bodie. It’s one thing to say that a place has spirit, but it’s another altogether to actually see it.
Have a great Monday. Try to rebuild something.
