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frenchmen street

the three or so blocks of frenchmen street between peters street to about royal street are easily the coolest few blocks in new orleans. it’s just outside of the french quarter, so the tourists don’t visit it for the most part, and on the weekends, it’s like a concentrated mini-greenwich village where great clubs offer a variety of live music up and down its curtailed stretch. and, lucky me: 1) it’s only three blocks from my house, and 2) it is the place to be on halloween.

half of new orleans, decked out in its halloween best, piles into these few blocks and spills over onto the side streets. music is provided by dj’s set up on corners or by clubs with their doors flung open. it’s all about seeing and being seen, and i went out of my way to do the former, spending about twenty minutes or so, at one point, perched on the shoulders of a six-foot-six inch tall friend of one of my roommate’s and shrieking down at well-costumed passersby below to get them to pose for my camera. “beetlejuice!” i bellowed at one point. “beetlejuice!” i don’t know why i was so relieved that he heard me after only two times seeing as he was already there. any-hoo, i’ll spare you the narrative and gift you with the pictorial instead. happy halloween!

beetlejuice, beetlejuice...oh, hey!

she ate him immediately after this photo was taken

an ocean of halloween...ers

an impressive lord of darkness (from the movie "legend")

i'm not sure this wasn't actually michael phelps

this is my pick for the night's scariest costume

and this is my pick for the night's *tallest* costume (me on ol' boy's shoulders doesn't count)

a vast improvement on the typical girl-as-black-cat costume

a much better halloween shenanigan than the one i was prey to---a slashed tire

found 'em! wasn't hard, actually---there were repeats of these costumes all over frenchmen.

i took this picture without looking, of course

this was one of my favorite things---less costume, more concert. the big blue mouse thing held court as the platform rolled slowly and drummed infectiously through the crowd.

 

and finally, this was my overall favorite of the night. i just think it's beautiful and done so well. and look how elegantly she holds herself. hooray for dia de los muertos!

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stinging caterpillars

today i saw a most remarkable caterpillar. it was bright green and sported a tiny, neatly planted coniferous forest where its skin should have been. funnily enough, just last saturday i was recounting a horror-inducing run-in with one of new orleans’s most prolific indigenous insectile terrors, the flying R.O.U.S. (roach of unusual size), when a native new orleanian interjected, “wait ’til the stinging caterpillars show up.”

*blink*

stinging caterpillars?

yup.

as soon as i saw that sucker today, i knew i was staring danger in the compound eye. here’s what it looks like:

from http://neworleansdailyphoto.blogspot.com/

menacing in a science fiction-y way, ain’t it? from what i’ve now heard and read, these creatures—buckmoth caterpillars—regularly fall out of trees during their peak season, and woe betide the passersby underneath. merely brushing against one of these suckers results in long-lasting painful stings that blossom into welts, so just imagine if one fell down your freakin’ shirt collar. , , and .

file this and the R.O.U.S. under “things people don’t tell you about new orleans.” what with the hurricanes, floods, alligators, and overwhelmingly awful indigenous insect life, i’m starting to think God is trying to tell us something.

glossary

krewe

noun

an organization that puts on a parade or ball, generally for mardi gras. some examples include: krewe du vieux, bacchus, endymion, krewe of zulu, phunny phorty phellows, and the mardi gras indians. an exception to the mardi gras-ness that defines krewes is the brand-new-as-of-this-year krewe of boo, which put on their first annual halloween parade last night and dedicated the funds raised (via the costume exposé party that followed, i assume) to new orleans’s emergency first responders, specifically those who assisted during hurricane katrina.

despite the parade starting damn near right by my house, i managed to miss the first half or more of it. don’t ask. any-hoo, please enjoy the following few shots of what i did see.

krewe of boo getting ready to roll

i'll get you, my pretty!

zomgz---BEHIND YOU!

a highly questionable float theme

a krewe of boo parade catch

glossary

neutral ground

noun

esplanade avenue

to the uninitiated (which no longer includes yours truly), the wide swathe of land you see running between the two sides of the street above would be called a “median” or a “median strip.” but to a new orleans resident (which now includes  yours truly), this is known as the neutral ground. the term may date back to when the city was divided between the french and the spanish, with the land in the middle of the streets being deemed neutral territory. but whatever the origin, just don’t call it a median, okay? we new orleanians ::cough, cough:: don’t use that term.

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restaurants, bakeries,
and other eateries

have i mentioned that i make $12,000 a year as an americorps worker? that said, i don’t eat out much. but on the rare occasions that i do, i will mention the places here. this post will, then, be a running listing of the eateries i’ve visited—and my opinions of them. bon appétit!

Bee Sweet Cupcakes
5706 magazine street (70115)
saw this spot when i was driving down magazine and damn near flipped the car over to get to it. they had one coconut cupcake waiting for me, and i copped it post haste. the price was a little high, but i had to try it. as it turns out, their icing-to-cake ratio is really crazy—that thing was like sixty percent icing. super sweet. i’d have been really mad if i had actually flipped the car over for it.

Café du Monde
1039 decatur street (70116)
a landmark. twenty-four seven. visited in february and since i’ve been back. hot beignets, yo. can’t really go wrong here.

Cake Café & Bakery
2440 chartres street (70117)
dropped in for a cupcake one day. red velvet. quite good. stopped by another day with peaches et al. we all ordered real food plus cupcakes. i had a shrimp omelette and rather enjoyed it. chocolate cupcake with chocolate mousse inside and ganache on top also got demolished. will definitely dine again.

Camellia Grill
626 south carrollton (70118)
it was just a burger. *shrug* the place is fifties style with stools at the counter. cute. very popular, too. they pack ‘em in on the weekends. i don’t see myself going again, though. if you do go, be prepared for a requisite fist bump from your server. meh.

Cooter Brown’s
509 south carrollton (70118)
ate here back during my february visit. my first ever po’ boy. as described in my february post, “it was full of big, well-seasoned fried shrimp on a long roll that was buttered and toasted.” it was slammin’. will definitely seek out another.

Dooky Chase’s
2301 orleans avenue (70119)
okay, i’ve kind of had dooky chase food twice now—the first time was at the gumbo tasting kickoff event held at the library and incorporated into my americorps orientation. leah chase came and brought green gumbo (gumbo made with greens and herbs as the primary ingredients), and this was pretty alright, i guess. then i ate at the actual restaurant as part of another service event. this time there was a buffet meal comprised of some kind of chicken with tomato, rice with sausage (jambalaya?), and string beans. all the food tasted sort of…processed. like canned string beans and zatarain’s out of the box. i was very underwhelmed. the bread pudding was good, though, even if it did have nuts in it. i am willing to revise this information once i’ve eaten a real off-the-menu meal here. as of this point, though, a pair of handsome twin waiters is the best thing dooky chase’s has shown me.

Ignatius
4200 magazine street (70115)
ate here with some americorps folk and their significant others. i was the fifth wheel. :-/  at least the gumbo was good.

Jake’s Restaurant
2730 mount kennedy drive (marrero, 70072)
FINALLY…some gumbo that made me really get gumbo. my co-worker and i went to this hole-in-the-wall spot for lunch, and we both got the seafood gumbo. in the process, i learned that gumbo + rice = gumbo; ask for it without the rice, and you get the you-ain’t-from-around-these-parts-is-ya gas face.

The Kupcake Factory
841 fulton street (70130)
ohhh…this was very much win! i went on a tuesday to get lemon coconut (different flavors are available on different days), and it was well worth the trip. zippy and not overly sweet and with a perfect icing-to-cake ratio. i will definitely be investigating what goes on here from wednesday back around to monday!

Magnolia Grill
1122 decatur street (70116)
first place i ate when i moved here. the roomie and i ordered catfish and shrimp po’ boys and traded halves. the food wasn’t bad at all, and the drinks (i had a mimosa and he had a screwdriver) were big and strong.

Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen
various locations
i mean, yeah…it’s just popeye’s…but it’s popeye’s HERE—and that automatically makes it more delicious-er.

SnoWizard
4001 magazine street (70115)
my first snoball. coconut, of course. it was pretty damn good, but it wasn’t really seeing my shave ice from maui (here at bottom). i understand snoballs can be ordered with condensed milk; i’ll have to try that next. and soon—most snoball stands end their season in october.

glossary

lovebugs

noun

that louisiana is brimming with life is a given (from cockroaches to alligators to an inexplicable quantity of minnesotans), but one life form it offers up had puzzled me before i even reached new orleans. i’m referring to a certain smallish (about lightning bug-sized) insect that appears to have two heads, one at either end of its body. these fuckers (pardon the pun in advance) were everywhere when i first arrived. at first i thought maybe it was just some clever ruse of nature to help them trick predators—like how butterflies sometimes have decorative eyespots on their wings—but no. as it turns out, what i was witnessing is the fascinating plecia nearctica hardy. behold:

photo courtesy of wikipedia

what you are seeing here is two bugs DOIN’ IT. these critters, commonly and aptly called “lovebugs,” are insects that, during their mating season, are in what i have dubbed Constant Coitus—even while in flight! (top that, Sting!)

what with the way this blog is going, i’ve decided to put my home state’s slogan to more appropriate use, to wit:

finally that damn thing makes some sense.

glossary

lagniappe (LAN-yap)

noun

extra stuff.

i’d never heard or seen this word before in my life. no wonder—it’s a new orleans thing. apparently it derives from the spanish term “la ñapa,” itself an americanism meaning bonus or extra.

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rain

much about the way new orleans comports itself is like a lover. not a girlfriend or a boyfriend, mind you, and certainly not a spouse. no—only a lover, and a fickle one at that. you will stop by to visit new orleans, and you will be seduced. you will find yourself intertwined with a heat so corporeal that you won’t know where your skin stops and the air around you begins. and the rain? oh, that rain will fall upon you, sudden and impassioned. hard and fervored and completely without inhibition. sometimes it only takes ten minutes—sometimes much longer—before it is drained. exhausted. and afterward, suddenly indifferent, new orleans will leave you alone again in the bright obliviousness of day like nothing ever happened. but you will know (and be secretly pleased) that new orleans’s rain is insatiable and will come for you again and again with an intensity that won’t ever, ever fade.

afterglow in my backyard (...*pause*)

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southern decadence festival

southern decadence, held annually on labor day weekend, is new orleans’s celebration of “gay life, music, and culture.” and celebrate they do. debauchery abounds. why, peaches and i went to the quarter to viddy the parade and, in the process, had our collective innocence wrenched from us by the sight of a man with his penis jauntily hanging out the side of his leather codpiece!

heavens to mergatroid!

i think this gentleman’s photo, which i snapped, quite aptly sums up the festivities:

over-the-top costumes, drag queens, leather, flamboyance, and more rainbows than a care bear factory. snagglepuss would be proud.

glossary

-eaux

suffix

a frenchified spelling of the long “o” sound in english. this is used in new orleans pretty much exclusively to respell the word “geaux,” as in:

…but fear not—i plan to totally abuse this for my own amusement, and perhaps your’n as well. just imagine the possibilities!

gumbeaux

eaux, neeeeauxssss!!!1!1!!

neaux heauxmeaux

it’s practically endless—right, yeaux?!