Thursday, October 30, 2003|
Another beautiful fall day in our swampy paradise. 5:32:28 PM | Tourists abound. I suppose Halloween must be one of the most popular holidays for visiting New Orleans, considering the city's love of all things "voodoo." Not that voodoo has anything inherently to do with Halloween, seeing it's neither of Scottish nor Mexican heritage, the two countries that seem most responsible for our ghoul and skeleton-oriented festival (yes, I know, it's a far more interesting and involved history...just trying to keep this brief). The very word "voodoo" was all over the radio today with advertisements for concerts happening across New Orleans, most notably the Voodoo Music Fest. I'm just hoping all of our West African good-juju statues will keep us safe from the vampires tomorrow night. Lock the doors and windows! Bring out the garlic! This afternoon, I saw a huge tour group come out of the cemetery across the street from Commander's Palace on Washington Avenue, led by a guy dressed completely in orange. Well, almost completely. He wore bright red patent leather shoes and a black hat. Many in the group were dressed for safari: pith helmets in straw, cargo shorts, matching multi-pocketed vests, cameras strapped across their chests in one direction, small bags or purses strapped across in the other. A couple similarly dressed were taking pictures of our apartment building this morning (it's an old mansion that was divided up into apartments years ago -- infinitely more interesting than the cinder block "Thames" or "Casablanca Club" buildings down on St. Charles). They were extremely happy to hear about the haunted house across the street. I didn't tell them about the voodoo priest-in-training in the apartment behind us; thought our neighbor might get annoyed if he was to be awakened by a couple on New Orleans safari with a notebook full of questions. Let the man sleep, I figured. No need to have any bones thrown or pins stuck in all the wrong places. All this voodoo talk's making me nervous. I better go guard the chickens. 
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Last update: 7/17/05; 10:05:47 AM .
