We went out to see the lunar eclipse tonight and stopped to get ice cream afterwards. Next to the ice cream shop was a gift-curio place with these in the window:

"Set of Three Feather Trees"

The moon was impossible to photograph without a telephoto lense and tripod, neither of which I had with me. I only have my digital camera here in NOLA; the two film cameras are back in Chicago. I love the immediacy of digital and the fact that I can erase bad shots. But it's impossible to get truly high quality low-light photos, at least with my high-end amateur camera. For one thing, you can't see if the shot is in focus because both the viewfinder and lcd display digital images of rather low quality. And then there's the spots that show up in the dark grays and blacks. All of the moon photos were littered with colored noise. S thought some of it looked cool, almost as if we'd captured the stars of the night sky. They littered the houses and streets, too, of course, which made them a lot less star-ish. Perhaps there's a way to turn these negatives into positives. Time to experiment!

Some pictures from our fabulous day today. The weather can't be more perfect. It's in direct contrast to last fall when it seemed we were going to be washed away by all the rain. Today was a Santa Barbara day. Absolutely perfect.

Let Love Rule. Seen from the St. Charles/Carondelet exit on 90 just past the Superdome.

Finally! A picture of the Original Roman Chew Candy cart. I've been wanting to take a picture of this since we moved down here. Finally bought some, too. It's taffy. Yummy taffy. Pull-the-fillings-right-out-of-your-mouth kind of taffy. Since I've had WAY too much dental work for my young age (okay, sort of young), I think my foot-long stick of chocolate chew will last a while. At least a few days.

Of course, I say that now. It is really good.

The space between cart and horse.

S and I had the jones for barbeque today. In lieu of a rehersal dinner the night before our wedding we had barbeque from N.N. Smokehouse, a famous (though sadly now closed) bbq joint on Irving Park in Chicago, in our back yard. We are united, in part, by our love of pulled pork.

Barbeque's not quite as popular down here. But you can find it. We happened upon a place on the north shore of the lake a few months ago deep in the woods (well, sort of deep -- it's along a scenic drive) called Sonny's. They'd only been open a few days. I don't know if they still are. Hope so. Anyway, today we stopped by VooDoo BBQ on St. Charles, in part because the roman candy guy stopped in front of it. Not that we needed a sign or anything, but it was awfully convenient seeing that I'd wanted to try that chew candy for months.

VooDoo is low on atmosphere (probably because it's for tourists most of all), but the food is good. I noticed this magazine sitting at the tray return -- "St. Charles Avenue," a local free social mag. On the cover, the Junior League. Somehow this encapsulated so much of New Orleans. VooDoo and NOLA aristocracy. Only here!!

VooDoo BBQ had a surveillance television in the room being watched. Though the television sat directly to the left of the register, it showed the same view the cashier would see when standing behind the register; in this way, it served absolutely no purpose. Perhaps it's left over from that time just after 9-11 when security was beefed up everywhere, seemingly without reason. I remember having to show my ID before parking in a garage in downtown Chicago. I guess they expected my ID to say "Terrorist" if I had been one. Or when the airport cops stopped and asked us a few questions and snooped around our trunk before letting us into the parking lot down here in NOLA. They seemed surprised when they saw the bags, our luggage, in the trunk. At the airport!

A reader sent me this fantastic article about voodoo in New Orleans from the Washington Post featuring none other than Sallie Glassman. She's from Maine, not New York. Oops.

I especially like the writer's description of the "authentic" voodoo shops around the city. As I've written about in the past, New Orleans is in love with its "authenticity," and spends quite a lot of time and energy preserving (and promoting) it. From the peeling paint and buildings that seem to be held up with nothing more than a few toothpicks, to the Authentic French antiques for sale on Magazine and Royal and the weekend fais do dos and voodoo ceremonies, it's as if the city were pitted against the future as much as it is rooted in the past. Progress, truly, is not all that welcomed. This is part of the city's charm, of course, but also why so many locals describe New Orleans as a "dying city," or even as one of my students put it, "wretched."

I wrote a poem about this love of all things authentic last Mardi Gras, when it seemed as if every day another woman's body was being found in Baton Rouge just as young girls were flashing their breasts for the Girls Gone Wild bus here in New Orleans. It was a little too "authentic" for me and added to my cynicism (which I'm happy to report has let up quite a bit). I posted the poem once before, but didn't know how to put in line breaks so it read horribly. Let's try it again! I'm finally learning some basic html. Next step: blogroll. My navigation area is a bit of a mystery to me. I'm planning on working on it this weekend.

Mardi Gras 2003

On the short walk
from our parked car,

I pass three dead birds flattened
by truck tires. Their identities

erased by rush hour traffic.
Beyond the levee, storm

clouds gather as they are apt
to do. Every day another rain.

Along the side streets
are eternal streams

of standing water from storm
drains stuffed with broken beads,

plastic remnants of New Orleans'
reason for being. Raison d'etre,

I guess. It ought to be in French. I find
myself becoming one of the locals

when I search for authenticity
in everything around me. In love

with the authentic, New Orleans
is, and perhaps that is why

the urgency of the mothers
of murdered sons, or the terrorized

women of Baton Rouge, is so easily
dismissed. There is nothing

more authentic than death.
I can't help but be upset

that we count our days with murders.
The newspapers demonstrate

ward-bound killings as others may
show where to buy authentic

Chinese groceries. The crimes
are explained by poverty,

as if they matter less when
the victims are poor. Up river

the women of Baton Rouge
are walking the streets with bull's

eyes on their tees after another girl
is found raped and dead. The day

Mardi Gras started, my husband and I saw
a woman driving a paint-chipped

statue of Jesus in her SUV. An authentic
Back-Seat Jesus. Across the street,

outside Five Happiness Imperial
Room restaurant, three boys

washed car windows for change.
Street cars bunched together

as bumper cars. And parked
in front of Tulane's campus,

the Girls Gone Wild party bus
offered a free tee to any willing

co-ed. Some of the beads
look like rosaries. Crawdads

splay out as Christ on the cross, cocks
spew cum, dangle in the center. Dismembered

breasts, ripe and round, hang between
gold and purple and green beads.

Everyone says those colors mean
something. Power and loyalty and

friendship or some such
nonsense. Yesterday, a deejay

promised the party would continue
past Mardi Gras. "Cold weather

will not stop us from putting
gummy bears on chicks' nipples."