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Started By
Message
TulaneLSU's walk through America's best neighborhood
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:02 am
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:02 am
Dear Friends,
Sunday mornings were once a kinetic and frantic blur of excitement and joy. Mother dressed me in one of my favorite four Sunday suits, always supplied by Myron Goldberg’s, who had the best boys clothing in New Orleans. We rarely ate Sunday breakfast, instead, saving our appetites for either Mother’s famous Sunday rice and grillades, but occasionally, Grandmother won out and we drove to Piccadilly on Jefferson Highway, where we would arrive at noon sharp.
Mother always wanted us out the door by 10:00, 30 minutes before services began. We had the walk to church timed down to the second: 12 minutes and 35 seconds. Of course, that was the Autumnal time. In the oppressive heat of summer, even under the live oak canopy, our walk slowed to a 13 minute pace. Mother wanted us in our pews by 10:15 so that we could prepare for worship by quietly and attentively listening to the chorale prelude.
Occasionally, a congregant would try to start small talk during the organist’s musical sermon. Mother would turn to them, smile, and put her finger to her lips. She has always been a social person, and come 11:30 she glints with greetings, but during services, sincere, focused worship is, as it should be, her only focus.
The energy in our church from the 80s to around 2010 was greater than anything anyone has ever experienced in Tiger Stadium or at any sporting event. It was pure and bright and wonderful. Love permeates the walls; light pierces the stained glass; sound fills the spirit; community exists in its most real form.
For the last 13 or so years, the pointer on the church’s wattmeter has shifted left. Do not misinterpret such a statement to be political, as some might blame the nationwide decline in religious participation on churches becoming “too political.” Churches that fractured from mainline denominations, often bolstered by loud voices who blamed the decline on moving leftward, have likewise seen their membership per congregation decline. The energy has gone out from our churches, indeed, nearly all our public spaces. Something insidious and secularizing has ravaged the church. It has sucked from us our energy as a communal people.
Last week I sat in the AMC movie theater entirely alone. In years past, there was hardly a movie you could watch in the theater in the summer that was not at least 10% filled. But here I found myself, watching Disney’s Haunted Mansion, five days after it premiered, in an entirely empty theater. That the movie was poorly marketed and not particularly good misses the point , for I also watched Mission Impossible last week in a completely empty theater. The disturbing trend in our society is that our communal spaces – theaters and churches and restaurants and shopping centers – are rapidly dying.
More and more people today want to be left alone. They want to enter their own world, whether in their home theater or video game system or social media. They want their groceries and meals and clothes delivered and dropped at their doorstep. They live either in apathy or fear of their neighbors. They seek outrageous headlines from slanted media outlets to justify their escalating seclusion. Their islands shrink and shrink while their depression and anger increase.
There is no city in all of America that swims against this tide more than does New Orleans. And there is no neighborhood in all of New Orleans that fights against this isolationism as much as the French Quarter. It stands on that great high ground as a beacon to all, a great lighthouse on a levee calling the world to community and communion. If there is to be a last stand against the forces of Satan’s self-sufficient delusions, it will be waged on the alluvial soils bound by Canal, Esplanade and Rampart.
Even when heat indices approach 110 degrees before noon, when you would expect a city to languish, the French Quarter is alive with an energy you will not find in Houston or Chicago or Seattle or Atlanta or Miami or even New York. The August doldrums have hit, and the flowers are wilting, but the Quarters stand tall like Custer. I have indeed traveled a good deal in this rectangle and my travels there recently give me hope.
One of the lesser known breakfasts in the Quarter is found at Johnny’s Poorboys. After a long walk in, I found a seat at my familiar table there and started the day with energy: an egg and bacon poorboy and a two egg and fried pork chop platter. My vegan diet now broken, I could explore the culinary delights of the Quarter unencumbered by borders, so I then made a beeline to Stanley’s for the city’s best seafood gumbo. There were three huge P&J oysters in this delicious dark soup. Is it America’s best soup? Arguably.
Jackson Square is America’s greatest public space and is always good for talking with people. For the next hour, I exchanged pleasantries with complete strangers. Most were quite friendly, and two accepted small Bibles I had with me.
There also was a most pitiable man I encountered who scavenged through the black metal garbage bins, the ones with the unsightly fleur de lis. His prey was unemptied cups and bottles of alcohol. After seeing him find cups filled with fruit punch and lemon colored liquids, and watching him sample them, I approached him.
“Sir, why do you stupefy yourself on this quest for poison?”
He mumbled incoherently and walked away. I had hoped to discuss with him Tolstoy’s great treatise Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves? (with alcohol, tobacco, hashish and other intoxicating drugs), whose answer to that question is found “in man's need to hide from himself the demands of conscience…to drown the voice of conscience in themselves.” If you have never read the pamphlet, I cannot more highly recommend it to you.
I prayed for the man and continued my journey. The Square was alive with artisans, all of whom were quite convivial.
Sunday mornings were once a kinetic and frantic blur of excitement and joy. Mother dressed me in one of my favorite four Sunday suits, always supplied by Myron Goldberg’s, who had the best boys clothing in New Orleans. We rarely ate Sunday breakfast, instead, saving our appetites for either Mother’s famous Sunday rice and grillades, but occasionally, Grandmother won out and we drove to Piccadilly on Jefferson Highway, where we would arrive at noon sharp.
Mother always wanted us out the door by 10:00, 30 minutes before services began. We had the walk to church timed down to the second: 12 minutes and 35 seconds. Of course, that was the Autumnal time. In the oppressive heat of summer, even under the live oak canopy, our walk slowed to a 13 minute pace. Mother wanted us in our pews by 10:15 so that we could prepare for worship by quietly and attentively listening to the chorale prelude.
Occasionally, a congregant would try to start small talk during the organist’s musical sermon. Mother would turn to them, smile, and put her finger to her lips. She has always been a social person, and come 11:30 she glints with greetings, but during services, sincere, focused worship is, as it should be, her only focus.
The energy in our church from the 80s to around 2010 was greater than anything anyone has ever experienced in Tiger Stadium or at any sporting event. It was pure and bright and wonderful. Love permeates the walls; light pierces the stained glass; sound fills the spirit; community exists in its most real form.
For the last 13 or so years, the pointer on the church’s wattmeter has shifted left. Do not misinterpret such a statement to be political, as some might blame the nationwide decline in religious participation on churches becoming “too political.” Churches that fractured from mainline denominations, often bolstered by loud voices who blamed the decline on moving leftward, have likewise seen their membership per congregation decline. The energy has gone out from our churches, indeed, nearly all our public spaces. Something insidious and secularizing has ravaged the church. It has sucked from us our energy as a communal people.
Last week I sat in the AMC movie theater entirely alone. In years past, there was hardly a movie you could watch in the theater in the summer that was not at least 10% filled. But here I found myself, watching Disney’s Haunted Mansion, five days after it premiered, in an entirely empty theater. That the movie was poorly marketed and not particularly good misses the point , for I also watched Mission Impossible last week in a completely empty theater. The disturbing trend in our society is that our communal spaces – theaters and churches and restaurants and shopping centers – are rapidly dying.
More and more people today want to be left alone. They want to enter their own world, whether in their home theater or video game system or social media. They want their groceries and meals and clothes delivered and dropped at their doorstep. They live either in apathy or fear of their neighbors. They seek outrageous headlines from slanted media outlets to justify their escalating seclusion. Their islands shrink and shrink while their depression and anger increase.
There is no city in all of America that swims against this tide more than does New Orleans. And there is no neighborhood in all of New Orleans that fights against this isolationism as much as the French Quarter. It stands on that great high ground as a beacon to all, a great lighthouse on a levee calling the world to community and communion. If there is to be a last stand against the forces of Satan’s self-sufficient delusions, it will be waged on the alluvial soils bound by Canal, Esplanade and Rampart.
Even when heat indices approach 110 degrees before noon, when you would expect a city to languish, the French Quarter is alive with an energy you will not find in Houston or Chicago or Seattle or Atlanta or Miami or even New York. The August doldrums have hit, and the flowers are wilting, but the Quarters stand tall like Custer. I have indeed traveled a good deal in this rectangle and my travels there recently give me hope.
One of the lesser known breakfasts in the Quarter is found at Johnny’s Poorboys. After a long walk in, I found a seat at my familiar table there and started the day with energy: an egg and bacon poorboy and a two egg and fried pork chop platter. My vegan diet now broken, I could explore the culinary delights of the Quarter unencumbered by borders, so I then made a beeline to Stanley’s for the city’s best seafood gumbo. There were three huge P&J oysters in this delicious dark soup. Is it America’s best soup? Arguably.
Jackson Square is America’s greatest public space and is always good for talking with people. For the next hour, I exchanged pleasantries with complete strangers. Most were quite friendly, and two accepted small Bibles I had with me.
There also was a most pitiable man I encountered who scavenged through the black metal garbage bins, the ones with the unsightly fleur de lis. His prey was unemptied cups and bottles of alcohol. After seeing him find cups filled with fruit punch and lemon colored liquids, and watching him sample them, I approached him.
“Sir, why do you stupefy yourself on this quest for poison?”
He mumbled incoherently and walked away. I had hoped to discuss with him Tolstoy’s great treatise Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves? (with alcohol, tobacco, hashish and other intoxicating drugs), whose answer to that question is found “in man's need to hide from himself the demands of conscience…to drown the voice of conscience in themselves.” If you have never read the pamphlet, I cannot more highly recommend it to you.
I prayed for the man and continued my journey. The Square was alive with artisans, all of whom were quite convivial.
This post was edited on 8/6/23 at 10:03 am
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:02 am to TulaneLSU
Of all the streets in the French Quarter, Royal Street is probably my favorite. Thanks to its three and four story canyon and porch overhangs, it gets more shade than other French Quarter streets. The buildings tunnel the wind and it becomes, even on a sweltering day, tolerable to the skin. What a pleasure to the ears, though, to hear fellow Delgado alumnus, Doreen Ketchens, in front of the Quarter Rouses.
The crowds were not nearly what they are in the Autumn or Spring, but the joy was no less great among her audience members. Where else in the world would you see a smile like this one, sitting on a curb when the temperature is 98 degrees with a dew point of 80?
Reborn Johnie Miller, now 66, still delights with his simple and timeless pose.
No trip to Royal Street is complete without a walk through of the newly renovated M.S. Rau, the greatest art and antique store in the South and one of the greatest in our nation. One of Rau’s best new acquisitions undoubtedly is Gustave Max Stevens “The Twelve Princesses,” which is based on the fairy tale by the Grimm brothers. While the picture may be stunning, you cannot truly understand its beauty except by being in person. As much as I would like to get this for our sitting room, I do not think Mother would be okay with its $4.5 million price. That is quite a few trips to for the 3:45 lunch at Golden Corral.
This enormous four foot wide bust of Churchill is a proof of Ivor Roberts Jones’ work that sits in London’s Parliament Square. I believe it is $400,000.
This two millions dollar chess set depicts the Battle of Issos, which signaled the end of the Persian Empire and the beginning of the League of Corinth as a world power. I asked the lovely blue eyed saleswoman if she could take the set from the case and play a game against me. She replied that unless I was interested in buying it she could not, a convenient excuse, as I suspect she knew how good of a chess player I am.
This beautiful Renaissance pendant depicts the sacrifice of Isaac, one of the great stories of the world which gets at the question, What is the chief end of man?
I made a quick run then to the always free Historic New Orleans Collection where a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian on American democracy as well as women’s suffrage filled the second and third floors. As our democracy is being attacked from both sides, it serves as a timely reminder of the fragility and beauty of this great leap of faith.
At the end of the exhibit, there is a quiz similar to the one those trying to become naturalized citizens must take. They are mostly civics, geography, and history questions.
George Washington Cable: Mother says I remind her of him and I wish we had shared some blood, but she assures me that we do not. What a great man he was.
The great New York painter, Noel Rockmore, like many other artists, found his greatest inspiration in the French Quarter. He loved New Orleans and his works mythologized Preservation Hall. He also painted the first Jazz Fest Poster. At the end of his life, he lived in Kenner, and he tragically died alone at St. Jude Hospital in Kenner in 1995. One of my favorite works he did is his 1975 Homage to the French Quarter, which is in THNOC.
Another quick run through James Cohen’s Antiques, one of the most memorable stores a child will ever visit. This is better than any Toys R Us ever was. Inventory seemed a bit light on this recent trip.
From there the winds brought me to Decatur and then to Canal Place where I had a tie to retrieve at Sak’s. The parking deck there gives a lovely view of the Quarter, so I made my way there as well. It was so hot by then I decided, rather than walking, to take the red streetcar home.
It is time now, Mother says, that we leave for church. I hope all of you will find some communion and community in your lives today, in both church and in the world. We were made not to be alone but for communion with God and our neighbors. Find the places in life where those occur and dive heart deep into them.
Faith, Hope, and Love,
TulaneLSU
The crowds were not nearly what they are in the Autumn or Spring, but the joy was no less great among her audience members. Where else in the world would you see a smile like this one, sitting on a curb when the temperature is 98 degrees with a dew point of 80?
Reborn Johnie Miller, now 66, still delights with his simple and timeless pose.
No trip to Royal Street is complete without a walk through of the newly renovated M.S. Rau, the greatest art and antique store in the South and one of the greatest in our nation. One of Rau’s best new acquisitions undoubtedly is Gustave Max Stevens “The Twelve Princesses,” which is based on the fairy tale by the Grimm brothers. While the picture may be stunning, you cannot truly understand its beauty except by being in person. As much as I would like to get this for our sitting room, I do not think Mother would be okay with its $4.5 million price. That is quite a few trips to for the 3:45 lunch at Golden Corral.
This enormous four foot wide bust of Churchill is a proof of Ivor Roberts Jones’ work that sits in London’s Parliament Square. I believe it is $400,000.
This two millions dollar chess set depicts the Battle of Issos, which signaled the end of the Persian Empire and the beginning of the League of Corinth as a world power. I asked the lovely blue eyed saleswoman if she could take the set from the case and play a game against me. She replied that unless I was interested in buying it she could not, a convenient excuse, as I suspect she knew how good of a chess player I am.
This beautiful Renaissance pendant depicts the sacrifice of Isaac, one of the great stories of the world which gets at the question, What is the chief end of man?
I made a quick run then to the always free Historic New Orleans Collection where a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian on American democracy as well as women’s suffrage filled the second and third floors. As our democracy is being attacked from both sides, it serves as a timely reminder of the fragility and beauty of this great leap of faith.
At the end of the exhibit, there is a quiz similar to the one those trying to become naturalized citizens must take. They are mostly civics, geography, and history questions.
George Washington Cable: Mother says I remind her of him and I wish we had shared some blood, but she assures me that we do not. What a great man he was.
The great New York painter, Noel Rockmore, like many other artists, found his greatest inspiration in the French Quarter. He loved New Orleans and his works mythologized Preservation Hall. He also painted the first Jazz Fest Poster. At the end of his life, he lived in Kenner, and he tragically died alone at St. Jude Hospital in Kenner in 1995. One of my favorite works he did is his 1975 Homage to the French Quarter, which is in THNOC.
Another quick run through James Cohen’s Antiques, one of the most memorable stores a child will ever visit. This is better than any Toys R Us ever was. Inventory seemed a bit light on this recent trip.
From there the winds brought me to Decatur and then to Canal Place where I had a tie to retrieve at Sak’s. The parking deck there gives a lovely view of the Quarter, so I made my way there as well. It was so hot by then I decided, rather than walking, to take the red streetcar home.
It is time now, Mother says, that we leave for church. I hope all of you will find some communion and community in your lives today, in both church and in the world. We were made not to be alone but for communion with God and our neighbors. Find the places in life where those occur and dive heart deep into them.
Faith, Hope, and Love,
TulaneLSU
This post was edited on 8/6/23 at 10:04 am
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:05 am to TulaneLSU
Try simplifying your posts more buddy. Not everyone wants to read 10 paragraphs on a single post.
This post was edited on 8/6/23 at 10:09 am
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:08 am to TulaneLSU
I suppose this is as close we'll ever get to fatty rewinds. Sad!
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:08 am to TulaneLSU
I passed out on a bench in Jackson Square in 1975 so there’s that.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:09 am to TulaneLSU
The French Quarter smells like urine and sadness
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:09 am to JasonDBlaha
quote:
Try simplifying your posts more buddy. Not everyone wants to read 10 paragraphs on a single post.
Friend,
Speak for yourself. Some of us find joy in the articulate prose that TulaneLSU provides us.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:12 am to TulaneLSU
the ramblings of a madman.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:13 am to TulaneLSU
Tee Dee should hire you to head the NOLA department of tourism.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:14 am to TulaneLSU
I bet the walk through the sword and gun store really chapped your arse.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:15 am to TulaneLSU
Some of your best work imo
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:16 am to TulaneLSU
RA’d to move to the Food Board or Travel Board
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:17 am to TulaneLSU
So, you approached the bum instead of BILL and HILLARY???
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:17 am to TulaneLSU
quote:
For the next hour, I exchanged pleasantries with complete strangers.
Scouting out potential victims, no doubt.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:20 am to TulaneLSU
Johnnys Breakfast is well known especially since the departure of Big Earl from the Clover Grill after Katrina. Also you were outside Murial’s who IMHO have the best Bloody Mary’s around. Sitting on the balcony and having a Bloody Mary while watching the people ambulating through the Square on a Sunday Morning is a New Orleans experience that shouldn’t be missed
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:21 am to TulaneLSU
I enjoy your posts like this,,,,keep up the good work
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:23 am to TulaneLSU
void
This post was edited on 8/16/23 at 6:25 pm
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:24 am to TulaneLSU
Your posts are generally pretty terrible, but man they are well put together, I’ll give you that much.
Posted on 8/6/23 at 10:25 am to TulaneLSU
Enjoyable read as always.
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