There is no way to sum up this city, to touch it properly one must emulate it: Lavish loving and wild details on it and let them flow where they will. New Orleans gave me one of the most lyrical evenings of my life.
Walking the French Quarter is entering a synthesis of cultures and moralities that won't normally be seated with one another. Here they break bread together and gayly compete for your attention. It is a place that in all ways endeavors to satisfy. I visit ed bookstores run by curmugeon old men that wouldn't be bothered to organize their books, (it was hard for them to find them, why should it be easy for you to buy them?) Voudoun shops full of images of brightly dressed men and women with predatory eyes an d snarling, passionate smiles, tucked away side street stores filled with obscure silvers and antique ivories, books and trophies that smelled of english and french explorative rapes in africa and asia. Everything violent and aweful and sexual and celebr atory, all the human apitites put on display without judgement. the streets were littered with colors, crosses and idols like the spices in a hot soup.
It is the kind of place where it is easy to adore everyone, even the con artist who took my traveling companion had a benevolent air and easy style that made it ok, even befitting a first stroll down Burbon Street. He gave it a touch of art and fun, unlike what a con, even small time, usually would.
There is a man in New Orleans by the name of Danny O'Flahtery[sp?] i don't know. i owe hime a thanks you note, so i will have ot stop by and find out. Danny came to America from Galway when he was 19. His first love is his native music, but his fate finds him owner-proprietor-musical talent for O'Flahterty's Irish Pub. Above it he flies six flags of celtica: tricolor, Brittany, Wales, Isle of Man, Scotland (and one more damnit.) Inside he has a celtic music and gift shop, a brick courtyard with fountain (littered on the day of my visit with yellow and white flowers) a pub called the Informer and The Ballad Room, where we wandered in right around 10. there was a five dollar cover charge and signs all around petitioning for patron silence during live music. Bars and all their varients were extremely and almost hostilly foreign to me, the anti-social bookroom-cum-computer geek that i am. A woman asked us what we wanted to drink and I looked at her blankly, and said (gathering my wits) that we'd order later. there were no tables and i couldn't help but feel as if i'd strolled into someone else s's world and wouldn't be welcome. If i hadn't just paid a cover charge i would have returned right back into the night, defeated by a culture i couldn't understand.
The musicians took a break and the place emptied out a little, and myself and my companion grabbed a table up front and managed to choke out an order for irish coffee. Somehow we fell into a fortunate conversation with an impecably dressed woman and her mother seated next to us. As grudgy as we were, and dirty form the road they were far too polite and civilized to notice. The woman knew the musicians and came here often, i regaled her with california anecdotes and finnally was able to relax to her laughter.
Then everything dropped away; the musicians returned. we were absorbed into the pub, i can't say we sank i nto the music the way one does with Goreki or hardcore, we sank into the whole vibe of the place. We sang along, we clapped and laughed like hell, everyone in the room was one on one with the musician and he guided our mood with the ease of a captian in t he seas of his childhood. A fiesty short Scotish woman did "Scotland the Brave" and "Yankee doodle dandee" for a group of marines in back. She tore into her pipes and exuded a spirit that trembled the air all around her. We instantly loved her to death. I chatted with the lady beside us a bit more on break & was talked out of a "Galway hooker" and into a strawberry daquiri, for my own health and safety.
About this time a group of well dressed men and women looking tobe in their early 30's came in, and true to form began to act like all the bargoes and office parties i'd seen in my city.
Not even they could destroy the mood. The musician stopped twice for them to quiet down, but he menaged them supurbly. After they left he stopped for a moment & launched into a heated talk about manners. Of course we loved him by then, and the whole thing took on the feel of your favorite uncle talking about how things ought to be. We made a few requests and his mood improved, he even brought the piper back and did something i am sure i'll never see again, dueling banjoes-- guitar leading bagpipe.
We chatted more on breaks with the woman beside up, she was a New Orleans native that came dowm many nights to this pub to hear the music, to talk to people, to fall into the kindness and soak. She wasn't conscious of it, it was a pervasive sense to Louisana, as if no one had really thought of a reason to be awful to other people here. When the show ended she introduced usto Danny, who found out we were parked far away and had along night ahead of us. There was nothing for it but to pack us into his car and drive us to our own, all the time fretting about whether he really ought to be putting us up instead of letting us drive out.
We drove through into Alabama that night.