Anticipation is not just a song by Carly Simon
Not next weekend, but the next, I will be home in New Orleans at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Check out April 30th. What should I see? Obviously Elvis Costello trumps all, but Madeliene Peyroux, the Soul Rebels, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Toots & the Maytals, the Ike Turner, Astral Project, Nicholas Payton? What else do I make time for? There is just so much... Besides the Rosemint tea and mango freeze and Vietnamese spring rolls, crawfish bread. All the crafts and Congo Square. This is my favorite New Orleans festival! Also, people on Friendster are asking how to make "spirit poles." People, get it straight. There is no spirit pole; it's a party pole. I tried looking for a picture to show you Yankees out there, but I can't seem to find one. I'll have to take a picture of one, myself, and post it when I get back from the Big Easy.
Lately, I've realized I've gotten so caught up in the energy of living in New York that it seems like a dream that I once lived in New Orleans. I mean, seriously. The pace of New York demands you bend your whole person to make living here possible. Also, I've been so focused on the publishing world to think of much beyond this island. It helps that I am a million times more distracted in New York than in Philly. I have such a thick life here.
But I'm still a New Orleans lady at heart. After all, I'm going home to get a bridesmaid dress altered on Veterans Boulevard, attend a cocktail party in Metairie, a wedding shower in Uptown NOLA, going to a sewing luncheon with my mom, bottomless cups of iced coffee with my friends, combing the Quarter and Magazine Street, counting pelicans over Lake Pontchartrain. There's no question I was brought up on po'boys, my mom's red beans and rice, my dad's gumbo, May Crowings in the Sacred Heart chapel, chocolate milk and beignets on the Mississippi River. I'll be riding over your potholes soon enough, New Orleans. Bring on the humidity and the sun; I'll have my suimsuit on underneath my jeans and urbane sweater. I'll put on the sunscreen while the plane is taxing into the gate.
Lately, I've realized I've gotten so caught up in the energy of living in New York that it seems like a dream that I once lived in New Orleans. I mean, seriously. The pace of New York demands you bend your whole person to make living here possible. Also, I've been so focused on the publishing world to think of much beyond this island. It helps that I am a million times more distracted in New York than in Philly. I have such a thick life here.
But I'm still a New Orleans lady at heart. After all, I'm going home to get a bridesmaid dress altered on Veterans Boulevard, attend a cocktail party in Metairie, a wedding shower in Uptown NOLA, going to a sewing luncheon with my mom, bottomless cups of iced coffee with my friends, combing the Quarter and Magazine Street, counting pelicans over Lake Pontchartrain. There's no question I was brought up on po'boys, my mom's red beans and rice, my dad's gumbo, May Crowings in the Sacred Heart chapel, chocolate milk and beignets on the Mississippi River. I'll be riding over your potholes soon enough, New Orleans. Bring on the humidity and the sun; I'll have my suimsuit on underneath my jeans and urbane sweater. I'll put on the sunscreen while the plane is taxing into the gate.
posted by lequincampe at 10:54 AM
3 Comments:
Hey - skip Ike, go for Toots & the Maytals. At least, that's what I'd do.
Char and my mom are in NOLA right now looking at colleges - how cool would it be if she went to school there?!?!
WOW! Tell her to go to Tulane. She would have a blast! And I could have so many people look out for her.
Jazz Fest, Jazz Fest, boing, boing.
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