{"id":1260,"date":"2006-12-24T17:39:26","date_gmt":"2006-12-24T22:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-only-the-river\/"},"modified":"2006-12-24T17:40:18","modified_gmt":"2006-12-24T22:40:18","slug":"its-only-the-river","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/its-only-the-river","title":{"rendered":"It’s only the river"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amy & I meandered through the French Quarter yesterday, in search of cheap novelties (some voodoo dolls at the French Market), some holiday presents (a couple of higher-end masks at Rumors<\/a>, and a sweatshirt from the local Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville<\/a>, which my boss contends has the best margaritas around), and coffee and beignets at Caf\u00c3\u0192\u00c2\u00a9 Du Monde<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We took a ton of pictures yesterday, but I forgot to bring the cable for my camera along for the trip, so mine will have to wait till we’re home next week. Amy has been working much more diligently on hers, and has demonstrated an eye for photography that leaves me jealous. She’s also willing to spend time with Photoshop and Lightroom<\/a> to improve her pix, while my point-and-click mentality seems to carry over to many aspects of my life.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the Quarter was pretty full of people, even though we got in pretty early (around 9am). The New Orleans Bowl<\/a> football game between Rice and Troy had been the night before, so partisans for those two schools were everywhere. In fact, CDM was completely packed when we arrived. The weather was in the mid-50s, and Amy pointed out that you could tell which people were locals because they were the ones wearing scarves and gloves.<\/p>\n

After breakfast, we began taking pictures. I brought my laptop along, in hopes that the citywide WiFi service was actually functioning, but the Earthlink-provided network<\/a> didn’t show up on my menu when we were sitting in Jackson Square, so I dropped the laptop off in our car. Sorry, no liveblogging from the streets of NO,LA, dear readers. Maybe next trip.<\/p>\n

When Amy gets her pix posted, you’ll get an idea of how gorgeous the morning light can be in the Quarter. It was the first sunny day since we arrived on Thursday, which got Amy in a good mood. The rain and drear can bring a body down, like it has today.<\/p>\n

(In fact, we’ve spent a good chunk of time just hanging out in her parents’ living room. Since I just crossed the 700-page mark in that Berlin Noir<\/a> omnibus I brought along for the trip, I can attest that we’ve, um, had some time on our hands.)<\/p>\n

During our walk yesterday, we stopped at Faulkner House Books<\/a> in Pirate Alley (yarr!), where I picked up a small collection of post-Katrina columns by Times-Picayune<\/a> writer Chris Rose, who’s been chronicling the human costs of the catastrophe as well as anybody. I’ll probably read it after I finish the remaining 130 pages of Berlin Noir<\/em> today.<\/p>\n

It turns out the bookstore’s doing pretty well, at least if some of the comments I heard from the manager about the prices they fetched for a few rarities is true. I’m being deliberately vague, but it sounds like they made some serious scratch from selling a couple of New Orleans-related literary memorabilia. It warms my heart that there’s a market for the stuff.<\/p>\n

I can’t offer much of an assessment on the city’s recovery. The French Quarter isn’t like the rest of the area and, while there were plenty more tourists than our last trip in July, that’s not adding much to the conversation. During the coverage of the New Orleans Bowl on ESPN, the commentators talked about “how little has been done” down here for the people, and showed a short clip of the student-athletes taking a bus tour through the lower Ninth Ward.<\/p>\n

As Amy & I walked through the Quarter, we reminisced about our wedding weekend down here. There are so many landmarks for me (and even more for Amy, who spent so many years in the city), so many resonances, so many reminiscences, that it’s hard for me to imagine that it can go away for good, within our lifetimes.<\/p>\n

Last night, at the home of Amy’s grandmother, some family members railed against FEMA, the local contractors, and the state’s governor<\/a>, who evidently finished a legislative session unable to pass a bill to spend the state’s $2 billion surlplus. Since it’s not their district, these in-laws didn’t directly lambaste the re-elections of Ray Nagin<\/a> or Rep. Jefferson, who was recently caught with $90,000 dollars in bribe money in his freezer<\/a>, but they weren’t happy about either of those developments.<\/p>\n

After we got back from her grandmother’s place (we were dropping off some leftover chicken tenders & cream cheese wrapped in bacon), we found a documentary about New Zealand on the Travel Channel. There was a segment on Napier<\/a>, the art-deco city on the north island. It spent a little time showing off the buildings, then explained how it all resulted from a massive earthquake and fire in 1931 that wiped out the city. (In fact, the whole documentary was along these lines: each segment started out with beautiful images and descriptions of wonder and grandeur, then segued into “the dark secret behind it.”)<\/p>\n

The third novel in that Berlin Noir<\/em> omnibus jumps 9 years from the end of the second, from 1938 to 1947. Berlin is in ruins, and the Russians are starting to separate the east section of the city from the west. It made me wonder what the city’s like today, how it integrated in the last 15 years.<\/p>\n

The rain’s heavy again today, and they’re issuing flood warnings. Nothing cataclysmic, of course: just enough<\/a> to overrun the various drainage systems for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amy & I meandered through the French Quarter yesterday, in search of cheap novelties (some voodoo dolls at the French Market), some holiday presents (a couple of higher-end masks at Rumors, and a sweatshirt from the local Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville, which my boss contends has the best margaritas around), and coffee and beignets at Caf\u00c3\u0192\u00c2\u00a9 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “It’s only the river”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,8,5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","category-new-orleans","category-travel","category-urban-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-kk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":693,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/drawn-and-french-quartered","url_meta":{"origin":1260,"position":0},"title":"Drawn and French Quartered","author":"Gil","date":"October 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Got back from the French Quarter a few hours ago. During the drive in, we wondered what areas were hit badly by the flood. Then we passed over the 17th St. Canal, and realized what it really looked like. The landscape was gray-brown. It was as if the floodwaters took\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":775,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/present-day","url_meta":{"origin":1260,"position":1},"title":"Present Day","author":"Gil","date":"December 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Made it home safe and sound yesterday afternoon, but the final approach was a bit shaky. By which I mean, the plane was wobbling from side to side for the last 10 minutes before we touched down. I pounded a G&T at the terminal bar to steady the old nerves,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":650,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/hell-or-high-water-my-ass","url_meta":{"origin":1260,"position":2},"title":"Hell or high water, my ass","author":"Gil","date":"September 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The President just delivered his address about the rebuilding of New Orleans and the gulf coast communities blow'd up by Katrina. He spoke from Jackson Square, which is about 400 feet away from where the official VM fiancee and I plan to get hitched next March.Yeah, I'm using the present\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":773,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/new-orleans-proud-to-swim-home","url_meta":{"origin":1260,"position":3},"title":"New Orleans: Proud to Swim Home","author":"Gil","date":"December 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Here we are in New Orleans! While the official VM fiancee was getting her test-run on hair and makeup, the official VM father-in-law-to-be & I took the official VM nephew-to-be to Lakeside Mall to pass the time. While there, we saw \"Katrina Ridge,\" a holiday train-set display based on post-Katrina\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "New Orleans"","block_context":{"text":"New Orleans","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/travel\/new-orleans"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9832,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/episode-181-chris-rose","url_meta":{"origin":1260,"position":4},"title":"Episode 181 – Chris Rose","author":"Gil","date":"August 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Virtual Memories Show #181: Chris Rose \"After Katrina, I looked around and saw we had reporters out covering the destruction, but ain't nobody looking around and what's left. So that's what I started to do to. I drove my car around the city until I ran out of gas. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-content\/uploads\/28616519840_08efd997a9_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1830,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lets-get-some-f-french-toast","url_meta":{"origin":1260,"position":5},"title":"Let’s get some f****** french toast!","author":"Gil","date":"December 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I can only hope that after 10 years of marriage, Amy & I have gift-giving fights as good as the one Judd Apatow has with Leslie Mann.","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/lets-get-some-f-french-toast#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}