A Streetcar To The Underworld

The Underworld is apparently closed on Sundays

We decided to get out of the French Quarter for a few hours and walk the streets of the Garden District. For all of the romance and nostalgia associated with the St. Charles Streetcar, it was slow, crowded, rickety, and loud. Then again, it was game day for the undefeated New Orleans Saints and the black and gold, fleur de lis-clad masses had to get to the Superdome somehow.

We started at the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1—the setting for many of Anne Rice’s vampire classics and featured in the film Interview With A Vampire. Strangely enough for a cemetery, it was closed on Sunday. After circling the high cement walls looking for a way in, we gave up and wandered through the streets--all historic mansions, magnolia trees, and wrought iron gates.

Ghosts of Mardi Gras Past

We had forgotten to write down the address for Anne Rice’s house, but passed a couple with a digital camera and guide book and figured they were probably looking for the same thing. It turns out that they had already been there and gave us the street number. We continued down the residential streets and stopped in front of her enormous mansion to take pictures. It was impressive, ornate, and, well, come to find out, not actually Anne Rice’s.

Anne doesn't live here (though I kind of wished she did)

After double-checking the house numbers, we realized that Anne’s house was on the other corner—smaller, more modest, and surrounded by a tangle of slightly overgrown trees and brush. Still, you could imagine Ms. Rice looking down from her glass and wrought iron balcony and imagining blood-thirsty vampires roaming around the neighborhood after dark. Either that or her bloodlust was fueled by envy of her neighbor's more impressive house.

She lives here, I think

The Ghost of Ignatius

Clap your hands for Dixieland!

We slipped on down to the Big Easy for a long weekend full of jazz, obscenely giant oysters, Sazeracs, cemeteries, etouffee, and the swamp. Keeping with my admittedly contrived habit of trying to read on theme, I, of course, brought a copy of A Confederacy of Dunces with me on the plane. This happened to be the same copy I purchased for LSB several years ago--probably declaring it "one of the best books ever!"--which still had her bookmark in it on page one-hundred-and-something. For those of you who haven't read it, it's really good. Don't listen to LSB.

"When my brain begins to reel from my literary
labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."
- Ignatius J. Reilly
(John Kennedy Toole)

I'll get to the reptiles and dead people (and maybe a rocket, too), in a later post but for now, I'll touch upon my quest for the perfect Sazerac and a few other minor details, including the consumption of a massive amount of regional food. First, though, a confession. In spite of the fact that I developed a minor obsession with this drink over the past year or so, I don't think I had ever had a true Sazerac coctail prior to the trip. Upon arriving at the hotel, I headed to the rooftop bar and made up for lost time while waiting for LSB. My first authentic New Orleans Sazerac experience came in a small plastic cup that a gust of wind almost blew off the bar. My subsequent experiences here, here, and here, were better. How can you go wrong ordering a Sazerac at Sazerac Bar? You can't. I didn't.

The view after my Sazerac rooftop experience
nearly ended badly

And the food? Lawdy, what didn't we eat? We had alligator sausage (LSB had it fried, too), oysters on the half-shell, fried oysters, an oyster po-boy, gumbo, jambalaya, red beans and rice, crawfish etouffee, Crawfish O'Conner, a Ferdi Special, a muffaletta, and delicious powdery beignets.

A dozen and a half freshly-shucked oysters later...

Seems like we washed quite a bit of it down with Abita Turbodogs. Gosh, these people know how to eat. The one light, healthy thing we ordered--room-service oatmeal one morning--never made it our room for some reason. We blamed the loud, drunk people in the hotel room next to us.

Home of the Famous Ferdi Special

We heard some Dixieland at Fritzel's--down Bourbon Street a bit, past the strip clubs and loud 3-for-1 bars--and a mix of everything else wandering down Frenchmen Street in The Marigny, before settling in at the Spotted Cat to watch a band whose music was inspired by two of my favorite directions, the South and the East.

All together ooky

Altered Pumpkins (Ipswitch, MA)

Before LSB and I hit the haunted streets of Beacon Hill, I thought I would pull together some of the Halloweeniest images from the past year or so. Enjoy...

Union Square (Somerville, MA)

Menacing Towel Bunny (from a hotel in Houston, TX)

A Very Creepy Saint (Talloires, France)

If you had a B&B, wouldn't you hang
this in a guest room? (Woodstock, VT)

Christians & Pagans (Union Sq, Somerville, MA)

You don't get any ookier (Atlanta, GA)

Basement level with a view (Concord, MA)



Raw Meat + Bandaid = Gross



Their eyes are glowing!

I have lamb for hands! Muuuhahahaaa!

Happy Halloween.

Slaw Dogs on the Midnight Train

On my most recent trip to ATL, I actually left the airport.

After checking into my hotel--situated somewhere in the limbo between Midtown and Downtown--I ventured into the greasy heart of the city. I started with a polarizing landmark perched above a massive highway: The Varsity. Everyone I met in the Atlanta area was adamant that I either "must go" or "must avoid" the place. Apparently, it is known equally for the greasy food (as one person mentioned, even the soda has an oily film on it) and the curt service (What'll ya have!?). I went, promptly ordered the two slaw dog combo meal, and sat in a large, nearly empty room with rows of desks situated like a classroom facing a large-screen TV tuned to ESPN. My meal was a bit heavy on the slaw and light on the dog, but I didn't notice any grease in my cola.

Midnight Train (photo credit: Gladys & Ron)

The next stop on my slog through the Southern Belly involved chicken & waffles. Specifically, Gladys Knight and Ron Winans' Chicken & Waffles. I had the "Midnight Train" (4 large, fried chicken wings and one waffle) while Gladys Knight interviews and performances flashed on the various television screens around the room. Somehow the odd combination of sweet and savory, greasy and syrupy seemed to do the trick.

Step off

We spent an afternoon wandering through crowds of people repeatedly trying to take flash photos of fish at the aquarium. If the picture-taking behavior of the aquarium masses are any indication of the human race's inability to learn and adapt, then we are all doomed. We were also reminded by a well-placed sign to step off the (slow-) moving walkway at the Atlanta Aquarium lest our brains be dashed on the fake rocks ahead. That said, it was a pretty cool aquarium and I took a lot of dark, blurry pictures of fish.

Turner Field made funky by Picasa

LSB and I were in town for a friend's wedding, and were generously invited to an Atlanta Brave's game the day before the ceremony and reception. Unfortunately, the Brave's had just fallen short a few days earlier in their attempt to land a wild card spot in the playoffs, so there was a touch of melancholy at Turner Field that afternoon. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the afternoon at the ballpark, drank tall boys of lawnmower beers in the upper deck, and Tomahawk Chopped away any guilt we felt about supporting a racial stereotype. The game went to extra innings.

I walked through this gate and

have regretted it ever since

Bjartur of Heart Rock Farm

half a flock (the ladies)

A few years ago, I came across a book that piqued my curiousity. It was published in 1946, helped its auther win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and then quickly disappeared from print for several decades before being rediscovered by the literary world...and eventually me.

The setting

Independent People tells the bleak and beautiful (but mostly bleak) story of Bjartur of Summerhouses, a sheep farmer, poet, and father stubbornly trying to eke out a life for himself in early 20th-century Iceland--self-sufficient and beholden to no man. To be honest, reading this book was a bit like Bjartur's life--an endless slog through a rough, snow and ice-covered landscape. Though, in a good way, if that's possible.

A handful of sheep snacks makes
for one photogenic ewe.

Which brings me to the topic of today's post: my brother, who lives with his family in his own tiny little Iceland, in Erie County, just Southeast of Buffalo, NY. He, too, lives on a farm of sorts (dubbed Heart Rock Farm), has sheep of the Icelandic variety, is independently-minded, strives for self-sufficiency, and lives in a really cold and snowy part of the world. However, as my brother--who is not actually named Bjartur--is neither brutally stubborn nor an epic poet (his wife is the writer), that's about as far as I can carry the comparison with the fictional Bjartur.

In addition to the 5 human residents (my brother, sister-in-law, two nieces, and a nephew), Heart Rock Farm is home to about a dozen of the wooly buggers, with names such as Nora, Thunder, Cassie, and Rainbow, in addition to a whole bunch of chickens, a couple of cats, a rabbit, a dog, an old fashioned tractor, and a wooden cider press. There is a small stream, full of salamanders, that runs through a forest on the hill just beyond the barn and sheep pasture.

Scary, evil-looking rams (made possible by
cool special effects on Picasa)

I don't recall there being salamanders at Summerhouses.