NOLA

Without New Orleans, the market for plastic bead necklaces would collapse.

Almost a month after returning from “NOLA,” which is what the conference coordinator and New Orleans Times-Picayune called it, I have finally gotten around to writing about the experience. Though I did not get to see or do as much as I wanted since I was sick and working, I did get a small taste of the Crescent City.

On St. Patrick’s Day I enjoyed the festivities in the French Quarter, catching the very end of the raucous parade while on Decatur Street. The last floats and vehicles were stopped for about five minutes in front of the Jackson Brewery, including an old fire engine painted white and loaded with heavily beaded and drunken revelers boogieing to disco favorites. The parade watchers were dancing in the street, horns and sirens were sounding, and the cops watched with huge smiles on their faces. It was a crazy scene. While entranced by the gyrations of what a friend called “new-age southern belles” on the fire engine (I got one to throw me a necklace), I could not help thinking, “They did this last week for Mardi Gras, too.” In a city with such hard luck, why not throw a parade every week?

Except for a quick walk down Bourbon Street, a reception Wednesday evening, and St. Paddy’s, I did not got out of the hotel. I mostly experienced the nauseous, corporate-friendly atmosphere of the Sheraton and the kitsch tourist industry that dominates Canal Street. The one day when I had time to do any sightseeing or general wandering — Monday, the day I flew in — I was incapacitated with a vicious fever. After riding the shuttle bus to my hotel I checked in, went to my room, and hit the sack. I planned to nap for a hour or two, but as the DayQuil I took earlier wore off I decided to stay under the covers. For the rest of the day I got up twice: once to answer the door for a complimentary tray of cheese and fruit from room service (I was shocked, and almost left the plate untouched for fear of being charged for it), and another time to walk to a Walgreens on Canal Street for a box of Tylenol PM.

In spite of my night in, though, I got a couple first impressions of New Orleans on my ride from the airport:

-The condition of the roads is awful. Or maybe the suspension on the shuttle was shot. Either way, it was a rough ride on the surface streets.

-Just as Iowa has a thing for painting the metal girders of overpasses and bridges green, Louisiana prefers light gray. Any infrastructure supported by metal — and there was a ton of it, presumably since the water table is so high — was the same light gray specked with the copper of corrosion.

-While exiting the airport loop, two budding academics (probably Masters students) sitting in front of me quietly proclaimed their excitement about seeing palm trees. I thought, “Yay! The most worthless trees in the world!”

-Stuck in minor slow-and-go traffic on the viaduct (painted light gray) heading into downtown, I peeked below and saw a group of people working on a backyard landscape. The flowers were bright yellow, red, and blue, and the grass was deep green. I assumed they were volunteers for a Habitat for Humanity project. Farther down the road I saw a couple men lounging on concrete foundations, the edges of which were lined with empty bottles. Still farther I saw homeless men camped on the sidewalk outside a soup kitchen. In the distance were abandoned apartment buildings, one of which looked as if it had been half burned.

Upon seeing the remaining destruction and hardships of the city, I expected to cry out of guilt for the tragedy befallen New Orleans and its painful and slow recovery. However, except for the contrasting scenes I saw stuck in traffic on the freeway — which are shamefully not uncommon in large cities across the country — I was spared from seeing what I assumed was just beyond the lively commercial and tourist district: the abandoned and wrecked neighborhoods, the homes with rescue team marks still painted on the front, and the scars of a hurricane from over five years ago still plainly visible. Instead I saw thousands of beads hung from the balcony railings of the French Quarter, aloof and absentminded academics, and the distant reaches of the city from the 46th floor. I had no way to gauge first-hand how New Orleans is doing.

Bourbon Street was nothing special. It was lined with bars and tourist traps. On the whole, though, the French Quarter was walkable and full of specialty shops and restaurants. There were a lot of art galleries, most of which were selling tasteless NOLA-related shit (at least in my opinion). Artists, musicians, and palm readers set up shop in front of St. Louis Cathedral. The district was rich with history.

Having never been to the dirty south, except for Texas, I was expecting the locals to speak with a hardcore, stereotypical twang. However, none did. At a conference reception (located in a French Quarter restaurant that was supposedly haunted), a professor from New Orleans said the city has a much more general accent; it is heavily influenced by the port traffic that comes from all over the country and world. “Outside the city,” he said, “in the sticks where the hicks live, that’s where you’ll hear a deep accent.”

Beerwise, I did not get to sample any of the area’s indigenous breweries. I saw a lot of Abita beers being served in the bars I passed, but, for the most part, I was not feeling well enough to drink much; my taste buds were completely out of whack and everything I drank tasted like cherry-flavored cough syrup. There was a Gordon Biersch brewpub and restaurant a couple blocks from the hotel and I ate there two nights. The first night I had one or two hefeweizens, and the second night I had a märzen. Each brew was served ice cold. However, despite my illness handicap, it was much better beer than the Primo Island Lager I had my first night in Honolulu last year. That stuff has got to be the worst beer I have ever had.

So that was NOLA, or at least as much as I want to write about it. Oh, here’s a tip: if you stay in downtown New Orleans and need to get to the airport early in the morning, I suggest taking a cab. The shuttle dropped me off with just an hour to spare before my flight was scheduled to leave, so I stood in line (at 5 o’clock in the morning!) at the ticket counter and for security screening. I had no clue whether I would make it, but I arrived in the sterile area a couple minutes before boarding began. Phew!