what you need is love potion number nine

On Heidi's last morning, I wanted to go on a "Voodoo and Cemeteries" tour. I was interested in seeing the old St. Louis cemeteries, and one of the characters in the screenplay I'm writing with Tim- the one I was supposed to be writing in New Orleans instead of doing arbitrations - is a voodoo practitioner, so I thought it would be interesting. Brie wisely decided to stay home in the a/c and work, but I got Heidi to come along, wearing an appropriate long black sundress with skulls all over it.

Part of the tour went to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, built in 1826 as a burial chapel for yellow fever victims. Yellow fever (called Yellow Jack, the Black Vomit, or the American Plague by the people who suffered from the summer epidemics in the 18th and 19th centuries) is also part of our story, so maybe we'll... set a scene here or something. I don't know.

Then the tour went to St. Louis Cemetery #1, on the edge of the quarter in Treme. (This was the cemetery that I passed on my way to the pound.) I was interested in seeing because it's the oldest cemetery in New Orleans, with graves dating back to the 1700s, but I had been told by three different people that you can get mugged in that cemetery. Paul told me not to go in alone if I didn't want a bat to the back of my head.

New Orleans is known for its Cities of the Dead. Because of the high water table, you hit water digging only a few feet into the ground, especially before the city was drained in the early 20th century. Early settlers tried placing stone on top of the graves, but after rainstorms, the rising water table could pop the airtight coffins out of the ground. So the French colonists co-opted the Spanish vault style. Poor families are buried in wall vaults, or oven vaults, seen on the right side of this picture. Wealthier families are buried in a mausoleum, where coffins are stacked one on top of another. When the vault is full, and a new coffin needs to be added, the coffin on the bottom of a stack is opened, and the contents (ashes by that time... the vaults get so hot that there is a natural cremation process) are moved into a bag and placed at the back of the vault. Then that coffin is burned and room is made at the top for a new coffin. But the coffin has to lie undisturbed for a year and a day, and during epidemic years, sometimes the vaults would completely fill up within a year. In those cases, families would lease space from another family's vault until the year and a day is up. We saw one huge mausoleum, shared by forty families, that contained the remains of thousands of people. Even above-ground, though, the vaults slowly sink into the earth. This is a picture of the top of a marker in a wall vault, now at ground level.

I was really interested in the cemetery, but by the time we actually got in there and were standing between the whitewashed tombs, it was about a thousand degrees outside and I thought I might have actually died myself. And that I didn't go to Heaven. The guide kept talking and talking, and I was about to pass out so it kind of sounded like "tomb of Marie Laveau.... blahgerg mishnear flep... marngy prawl... voodoo priestess... grog nuffle." There were x's drawn all over her tomb (markings to bring luck) but according to the guide, this is "just Hollywood superstition." I've noticed in other parts of the country, "Hollywood" is sometimes used as a synonym for "ridiculous."

The tour ended at the Voodoo Spiritual Temple, where we sat in the courtyard and were given what seemed to be a sermon by Priestess Miriam, formerly of Chicago. I'm guessing it was a sermon because about 80% of the time I had no idea what she was saying. She kept laughing at her own comments and said stuff like, "You do the e-harmony, and then you wonder why your kids are doing the internet dating, and you say, 'what? what are they doing?' but it was you who did the e-harmony." And that was the part that I could understand most of the words for.

Then we went inside, to the altar room, which was full of tapestries and various statues and figurines, many with tightly rolled bills stuck in their mouths and ears and hands. A couple of the people in the group clearly did not want to enter the room, and tried to linger in the hallway outside, but Priestess Miriam insisted they come in and form a circle. Then she talked more. Some of this I got on Heidi's camera. I just opened it up at waist-level and hit record because I wasn't sure she would be ok with me taping her. After watching this a few times, I can follow what she's saying, and I have to say, I really think she was making more sense here than she was earlier, and I wish I had gotten part of her speech in the courtyard on video.



The yellow flyers she's holding in her hands had a prayer printed on them. I kept mine but can't find it now. It said something like "We ask the Father to grant us compassion. We ask the Son to grant us strength. We ask the Spirit to grant us love." Voodoo originates in Africa as a form of ancestor worship. When the African people were brought to Louisiana and enslaved, they were also forcibly baptized Catholic. Modern Voodoo reflects strong Catholic influence.

Since the priestess got through both of her talks without really telling us about Voodoo, when she asked if anyone had any questions (at which point the couple who tried to stay in the hallway shot for the exit) I asked her if she could tell us about the objects in the room. She looked annoyed and said, "I already told you everything." (About e-harmony.) But she told a story about how they got one of the statues in the room from a man who lived upstairs. A story that still had nothing to do with Voodoo. Then she said she wasn't "consecrated to talk about physical Voodoo." And that was it.

I was a bit disappointed. I did do some other research later, though mostly I didn't find much I didn't already know. Last Monday Paul and I tried to go to a hoodoo shop across the river in Algiers called House of the Seven Sisters, but it was closed. Shocker. Paul kept saying, "She went to a hoo-doo shop in Al-geeahs and ne-vuh came back" in an exaggerated Brooklyn-Southern New Orleans accent. Hoodoo is a local version of Voodoo... it's folk magic, superstition, conjuration. The spells without the spirituality.

To find the lucky numbers for gambling, take the Bible. Now, I want you to read the ninth chapter of Psalms - reads it over three times before going to bed. When you read it over three times before going to bed, open the Bible and sleep with it - sleep with that Bible right under your pillow and you'll dream of that lucky number. When you get up the next morning, you can tell a person exactly about that number. And if you throw that number then they'll catch it.

~ from "Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Rootwork: Beliefs Accepted By Many Negroes and White Persons, These Being Orally Recorded Among Blacks and Whites, Volume Three"
by Harry Middleton Hyatt (1973)

Various Voodoo remedies used to be sold in pharmacies in New Orleans in the 19th century. Potions were labeled by number so that customers could ask for "Number Six" without asking for "Love Success," for example. There's a pharmacy museum on Chartres Street in the Quarter that had some old voodoo stuff that was pretty interesting.


Voodoo was mentioned a couple other times on my trip, in sort of interesting ways. On Brie's last Sunday, we went to Mass at St. Augustine Church in Faubourg Treme. They sometimes have "Jazz Mass" there but I think we were there for a regular service. I had never been to Mass before, so I have nothing to compare it to, but Brie tells me that it's unusual to sing "When the Saints Go Marching In" and "This Little Light of Mine" at Mass.

At one point in the sermon, the priest said, "God is not magic. God is not gris-gris." Gris-gris (pronounced "gree gree") is a Voodoo talisman, a small cloth bag full of herbs, oils, bones, nails, hair, grave dirt, etc. that one wears to ward off evil or bring good luck. I noticed his comment especially because he didn't have to explain what gris-gris is... the congregation would have obviously known... but I didn't really think more about it, until two days later, when I was driving Brie to the airport. We were listening to a recording of Donald Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz, speaking at our church retreat this year (which I didn't attend,) and he said, "What happens in our religion, what happens in our faith, is that we want God to help us get the things (we want.) ...It depersonalizes our relationship with God. God is no longer a Father who we trust, who is guiding us to live a better story by shaping our character. What is He? He's a genie in a lamp. And if we do this religious thing, He will grant our wishes. You know what that is? It's Voodoo. The closest thing we have to Evangelical culture in America is Voodoo."

Sometimes I think when I'm supposed to really hear something, God will tell me several times. And here was a sermon from a Catholic priest in New Orleans and a podcast by a post-modern thirtysomething writer saying the exact same thing: God is not Voodoo. And I wonder if I've been trying to do things, things that are not literally magical but are like little head games that I play with myself, to make my life turn out the way that I think it should be. Rather than listening for God's voice and trying to follow it. And maybe God wants me to quit worrying about the future and just do the best that I can with what I have.

It's also possible He just didn't want me to get a tarot card reading in Jackson Square, which I wanted to do because I've always thought tarot cards were cool and creepy, and I could use it as research. So I didn't. Just in case.

I told her that I was a flop with chicks
I'd been this way since 1956
She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign
She said, What you need is
Love Potion Number Nine

~"Love Potion Number Nine"
Lyrics by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller

cajun air conditioning, streetcars, and snow in july

After our jazz brunch, Heidi, Brie and I decided to ride the St. Charles streetcar through the Garden District. The St. Charles streetcars began operating in 1835 (pulled by mules,) making them the oldest continuously operating street railway system in the world. When the streetcars were replaced by buses in the 19040s, the St. Charles line was saved by being designated a national historic landmark.

We got off in Carrollton and walked to a little stand in the middle of a neighborhood, and got snowballs, which are basically really soft snowcones available in a hundred flavors and dished out in Chinese takeout containers. I LOVED mine. I was so happy. I don't think Brie and Heidi were quite as excited about theirs as I was about mine. (I'll spare you the shot of my strawberry/raspberry-stained tongue.)

We walked around in Carrollton, which was kind of exhausting because of the heat. Heidi said she knows now why things are slow in the south... it's just too hot to do anything quickly. We looked around in a boutique in the Riverbend district, which used to be an open air market, and walked back to the streetcar, which we took back to the Quarter.

The Carrollton stop:


Self-portrait:


What happened back at the apartment:


We did rally later, and attempted to go to two restaurants (Port of Call = 90 minute wait, Napoleon House = closed) before settling on a restaurant in the Quarter with some generic name like "Quarter Restaurant," where Brie was tricked into ordering fried duck quesadillas. Everything here is fried.

"The Louisiana diet will kill a man as surely as the sword." ~King of the Hill

We also went to Cafe du Monde and got beignets and hot chocolate. And discussed politics. Just how we roll.

The next day we drove to Slidell (which took longer than it should have because I hadn't yet replaced the spare tire, but fortunately Brie's dad entertained us by singing Ol' Man River on speakerphone as we drove over the bridge) and went on a flatboat tour of Honey Island Swamp, which was about an hour longer than my attention span could handle, but still kind of fun.

An alligator named Yellow Jaw:



A dragonfly named Vilhelm:


A swamp resident whose name I didn't catch:


And cajun air conditioning:



On the way back, we stopped near Bayou St. John to get po' boys at Parkway Bakery, though I couldn't get either Brie or Heidi to get the fried shrimp one, as Heidi does not like shrimp and Brie does not like fried. Then we drove around that area a little to see the bayou and then on to Lake Pontchartrain.

New Orleans is on the river, but all connection to the river is as a port. For recreation, people go to the lake. We saw a lot of people with picnics and frisbees. Further along, cement steps go right down into the water. We drove through the Lakeview area, which was badly flooded during Katrina when the 17th Street levee was breeched, and onto Bucktown, a commercial fishing village that was destroyed. The high water marks here were near or on the roofs of the houses, and many, many of them were still boarded up or were obviously empty inside.

Then we went back to the Quarter, and drove around until we found 521 Governor Nicholls, New Orleans home of the prettiest couple in the world. Why did we do this in New Orleans when we wouldn't do this in Los Angeles? I don't know. It's a mystery.

In case you missed that issue of Star, this is the house, only a few blocks from my place:


After that went home and washed the swamp/lake off, and headed out to the Columns Hotel, where people actually sit on the veranda and sip mint juleps. Besides the mosquitoes, which were out with a vengeance, it was awesome. Oh, Mint Julep, where have you been all my life? The Columns is on St. Charles Avenue in the Garden District amidst a bunch of big old houses, so it was really quiet and peaceful. Every once in a while a streetcar would go by, the handful of people inside lit up like they were on a moving stage. In this picture you can see the blurred image of a streetcar, as well as the drunk white-haired gentleman who introduced his friend Nadine to us about six times:


After that, we went back to Port of Call, where Heidi and I split a hamburger and Brie and I tried their famous Monsoons. They like to name drinks after disastrous weather conditions here. We were trying to get to Preservation Hall by 11 in time to catch the last jazz set, and we did get there by 11, just in time to catch it closing. I could write an entire blog entry about the things here that are supposed to be open at various times and are not. I won't. But I could.

Since we couldn't hear jazz, we had to content ourselves with just walking around looking really, really hot. Like this:


And we may have eaten more beignets. Can't be sure.

Dere's an ol' man called de Mississippi
Dat's de ol' man dat I'd like to be!
What does he care if de world's got troubles?
What does he care if de land ain't free?

Ol' man river,
Dat ol' man river
He mus' know sumpin'
But don't say nuthin',
He jes' keeps rollin'
He keeps on rollin' along.

~ "Ol' Man River"
Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

the last time i saw jesus, i was drinking bloody marys in the south

Seeing as I'm 19 days behind on the New Orleans part of the trip, and taking advantage of the rain from Dolly, I thought it would be a good morning to stay indoors and blog a little, and maybe catch up to only 12 days behind.

Brie's first week here was nice and lowkey. We mostly worked during the day, sometimes at home and sometimes at coffeeshops. Working here has been a big improvement over trying to work in Rome last year, where I didn't have easy access to the internet and all the coffeeshops were full of loud tourists. I'm not necessarily working that much better, though.

Brie picked up a handy little skill while she was out here. Infused by the jazz soul of New Orleans, and finding that this little piano in Pat O'Brien's Pub is stuffed full of garbage bags so that people won't play it, she learned how to play guitar. In case she's planning on whipping it out at a party soon, I won't ruin the surprise by telling you that she can now play "Poughkeepsie," "Long Lost Brother," and a song with a refrain that includes a phrase that sounds like "free, free of the danger." This is Brie rocking out:


I'm a little jealous of her rocking-out hair.

The other thing we managed to find time to do was eat and drink, necessary activities raised to the level of art in New Orleans. Although, just as a warning for the future, the combination of seafood gumbo and hurricanes is a bad idea. Bad. Idea. So what if Brie learned how to play a new musical instrument? I learned a little something in New Orleans, too.

A much better combination of food and drink is beignets (ben-yays) and hot chocolate at Cafe Du Monde on Jackson Square. When I was 16, Adam Curry and I drove to New Orleans from Mississippi for one day, and this is what I remember. Beignets. Powdered-sugar-covered pieces of heaven. There are a mass of outdoor tables, and the floor is white with sugar, and you can get a plate of beignets and two hot chocolates for six bucks.

Brie's beignets:


When Heidi Spencer (née Hazen) arrived the following Friday, it was a nice excuse to completely stop working for a few days (read: stop attempting to pretend to work) and just see the city. We got dinner at Bywater Barbecue (where the street "Desire" is, as in "A Streetcar Named" though now the only public transportation that runs to Desire is a bus) and then decided to show Heidi the beautiful courtyard with the flaming fountain (and the hurricanes, I suppose... I did NOT have one) at Pat O'Brien's. When we walked in, it was ten times more crowded than it had been the weekend before when Brie and I went. We had to push through people to get through the courtyard. The other thing that was rather remarkable was that the crowd was almost entirely silent. Everyone was signing to one another. Apparently the National Association of the Deaf had a convention in town. It was kind of amazing. Fueled by hurricanes, we returned home to make a Happy Birthday video for Yvette 3.0, the missing member of our little traveling quartet.

Saturday morning we somehow managed to get up early (before 8!) to visit the Crescent City Farmer's Market in the warehouse district before breakfast. Because Heidi likes farmer's markets. This one wasn't too impressive, though. Maybe we're spoiled.

We finished with the farmer's market earlier than we thought we would, so we drove across town via Magazine Street and saw Audubon Park and the outside of the zoo. We also stopped at Whole Foods, because we needed water and cash, and because Heidi can't resist the mother ship. Then we came back to the apartment and got ready to go to jazz brunch at Commander's Palace, one of the nicest restaurant in New Orleans, serving tourists and riverboat captains since 1880. It was Yvette's birthday breakfast so we thought we should make it good. Brie had steak and eggs, I think, which she liked, and Heidi and I both had the "Louisiana Sportsman's Brunch." Because it was brunch, and we're sportsmen. It was, like... pecan pancakes with peaches and "duck debris." It sounds completely weird but it was actually pretty great. For dessert I had a cloud-like souffle. The spirit of Yvette had three Bloody Marys. Our toast:


I tried to drink mine for her sake but it was just too much for me at 11:30 in the morning. A trio of jazz musicians played for the room and serenaded each table, which was fun. The trumpet player sounded like Louis Armstrong. The guitar player had halitosis, according to Heidi, who was sitting across from him when he was singing.

The last time I saw Jesus
I was drinking bloody marys in the South
In a barroom in New Orleans
Rinsin' out the bad taste in my mouth

She wore a dark and faded blazer
With a little of the lining hanging out
When the jukebox played Miss Dorothy Moore
I knew that it was him without a doubt

I said the road is my redeemer
I never know just what on earth I'll find
In the faces of a stranger
In the dark and weary corners of a mind

She said, The last highway is only
As far away as you are from yourself
And no matter just how bad it gets
It does no good to blame somebody else

Ain't it crazy
What's revealed when you're not looking all that close
Ain't it crazy
How we put to death the ones we need the most

I know I'm not a martyr
I've never died for anyone but me
The last frontier is only
The stranger in the mirror that I see

But when I least expect it
Here and there I see my Savior's face
He's still my favorite loser
Falling for the entire human race

~"Jesus in New Orleans"
Lyrics by Karin Bergquist & Linford Detweiler