Allez, les Saints!

During the 6.5 months I spent in New Orleans in 2008 I got a taste of the passion of Saints' fans. Utterly dedicated, faithful, and always there. (Not easy to drive through on weekends if I was on my way to work in the office building that looked down on the Superdome.)

For that reason, and because I love our Grandmère Mimi, I rejoice in the season they have had and I hope they win the Superbowl.

The Night We Drink That Dixie Down
Nick Lick and the Hickies new song for the New Orleans Saints Playoffs 2010



Snaffled shamelessly from Wounded Bird

--the BB

Treat yourself

Get right on over to Mimi's and enjoy some music and visuals from the heart of southern Louisiana, courtesy of Georgianne and Susan Cowsill.

Emphasis on heart.

I might add that St Anna's Episcopal Church - 1313 Esplanade Avenue - has a ministry to the musicians of New Orleans if anyone wants to catch their Wednesday evening program. h/t to Kirstin for this.
--the BB

A last look at New Orleans

I took lots of photos of this tower because it was just outside my office window.


Here is a shot looking up at it from the street - the photo that finally exhausted my camera battery. My last photo of New Orleans.


And, from earlier that morning, dawn in Louisiana. The building on the right is an office building for Jefferson Parish across the street from the apartment complex where I was staying.


--the BB

Adieu, Nouvelle Orléans!

Vic Flyboy and the Obama Bear

After all the lamenting about the lack of a batteried camera I remembered that my MacBook has a built-in camera, so here - courtesy of Photo Booth - is a shot of Vic Flyboy and moise'f at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.

I am wearing the Obama-Biden sweatshirt that I picked up at the ABQ SW HQ two weeks ago.

Vic likes the idea of a home with lots of siblings to play with though he seems a tad anxious about leaving his home town. I assure him that Belle made the transition with great success and she will have a familiar accent.

I was singing "Good morning, starshine" as I went through security. Tooby ooby wabba, on our way home!

It has been nice to get to know, even just a little bit, this beautiful city and its wonderful citizens. I hope the photo chronicles put up here have made it possible for y'all to get some nice glimpses of New Orleans.

Huge thanks to the folks at the company I was working for and to all my colleagues on the project. It's been a pleasure (if we ignore the craziness, but that is always true in life and it comes with the territory).

This report comes to you from the NOLA Airport where most travelers are quietly reading their newspapers, texting, napping, sitting paitiently, etc. and some are very loud. Fortunately, the loud ones passed on to a further gate. Thank you, Jesus.

How can people use such an "outside voice" so early in the morning? It's painful.

Yep, old fart to the end.
--the BB

Mr Bear's wild night

U. S. Customs House, New Orleans, 1892
Courtesy Wikipedia Commons

Looking down Decatur, le Vieux Carré
New Orleans

Detail of the Customs House, New Orleans
Decatur Street

Yep, after work my carpool partner and I headed into the Quarter on a Saturday night.

Dinner on Decatur. Then back to this neck of the woods where I am about to go to bed early. She, my vehicular voisine, is working tomorrow and I am staying home to get over this flipping cold and do some laundry.

I can no longer say I have not ventured into the Quarter after sunset. Well, actually, there was that one time when the company we work through put on a dinner. OK, I haven't been a virgin for a while.

Anyway, that's about as wild as I have gotten in Louisiana.

I still owe y'all a restaurant review and I'm still too tired to write it. Hasta mañana.

As a further note on architecture, I was astonished by the post-modern look of some of the Custom House along Decatur toward the Iberville corner. Very simplified and sleek while retaining neoclassical proportions.

You may read more about the New Orleans Customs House here and here and here.

The impressive exterior of the U.S. Custom House retains its original design, which includes modified Greek and Egyptian Revival elements. The immense four-story building occupies the full trapezoidal downtown city block bounded by Canal, North Peters, Iberville, and Decatur Streets. Due to the shape of the lot, the corner of the building at Canal and North Peters Streets is rounded. The majority of the building is constructed of brick sheathed in gray granite from Quincy, Massachusetts; however, the entablature material is cast iron.

Each of the four facades is similar in design. In the center of each facade is a projecting pavilion consisting of four round, fluted, modified Egyptian, engaged columns. The first floor of the structure is faced with rusticated granite stonework. The cast-iron entablature contains widely spaced triglyphs (three vertical bands) in the frieze and dentils (small square blocks) in the cornice, and supports a triangular pediment above the central portico on each facade. Near both ends of each facade is a slightly projecting bay composed of four modified Egyptian pilasters supporting the entablature. (source)

New Orleans Customs House
viewed from across Canal Street

--the BB

Re+novare

To renovate is to make new.

Here are two shots of the same building, one taken on May 27 and one taken today.


It is difficult to get a good sense of the change because the first photo was taken when sunlight reflected from the windows of the office where I work and created this dappled effect. Artsy but unhelpful. If you click to enlarge you will see plywood doors, general dinginess, cracks, etc. Back then the building was being worked on the interior and a huge crew was gathered each morning preparing to tackle the immense task.

In the past month or so they have been busy as well on the exterior, doing some repairs and applying a couple coats of paint. One can see the difference.


Having observed such efforts, I would like to see the building opened for occupancy. This former office building (yes, another bank in the Central Business District) will become a tower of luxury apartments. I will be gone before that happens, however.

I thought y'all might enjoy some photos of progress.
--the BB

Texture in the half-empty city

I have heard folks use the figure 52%, as in 52% of the pre-Katrina population now lives in New Orleans. After all this time.

It is easy to believe when viewing all the homes, shops, restaurants, and office buildings that have not been restored. Also easy to lose sight of when viewing everything at a distance.




Boarded up. Only certain events take place there.


A sidewalk grill I walk over every day.


Empty space waiting for new life (reflections compete here with the interior destined, I would guess, for retail space).


Yes, this is the same car below that is reflected above. The car park where I park each day and its still abandoned first floor.

When I turn the corner from Loyola (having just passed the incredible clarinet mural) onto Gravier I drive past another boarded up office building, then in the second block another, though it has a coffee and sandwich shop opened on the first floor.

The restaurant on the first floor of the Baronne Hotel featured Philippine food, presumably because of a Philippine chef. A couple of weeks ago I noticed that it seemed closed and, sure enough, the space is for lease.

Everywhere I turn I see both empty, unrepaired buildings and freshly restored ones, cheek by jowl. If you work in the building trades there is lots of work to be done.

These are photos from the past few days.
--the BB

Sunset over the Superdome

Sunset over the Superdome

It is autumn.

My work in New Orleans ends three weeks from today.

There is, to me at least, something elegiac about this photo snapped just as I was leaving work this evening. The curve on the horizon to the right is the silhouette of the Superdome.
--the BB

More Scenes of Nova Aurelia

I regret that when I met my friends from Oakland last week I forgot my camera. I would have like a photo of us together. I also wish I could have taken photos of the sights they pointed out to me. I will try to take a long lunch this coming week and do that.

As we were scoping out the Piazza d'Italia and St Joseph's Fountain I noticed, the inscriptions all being in Latin, that New Orleans is rendered in Latin as Nova Aurelia. The city of Orléans in France was named Aurelianis when the Roman Emperor Aurelian refounded it. All right, that explains my header and those who enjoy etymology can imagine the evolution of the city name.






There are just shots from last weekend. At the moment I am in Albuquerque, noticing that the light on the houses across the street is now an ever-so-slightly golden shade as the sun slants low from just above the West Mesa.

Additional note that I am tossing in here: I have been working on the revision of my novel all but one day of the last six. This is proving to be quite exciting for me. Friend Kathy is clamoring for the sequel but I need to get the first volume finished before going into the next one wholeheartedly. Having said that, I am constantly toying with the sequels in my mind and occasionally on "paper" (actually on the computer).

A neighbor rang my doorbell today. She is an Obama volunteer visiting Democrat households and urging us to vote early. I told her I had just voted by absentee ballot and she checked off my name. Two of her children were with her. I looked across the way and saw a Tom Udall yard sign planted. There is a Martin Heinrich sign in my window. We are not alone. I also learned that there is an Obama office in my own neighborhood. Who knew? Now I do.
--the BB

Glimpses of the devastatiion and rebuilding

Boarded up with open windows

This building was boarded up after Katrina; Gustav removed the front wall.

We commute by it each morning; it was days after I had returned from my road trip before that wall was removed from the street.

Reconstruction next door to St Anna's

Awaiting renovation. Lots of greenery growing on the roof to the right.

Still needing work

I have more photos and hope to take some more. Almost all of New Orleans consists of new building, renovations, and abandoned, deteriorating structures like this. The side-by-side contrasts are staggering. There is so much work still to be done to bring this city fully back to life.

As I have said before, I admire and respect the people of Greater New Orleans.
--the BB

A weekend in New Orleans

Eddie and Dillinger went to work with daddy yesterday and hung out with Aunt Jen. For a couple of certified scamps, they were very well behaved. Of course, what dad can't see or hear for being at the other end of the floor need not be explored. Eddie allegedly used Aunt Jen's extra minutes and made long-distance calls on her cell phone. I hope they weren't to Australia.

Anyhow, here they are checking out the swimming pool at the neighboring hotel. I believe some bikini-clad females had been out taking in the sun earlier.


My carpool chum and I went to the WWII Museum this afternoon.



And, finally, here is a shot to prove I went to church this morning. Kirstin, you will recognize the candle bank in the narthex at St Anna's on the Esplanade. I want you to know the lit candle in the lower right of the photo was lit for you. I had no small currency so it's a $20 candle - I hope it works and you feel better!


--the BB

Yesterday early evening

Or late afternoon, as you prefer.

While walking to the car park I looked up at the glorious sky. I wish this photo could capture how radiant it looked.

New Orleans early evening sky, October 2008

The Orpheum Theater, New Orleans

Enjoy!
--the BB

More architectural details

The Cotton Exchange, New Orleans

I really wanted a wide enough lens to capture the inscription.

Window treatment of the Cotton Exchange

Alas one does not quite get the detail of the copper trim at the roofline

Back when windows had presence

Scrollwork, New Orleans Cotton Exchange

Many downtown businesses in New Orleans are still boarded up after Katrina

A final shot of brick, stone, and romanesque windows

I have not completely stopped taking pictures like this. It's just that I have already photographed most of my immediate work environment and because of carpooling I don't take the leisurely lunches I would prefer.

Enjoy!

--the BB

Eddie and the Bear

While Maggie and Belle are back in Albuquerque, regaling their siblings with tales their dad needn't hear and planning escapades dad really doesn't need to hear about, I have not returned to New Orleans alone.

Yes, that silhouetted figure checking out the Superdome from my boss's office is another one of the kids, one who especially wanted to visit the Crescent City.

I'll let him speak for himself.

Hello.

My name is Eddie (Oedi if my dad is looking, but nobody can spell that).

My family came to California with the eucalyptus trees but we were less invasive.

I am extremely fond of shrimp and crawfish and enjoy a good annelid étouffée.

I like to hunt and fish but that doesn’t make me a bubba. I also like Faith Hill, Mozart, and vintage Three Dog Night. I am an awesome swimmer. I'd vote for Obama if I could but it's hard to register if you write with webbed feet. Moose are my friends. In fact, one of my brothers is a Moose. Pample is back home in Albuquerque. I do not shoot moose or wolves, just to be clear. OK, enough politics.

Paul took me to the vet to have my poison spurs removed but the rest of me is intact, so if you know any fine monotreme females, send them my way. I’ll put another shrimp on the barbie.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oy, oy, oy!

Well, you can see he's quite the guy, funloving and adventurous. I think he has seen more of New Orleans than I have. Since platypodes (I'm going for the Greek plural since it is really a Greek word slightly latinized) dine on shrimp, crawfish, and annelid worms he is in platy heaven!

Bubba Gump on Decatur seems to be one of his haunts. Since you can't get me near a crawfish I let him wander where he will and have fun. I have heard him mumble "étouffée" in his sleep. Auntie Jen likes cuddling with him on especially stressful days. What a charmer.

Here are a few more architectural details. I really have not been out and about with the camera much lately. Work. Rest. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. I have now worked 15 days in a row and am looking forward to flying home Thursday evening.

Detail of capital on the Whitney Bank Building, New Orleans

Cool detail on the corner of St Charles and Common

Ornamentation of the upper windows

Ornamentation of the lower windows

Sunrise gilds the buildings of the CBD, New Orleans

Sunrise on the Superdome

Closeup of sunrise on the Superdome

A platypus and his bear take their ease

And that's the news from Lake, uh, Pontchartrain!
--the BB