Sometimes I can be at the grocery store, just picking up my milk and coffee and bananas and the like, and I can forget for just a split second that I live here, in New Orleans, in Louisiana. Then a quick glance at the freezer case snaps me right back to it…
Before I moved here, a friend who had lived here for several years told me that Thanksgiving was his absolute favorite holiday in New Orleans. Not Halloween, not Fat Tuesday, but Thanksgiving. He’s from Arkansas, and has family in Mississippi, but he said he would never ever be anywhere but here for turkey day. Intrigued, I was most curious last Thanksgiving, which was my first one as a resident here, and indeed, my first Thanksgiving ever spent in New Orleans. And I have to say I agree with him. It’s an amazingly fun day here in the Big Easy, and I was looking forward to this one even more.
So why’s it so special? Well, for one thing, there’s the delicious brunch always thrown by another friend, who lives near the race track. Gumbo, creme brulee french toast, cheese grits, baked ham, stuffed bell peppers, stuffed mirlitons, tossed back with shots of chilled Bailey’s or champagne and oj… Perfect start to a Thanksgiving morning.
Then, there’s the track itself. The horse races kick off at 11AM Thanksgiving morning, and people flock there, thankful, I guess, for the chance to place a little wager or three on the ponies. Me? I’m not much of a gambler, but I was thankful for the number of folks who take their horse racing fashion very seriously. Big hats, small hats, outrageous outfits, elegance — it’s all out there. And I love to look at it all, as well as dress up myself. It’s fun, milling about, sipping on something cold, people watching, stopping to watch the horses run around the track, and taking a moment pre-race to survey them as they parade them around the stables. This year it was 80 degrees plus, which made it feel not entirely like Thanksgiving, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless, with the sun peeking through the clouds every now and then.
Post-track this year brought a twist for New Orleanians, thanks to the Saints playing the Cowboys Thanksgiving afternoon. So folks found places to watch the game, and eat some more. It’s a fun day here, in part, because it feels very local. I know people do come in from out of town for Thanksgiving, but at the track anyway, it feels like it’s a secret, fun little holiday just for us. And it makes me happy to be a part of it, and thankful to live here and know so many amazing, lovely, funny, kind people.
Here are a couple shots I took that day, that hopefully convey what it’s like, at least a lil’ bit. Hope your Thanksgiving was fun, too.
Read this the other day and it really resonated with me, as we head into another big election, with the political rhetoric and nonsense heating up, as it always does. When you get angry and you get frustrated, remember these words and at least be happy you can freely express yourself.
“We live in a world in which people are censured, demoted, imprisoned, beheaded, simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That’s the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we’re in one. When all the words in the public conversation are fair, good, and true, it’s time to make a run for the fence.”
– Daniel Gilbert, from an essay for the Edge Foundation, found in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007
On Saturday, I saw this flower, seemingly a sunflower, growing outside a community garden among other more “normal” looking sunflowers. Snapped a pic quickly and moved on. Looking at it later, I couldn’t believe how beautiful it looked, and how the sun shone perfectly behind and through it. Maybe it’s not actually a sunflower… I have no idea. I just know I like it.
The 6t’9 Social Aid and Pleasure Club is a group of New Orleanians who puts on one heck of a parade. It may be short, but it’s fun, and goes through parts of the city sharing candy with kids who live in areas that might not be the safest for trick-or-treating. There are brass bands, a high school band, Mardi Gras Indians, kids and adults dressed up every which way, and the Noisician Coalition — a band made entirely of people using instruments they constructed themselves. A leaf blower becomes a quasi-horn, a mini-fridge on wheels a drum, a megaphone a sound blaster. And they sound good! Really they do.
The parade starts in the 6th Ward (the Treme) and travels through the 7th and 8th Wards to end up in the 9th (hence, 6t’9). I caught the parade in two spots this past Saturday — it starts about a block from my house, so I saw the beginning of it, and then walked a few blocks down to catch it again. Here are a few shots from it:
“The history of religion in the West is nearly equivalent to the history of the failure of preaching. By and large, preaching is a kind of moral violence that excites people’s sense of guilt, and there is no less creative sense than that. You cannot love and feel guilty at the same time, any more than you can be afraid and angry at the same time.”
– Alan Watts, from Still the Mind
This sign is tacked up on a pole on Gov. Nicholls St. just before Rampart. It’s actually the second one there in the year I’ve lived nearby. I first noticed it quite a while back, and then one day, it was just gone. Not sure why or where it went, but a replacement sign has recently appeared in its place, so I snapped these pictures this morning just in case this one, too, decides to disappear. I’ve seen this exact sign a couple of other places across New Orleans, always in this small size, looking just like this, unobtrusive. It’s a nice reminder.
