New Orleans Author Announces New Book in Progress.

If you don't mind, I'd like to get all literary today.  I am working on a book.  What's the book gonna be about?  C'mon, Silly!  You know it's about New Orleans.  You read it here first: New Orleans Author Announces New Book in Progress.

Your humble narrator under a picture of Walt Whitman.

In a New Orleans state of mind everyone has the soul of a poet.  Everyone dances like nobody is watching.  Everyone is inspired to be their own best self.  Everyone finds their Muse.  Everyone who moves to New Orleans, the first year or two, they're all writing poetry.  Happily, most of them get it out of their system.  New Orleans is a special place.

I have lived in New Orleans for nine years.  Not too long, as a native may say, but not fresh off the airplane, either.  I am a hotelier.  I run a small 5-suite hotel in a colorful mansion on Esplanade Avenue.  You can call it a bed and breakfast if you want to.  Personalized service and hands-on, tailored recommendations is what we offer as New Orleans goodwill ambassadors.  Visit New Orleans like you belong here.  You do belong here.  

New New Orleans Book In the Works!

I don't think the newspaper is going to pick up this news but I've got a new book in the works.  It is about New Orleans, naturally, Silly.  You are among the first to know.

He's got more than one turn-of-phrase up his sleeve.

The first people to know were Frau Schmitt, who is the better half of this operation, Ms. Richardson, my Gal Friday, and Phil, the valet at a restaurant I like to visit regularly.  

Now it's you.

I like to write one-page expository essays.  Here is a sample:

Defend New Orleans Forever

New Orleans is crooked, or, more accurately, New Orleans is curved.  The streets and the neighborhoods follow the turns of the Mississippi River.  The river is the reason New Orleans is here.  It couldn’t be anywhere else.  It wouldn’t be the same.

New Orleans is a city of deviations from the norm.  Nowhere else looks like New Orleans.  Nowhere else smells like New Orleans.  No other food tastes like New Orleans food.  No other music sounds like New Orleans music.  It can rain in New Orleans while the sun shines overhead.  At least it’s not snowing.

New Orleans has one foot in the past and the other in a wet grave.  Defend New Orleans forever.  A tangled skein of parti-colored ribbon, a pot of gumbo, a mess of empty crawfish heads in the neutral ground, New Orleans is children tap dancing on Bourbon Street.  In a New Orleans state of mind, this hugger-mugger shoo-shoo of a city makes perfect sense and sensibility.  It’s not where you are, it’s where y’at.

The stars are aligned.  In satellite photographs, New Orleans glows a halo.  Catch a wish.  There is a physical New Orleans and then there is New Orleans spirit.  As long as people are happy, New Orleans will survive.  That is why New Orleans is here.

Walking in New Orleans is not an A-to-B affair.  It is a curlicue route.  In a New Orleans state of mind, even angels dream of spending time in New Orleans.  New Orleans is as close to Heaven that you’ll get on Earth.  Just look at the street names.

Celery, onion and bell pepper make up the holy trinity of New Orleans cuisine.  The hypotenuse of New Orleans is equal to its length and its breadth.   In New Orleans, we connect the dots.  The father is not the son.  Both their spirit resides in New Orleans.  Defend New Orleans forever. 

God writes straight between crooked lines. 

It's not every day that a New Orleans author announces a new book in progress.  Fasten your seatbelts, folks.  It's gonna be a wild ride with more samples to follow.  Check in regularly.

Be well,

-La Belle Esplanade

P.S.  Our Kettle-Head book is also still in the works.  There is so much to look forward to!  Welcome to the New Orleans state of mind.  

New Orleans gentlemen of distinction drink Dixie.