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.

New Orleans Is a Full City

I could be wrong, or I may be right about everything I say about happy-go-lucky New Orleans.  New Orleans is a multi-faceted city, a fun-house of a city, mirror-faced and self-reflective.  Look in the right end of the telescope/microscope to make sure what you're seeing in New Orleans is right-sized.  New Orleans is an, open-minded, well-respected, up-to-date, devil-may-care merry-go-round of a city.  New Orleans is a fully hyphenated city.  Come see for yourself.

Your humble narrator: an amateur lexicographer

New Orleans puts the 'nous' in 'Nouveau.'

It's not polite to say this but people often do: New Orleans puts the 'fun' in 'Funeral.'

Joie de vivre and je n'est c'est quoi are the orders of the day in New Orleans.  If you think you know where you are going to be in the next hour in New Orleans, you're wrong.  Every day is an ongoing parade.  Let the good times roll.

Someone is shooting off Roman candles a block uptown from here.  The sky is full of parti-colored sparks.  It's another New Orleans evening.  It is somebody's birthday.

When you are in New Orleans, you are in the free world.  

Take a ride on Esplanade Avenue

When was the last time you met someone who won 2nd prize in a beauty contest?  When was the last time your bank paid you a dividend to $50.00?  Advance to Esplanade Avenue.  

Frau Schmitt is the better half of this operation.  She agrees with me, your humble narrator, that we are very fortunate to live on the downtown side of New Orleans.  We have grown to fall deeply in love with this side of Canal Street.  Though they share many similarities, the two halves of New Orleans are very, very different.  

I was talking to Kettle-Head on Monday and he told me how he had discovered a dead dog that had been hidden under a parked car on Dauphine Street in the French Quarter.

Kettle-Head told me, "The car pulled away and there, in its spot, was a dead dog lying flat.  It had rained that morning so the street was wet, except for where that dog was laying.  The dog was in a dry spot as big as the car.  The dog had been dead for so long that it had rigor mortis." 

In other news, I say a puppet show on Tuesday.  

Some of the neighborhood gang has written a puppet play and they are rehearsing right now in their front yards.  First the stage will be on North Miro Street, then it will move to St. Philip Street for a few days, then to North Rocheblave Street, and so on, and so on until the script will be perfected.  It's all great fun.  I can't way to see the finished product.  It should be done before schools starts in August.

So far, the play has something to do with a dragon and an alligator and a bunny.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I walked Li'l Tater home.  His mother had lost track of him while she was gardening so I saw him two lots down where he was picking marigolds out of Mrs. Estelle's garden. I stopped him, took Li'l Tater's hand, and toddled him back to his own front porch where his mother was looking for him.  Naughty Tater.  He's a curious tyke.

You never know what you'll find in New Orleans

Today, I saw a voodoo sign painted on an oak tree's trunk.

This week isn't even over yet!

À votre santé,
-La Belle Esplanade
Thursday, June 20, 2019

There is a physical New Orleans and then there is a New Orleans of the heart.  Keep your eyes open in this wonderful city we call home and you’ll learn what it means to fall in love with New Orleans.  We’re here for you.  You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue.    Follow our other blog, or, follow us on Facebook, subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.  Keep yourself in a New Orleans state of mind.  There is regular happy, and then there is New Orleans happy.  When you’re ready to visit, you know where to find us: we’re in the bright orange house with blue shutters.  Good memories are made on our street.

We only have five suites.  Ours is a small artisanal operation.  You know how you get the best beer from a craft brewery.  Well, you get the best hospitality from a craft hotel.  We know what we’re doing.  Let us share the real New Orleans with you, not the off-the-rack version.  Plug your dates into our calendar and see what we have available.  Plan ahead.  With only five suites we tend to fill up early.

Stay as long as you can.  No one ever says their visit to New Orleans is too long.  They always say it is too short.  The longer you are here, the more you’ll realize how much more there is to discover and explore.  There are good surprises around every corner.  New Orleans blooms with happiness.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us, that’s what we’re here for.  We look forward to meeting you in person.

Ranked the #1 place to stay in New Orleans since April 2014 for very good reasons:

The Great Kettle-Head of New Orleans (1)

Kettle-Head is a local character who roams our neighborhood while wearing a 20-gallon crawfish pot over his head.  He can see.  He’s cut eye holes and a mouth hole in the pot, the way the Unknown Comic did with his paper bag.  

His pot only used to have eye holes but no one could understand what he was saying.  That’s when he cut the mouth hole into the pot.

Everyone calls him Kettle-Head but that’s not his real name.  Every knows his real name.  It’s not a secret identity.  Kettle-Head has nothing to hide.  Some people think he’s a knucklehead, a chowderhead, a dim bulb.  He’s none of that.  He is Kettle-Head, in a class by himself.  

Everyone calls him Kettle-Head.  For him it is a badge of honor and they call him Kettle-Head with that intention.  He’s respected.  Everyone knows his real name.  It’s not exactly a secret identity.  

Kettle-Head wears the same clothes when he doesn’t have a crawfish pot over his head as when he does.  He doesn’t try to disguise his voice, though his voice does sound somewhat different coming out from a hole in the side of a 20-gallon pot.  

When he has the pot over his head, everyone calls him Kettle-Head, even his mother.  He isn’t a man of mystery in the usual sense.

Kettle-Head is a man of the people.  He is a New Orleans institution.  He’s no Leah Chase.  He isn’t anything like Dr. John or Allen Toussaint.  He is Kettle-Head, the one and the only. That is enough.

The future is bright.

Have a great New Orleans day today,

La Belle Esplanade

There is a physical New Orleans and then there is a New Orleans of the heart.  Keep your eyes open in this wonderful city we call home and you’ll learn what it means to fall in love with New Orleans.  We’re here for you.  You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue.    Follow our other blog, or, follow us on Facebook, subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.  Keep yourself in a New Orleans state of mind.  There is regular happy, and then there is New Orleans happy.  When you’re ready to visit, you know where to find us: we’re in the bright orange house with blue shutters.  Good memories are made on our street.

We only have five suites.  Ours is a small artisanal operation.  You know how you get the best beer from a craft brewery.  Well, you get the best hospitality from a craft hotel.  We know what we’re doing.  Let us share the real New Orleans with you, not the off-the-rack version.  Plug your dates into our calendar and see what we have available.  Plan ahead.  With only five suites we tend to fill up early.

Stay as long as you can.  No one ever says their visit to New Orleans is too long.  They always say it is too short.  The longer you are here, the more you’ll realize how much more there is to discover and explore.  There are good surprises around every corner.  New Orleans blooms with happiness.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us, that’s what we’re here for.  We look forward to meeting you in person.