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.

Providence and New Orleans.

What is steamboat gothic?  You'll know it when you see it.  It's not steampunk.

I was in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward the other day to poke around and to see the two steamboat gothic houses that are located down there, at the end of Egania Street.  They are beautiful houses.

Here's one:

The garden-ringed steamboat gothic house in New Orleans.

Here's the other:

The levee-side steamboat gothic house in New Orleans.

They are exact replicas of each other.

People ask me about the 9th Ward.  "I hear that's where the flooding was the worst after Hurricane Katrina," they'll say.

Well, 80% of the city was flooded to one extent or another.  What makes one part of the city worse?  Most everyone lost everything they owned, both house and contents.  It's a matter of degree, perhaps, but it's the nth degree.

The Lower 9 is part of the 9th Ward.  The 9th Ward is the biggest ward in New Orleans, by far.  It includes the Lower 9, the Upper 9, Gentilly, and New Orleans East.  Wikipedia describes the boundaries helpfully, though, for whatever reasons, the article doesn't describe the East.

The thing about New Orleans is that you have to live here to really get a handle on all this convoluted city's facets.  New Orleans is a kaleidoscope, different every time you take a turn.  Familiarity breeds bewilderment the first couple of years but a person eventually gets an instinctual feel for the neighborhoods after enough time spent here.   With practice, New Orleans is as navigable as a familiar dreamscape.  

I don't know why H.P. Lovecraft never felt at home here.  New Orleans is Providence on steroids.

New Orleans City Park.

I've been to Providence.  I love Providence.  It is my favorite city in New England (and, as someone from Connecticut, that takes some guts to say that).  I live now in New Orleans.  I love New Orleans.  I know very few people who don't love New Orleans.  There is only one Providence.  There is only one New Orleans.

Tennessee Williams said there are only three cities in America: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans.  Everywhere else is Cleveland.  Tennessee Williams was wrong.  There are plenty of cities in America that are interchangeable with Cleveland but Providence isn't one of them.

Back to New Orleans....

La Belle Esplanade, the #1 small hotel to stay at in New Orleans, is located in the 6th Ward.  Where's the 6th Ward at?

These boots were made for walking to the most colorful houses on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.

In New Orleans, if you meet someone you know, you don't say hello or "How are you doing?"  You say, "Where y'at?"

We live on the 6th Ward side of Esplanade Avenue.  The other side of our street is the 7th Ward.  The 6th Ward is bounded by Esplanade Avenue and St. Philip Street and the Mississippi River and Bayou St. John.  The 6th Ward is four blocks wide and forty blocks long.  

If you want to learn more about New Orleans, I know a good place where you should stay when you visit.  La Belle Esplanade is staffed by New Orleans goodwill ambassadors who offer personalized recommendations tailored to what interests you.  Even if you aren't interested in New Orleans wards or steamboat gothic, there is plenty more for us to talk about.  Make a reservation today at the #1 small hotel in New Orleans.  We'll be more than happy to share what we know about this wonderful city we call home.  It is what we do.  We love what we do.  You will fall in love with New Orleans, too.

La Belle Esplanade: Price is what you pay; value is what you get.

You Have a Friend in New Orleans

When do you wish the wind to stop blowing?  In New Orleans in summer, let it blow.  Let it blow.  Let it blow!  Every breeze is welcome.  You have a friend in New Orleans.  I know.  I live here.

Breakfast is served.

Everyone is happy to be in New Orleans.  If you are bored here, you've got a whopper of a hole in your imagination.  Everyone is happy in New Orleans.  Everyone has a friend in New Orleans.  Even the ducks:

Quack. Quack.  Quack!  Quack.

19 million tourists visited New Orleans last year.  That's more than the number of people who visited Hawaii.  If the great State of Louisiana can be compared to the great State of Hawaii, then New Orleans is Wikiki.  Fun and frolic.

In Hawaii they have "aloha culture."  In New Orleans, we have "laginiappe culture."  What's lagniappe?  It's a little something extra, a small top-off surprise after you've paid for what you bought.  Lagniappe is more.  Welcome to the New Orleans state of mind.

You a friend in New Orleans.  I know two of them that live on Esplanade Avenue.  You'll make more friends when you are here.  There are no strangers in New Orleans.  Everyone is a friend you haven't yet met.  

We look forward to meeting you.

Have a great New Orleans day, today!
-La Belle Esplanade

You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue.  The best New Orleans memories are made on our street.

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

We are just simple micro-hoteliers here at La Belle Esplanade.  I know more than one person just spit coffee out their nose when they read that sentence.  To be honest, Frau Schmitt, who is the better half of this operation, is the nicest person you will ever meet, and I, your humble narrator, am a raconteur extraordinaire (I didn't give myself that moniker), a dandy, and a man-about-New Orleans. La Belle Esplanade, the small artisanal hotel we run, is ranked highly on TripAdvisor, and we know it is unlike any other hotel, but we don't like feeling too big for our britches.  Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.  La Belle Esplanade is no Hilton.  

That's a good thing, too:

La Belle is the orange house in the middle.

I don't like to boast or to brag, and, even though I usually post our TripAdvisor award badges at the end of each post, I don't think too much of them.  Not that I dislike them, mind you.  Frau Schmitt and I are humbled that La Belle has been ranked the #1 place to stay in New Orleans since April 2014.  And, we are even more humbled to be counted among the 0.0001% of hotels awarded the Travelers' Choice Award every year.  For those of you who don't know, this award is bestowed on the top 25 places to stay in each country and then the top 25 in the whole world.  We've been named the #2 place to stay in the United States and the #16 place to stay in the world.  Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.

That said, the wall next to our breakfast buffet table is starting to look a little TripAdvisor heavy.  We don't really need all these framed certificates to go all the way to the ceiling.  We have twelve-and-a-half foot ceilings in the house:

Sure, there's still empty space but when is enough enough?

We just got two more certificates in the mail today: our 2019 Certificate of Excellence and our 2019 induction into the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame.

I haven't framed them yet.  They're just laid out on a table.

Again, I'm not complaining but I don't think anyone outside the hotel industry, knows what it means to be in the TripAdvisor Hall of Fame.  While La Belle Esplanade is flattered and humbled to be inducted, once again, does Joe or Jane Doe care?  They will when they get here and experience what we offer as a small artisanal hotel but before they see the certificates on our wall and ask about them, will they know what the Hall of Fame even is?

It means we've been awarded a certificate of excellence five years in a row.  A certificate of excellence is not a Travelers' Choice Award.  One is a chicken egg, the other is caviar.  Both are good but one is commonplace while the other is sublime.  We're aiming for five Travelers' Choice awards in a row.  Three to go.  

Our TripAdvisor ranking is all based on reviews from people who have stayed at La Belle Esplanade.  Frau Schmitt and I have no control over our ranking.  It is all driven by how our guests have experienced their stay at our small craft hotel.  You know how the best beer comes from a small craft brewery?  It's the same way with hospitality at a small craft hotel.  The best New Orleans memories are made on our street.  Visit like you belong in this wonderful city we call home.

Let your imagination be your guide.

As of this moment, we've received 646 reviews on TripAdvisor.  634 of them rate our inn Excellent.  12 rate our inn Very Good.  Nobody has said their stay is Average, Poor, or Terrible.  Why would they?  La Belle Esplanade is like the Ritz, if the Ritz were in a colorful old mansion and run by only two people.  Only a churl could not be delighted by a gourmet curated breakfast accompanied by good conversation about all things New Orleans.

Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.  We try to deliver better value than what our prices lead you to expect.  Why?  Because in New Orleans there is the theory of lagniappe.  Lagniappe is a Creole word that means something extra.  At La Belle Esplanade you will always get something extra, be it personally tailored recommendations, candies on your bed, a selection of locally brewed beer and soda, or, most importantly, a chance to be inducted into the authentic New Orleans state of mind.

There is touristy New Orleans.  You don't need me to tell you about it.  You'll find it.  Your friends who have already visited for bachelor parties or professional conventions or destination weddings or cruise ship stops have already told you about that part of New Orleans.  Then, there is real New Orleans, the authentic city where people live, laugh, and love as they go about their lives raising families and building legacies.  Ours is a city with a culture that is densely woven and richly textured.  You never know what pleasant surprise you'll find when you turn a corner.  New Orleans is not just sugary alcoholic drinks, dueling piano bars, and novelty tee shirt shops.

Walk your boots to La Belle Esplanade.  This is real New Orleans.

When you are ready for real New Orleans off the usual tourist treadmill, you know where to find us.  We are the bright orange house with blue shutters on Esplanade Avenue.  New Orleans is called "America's Most Interesting City" for very good reason.

Check out our website: LaBelleEsplanade.com.  Read our blog there.  There are three years (at least) of archives.  If you think we'll be a good fit for your New Orleans expectations, make a reservation.  The "Check Availability" button is in the upper right of every screen.  Plug in your dates to see what suites we have available.  We only have five suites so we tend to fill up early during the busy seasons.

You have two friends on Esplanade Avenue,
-La Belle Esplanade   

Price is what you pay.  Value is what you get.

No Name Business

A photo from our new website

When's our new website going to be ready?  I'm told next week.  So much for 30 days.  I've done my part.

I've been putting off writing a new entry for our illustrious blog because it's going to be moved to a new address.  It's going to be directly on our website, which has its advantages for SEO reasons.  [See here for my opinion of SEO.]

We're going to be switching to a Wordpress template.  I'm told I'm going to love it.  So far I'm less than thrilled because I'm itching to get started.  I don't know what's taking so long.  

So, instead of writing today's installment on Wordpress, I'm lounging around the New Orleans Odditarium sipping on A Fifth of Beethoven":



Who doesn't love Walter Murphy?  Here's a fun fact: just like Walter Murphy, your humble narrator's father worked briefly for Korvette's before moving to greener pastures.  

Today's installment is merely filler, a website update, not that anyone particularly cares about our software provider woes.  

Frau Schmitt and I have had all sorts of adventures willy-nilly all over New Orleans.  I'd love to share them with you but they'll have to wait.  I know the anticipation is killing you, just like that Heinz Ketchup commercial.  ---If you don't know what I'm talking about with that allusion, ask me about it over breakfast.  

In the meantime, I've got a meeting scheduled with the New Orleans No Name Club.  The club is interested in using our back gardens as a meeting place in the summer.  In the winter, they'd like permission to use the lobby.  We're going to negotiate terms this afternoon in the Pipkin Room at the Rib Room.  If that sentence doesn't make any sense to you, well, you've never been to the secret dining areas hidden in the Rib Room.  

Well, those links should keep you occupied for awhile.  Don't say I didn't give you much today.  I let other pages do the heavy lifting for me, instead.  After all, I'm off on important business---No Name business!

Frau Schmitt and I are waving to you in this picture

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where every morning is a curated breakfast salon.

New Orleans Innkeeper Jinxed by Voodoo!!

Something is wrong with the blogging software so I'll have to proceed sans illustrations.  This is no great loss, considering my photography skills.

We've been 16 days without an update on this site, which is a record, I think.  There is nothing worse than going to a hotel's website and clicking on the blog to discover there is nothing but a lonely post from 2011.  There is nothing worse than a dead blog.  It shows that the innkeeper doesn't care and that he or she (or they as the case may be) is content to leave irrelevant stale content up that is no use to anyone.  It makes you wonder how they feel about dusting.

Not here though.  We run a clean inn and we like to provide fresh blog content on a regular basis whether or not our past and future guests find it useful.  That's how we roll on Esplanade Avenue.

Rather than wait until Day 17 of no new installments, let us soldier on together without the usual bells and whistles that illustrations bring to the table---

Why hasn't the blog been updated for 16 days?  It's because of an unfortunate turn of events that may or may not be circumstantial and accidental.  You see, your humble narrator has been in two minor motor scooter accidents twice this past week.

The first one was on North Dorgenois Street, at the Esplanade Avenue intersection.  Don't ask me what happened.  One second, I was gently applying the breaks while approaching a stop sign.  The next second, I was on the ground with my trusty motor scooter on top of me and abrasions on my left foot, right 1st finger knuckle, and blood running out of my left elbow.  Frau Schmitt took me to the urgent care clinic on N. Carrollton Avenue where I got 5 stitches in my elbow.  Said the doctor, "I can see the bone.  I'm going to put some stitches there."  He didn't say which bone.  It didn't feel like my funny bone.

The very next day, on the same scooter (remember, I just called it trusty), I was following Frau Schmitt on Ursulines Avenue three blocks upriver from Esplanade Avenue.  I went over a bump in the road that I go over every day.  The handlebars started to shake until they shook out of control and down I went.  It wasn't a straight shot, either.  The road took a bit of my skin from me as I slid under the scoot.  New abrasions: left thigh and right forearm.  Another trip to the very same urgent care clinic.  They weren't expecting to see me again so soon.  No new stitches, though.  We all yukked it up as the doctor dressed my fresh wounds.

My limbs are wrapped with bandages and I walk with a limp.  I bear it all with dignity, as one might expect.

I'm convinced my trusty motor scooter has been jinxed.  If you think like me, I guess that means we're both right.

I went to where my scooter is usually parked next to our house and I found a very interesting piece of evidence that my hunch is correct.  In the alleyway between the orange house (2216 Esplanade Avenue, La Belle Esplanade) and the blue house (2212 Esplanade Avenue, the home of our esteemed neighbor) I found a dried chicken foot that had been painted black.  I sincerely doubt a chicken just accidentally dropped its black-painted foot right where I park my scooter.  I think it was planted with malevolent intent.  I suspect voodoo---of the worst kind.

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking "Who would jinx our humble narrator with a black chicken foot?"  I have to admit, I have no idea.  Believe me when I tell you, I've given this matter a lot of thought.  Like Boston Blackie, I am the enemy only of those who make me an enemy and I am a friend to those who have no friends. I'm quite a guy.



I don't have any enemies that I know of in New Orleans.  I asked Frau Schmitt if she could think of anyone who would want to lay a jinx down on my scooter.  "Everybody likes you," she said.  "I can't imagine anyone wishing something bad would happen to you."  Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.

The proof was there in the alleyway, though, a dried out chicken claw painted black.  How long it had been there, I can't say.  It wasn't there last Monday.  I know that because I had dropped a shiny penny in that very same spot on Monday and I didn't see the chicken foot when I stooped to pick up the penny, which was heads-up, naturally.

The nearest I can figure, maybe the jinx was meant for my evil doppleganger, Whettam Gnik, but the last time I saw him he was frozen in an Antarctic ice floe.  That's a story for another day, however.  We don't have space for it here.  Maybe he escaped his icy prison somehow.  Maybe he escaped alive.



Whettam Gnik never had any friends that I know of, except for myself, his good twin.  Remember, I am the friend of those who have no friends.  Whettam Gnik always was a handsome man.  It is not inconceivable that I was mistaken for my doppleganger and someone put a jinx on me in a case of false identification.  These things happen.

I hope that's the case.

If my supposed enemy reads this blog, please be aware that the author, Matthew King, a respected New Orleans innkeeper, and a pillar of civil society, is not Whettam Gnik, that scoundrel who cheated you out of your inheritance twenty years ago by marrying your widowed mother and hiring a crooked lawyer and throwing you off a bridge.  That was him, not me.  You've jinxed the wrong man's scooter.

Anyhow, I'm on the mend now and regular updates should resume their usual schedule of two to three times a week.  Thank you to our regular readers who have been inundating us with email missives worrying about my whereabouts.  Thanks, as always, to Frau Schmitt, the better half of this operation, for acting as my nurse while keeping everything running smoothly at our boutique New Orleans inn located at 2216 Esplanade Avenue.  Good memories are made on our street.

Tune in next time when I will hopefully be able to provide some pictures to accompany the usual scintillating text.  I've got a rough draft of the next installment which is about a bar that you've only seen in dreams.  It's a historic New Orleans bar located in a place where you might least expect it.  You never know what you'll find when you turn a corner in New Orleans.  You may find yourself flat on your back with a motor scooter on top of you!  Actually, you won't.  If you're just visiting, you'll more likely be getting around on foot, or by bus, or by Uber.

Until next time,
À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where every morning is a curated breakfast salon.

What is the Fleur-de-Lis?

A fleur-de-lis

A lot of people ask us what the fleur-de-lis stands for.  In New Orleans and, in fact, all over southern Louisiana, you'll see fleurs-de-lis everywhere.  I was starting to explain it to somebody when guess who showed up...

Lola!

Lola showed up at our house to show off her new fleur-de-lis tattoo, complete with accompanying Mardi Gras mask.

I don't have one and Frau Schmitt doesn't have one, but there are plenty of people in New Orleans who have fleurs-de-lis tattoos.  Ask any tattooist what the most popular request is and he or she will tell you without hesitating a moment: fleur-de-lis.

When you are writing an article about fleurs-de-lis, the most irritating part of the process is that spell check always automatically turns "fleur" into "flour".  Then, your humble narrator has to go back and replace the 'o' with an 'e.'  If I missed one in the editing process (such as it is), please forgive me.  You can tell that whoever wrote this software isn't from Louisiana.

New Orleans flag

The New Orleans flag naturally sports a fleur-de-lis.  Actually, it sports three of them.  No matter what you read, and I've done plenty of reading on the matter, there is no definitive or straight answer why there are three fleurs-de-lis on the New Orleans city flag.  It just is what it is and let's leave it at that.  Somebody thought it was a good idea at the time and that's the flag we're stuck with.  Long may it wave.

What's the city seal look like?  I'm glad you asked.

City seal, New Orleans, LA

No fleur-de-lis there.  This is a just a jumble of imagery.  Some of it makes sense, some of it is just there to fill up empty space.  I'm not going to go into it.  If you are in New Orleans, you'll rarely see the image above.  The person who sees it the most is the mayor and I don't know if he knows what any of it means.  That's the kind of city we live in.  It's a jumble you have to decode on your own.

The fleur-de-lis symbolizes New Orleans', and Louisiana's, close cultural ties to France.  The fleur-de-lis is an important component of the Acadiana flag, which was approved by the State Legislature as the official flag of Acadiana in 1974.  Acadiana is the region of southern Louisiana that is dominated by Cajuns, who are descendants of French Canadians, not of people directly from France.  Creoles are descended from the French.  Cajuns are descended from French Canadians.  Get it?  

It's easy for people from outside Louisiana to confuse Cajun and Creole cultures.  People do it all the time.  Get ready for a lecture if you do it on the street.  It will be a good-natured lecture.  No harm: no foul---until the fourth time you make the mistake.  Then, the lecture gets a bit more pedantic so you'd better pay attention and not make the same mistake again.  The worst that can happen is you won't be invited to the next crawfish boil.

It can all get pretty confusing if you aren't from around here.

Blurry Acadiana flag as seen by a drunk

People from France ask me about the fleur-de-lis.  "What does it symbolize?" they ask, genuinely puzzled.  When I tell them about the French connection, they get that part but they don't get why the fleur-de-lis represents France to Louisianans.  To them, the fleur-de-lis is not a symbol of France.  It's the symbol of the Bourbon monarchy, and rightly so.  That's what it was.

When New Orleans and Acadiana were first settled, the Bourbons ruled France and the king's flag was the nation's flag.  Since the French Revolution, though, the French have a new symbol and a new flag.  The current flag, which you may have seen before:

The Tricolor

To French people the fleur-de-lis is not a symbol of their country but of the ancien régime the Revolution of 1789 overthrew.  When a French person looks at all these fleur-de-lis tattoos, he or she thinks that he or she is looking at a bunch of people who support tyranny.  Anything is further from the case.  The people in New Orleans, and in Louisiana, who have fleurs-de-lis tattoos are generally the people who most support le joie de vivre and they most dearly cherish a devil-may-care attitude to human affairs.  Look around.  You'll see that what I say is true.

The symbol of France is not just the Tricoleur.  They also have Marianne.

From the French consul's letterhead

It's all rather tangled and complicated as things tend to be in New Orleans, which is a city rich in history and traditions that go back a long ways.  You needn't worry about it too much.  Like many tourists, you can just walk into a tattoo parlor on Frenchmen Street or Magazine Street and get a tattoo of a fleur-de-lis to show your love of New Orleans.  You won't be the first and you won't be the last.

You'll have the good memories you made in New Orleans and, when you look in the mirror at that tattoo, you'll remember them even more.  The most bestest memories are made in New Orleans.  They are the kind of good memories that last a lifetime.

Be a New Orleanian wherever you are.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade.

New Orleans: A City of Loud Surprises

2200 block of Esplanade Ave, New Orleans, LA

Imagine it's a quiet afternoon along the oak-shaded boulevard of Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.  It will be easy if you try because that is the way it is most of the time.  The birds are twittering in the boughs and the neighbors are waving hello to each other across the street.  People are walking their dogs without a care in the world.  The school bus drops off earnest young scholars into the arms of their attentive parents.  Everything is tranquil bliss, the way most afternoons are in New Orleans.

Then, without warning----a blast of bounce music comes barreling down the street.  You look in the direction of the source.  It's That Black Truck.

That Black Truck

Early in October I introduced our regular readers to New Orleans bounce music.  You can click this link here if you missed that installment.  Now, I'm all about releasing my wiggle but, for me, a little bit of bounce music goes a long way.  That said, if somebody drives by blaring bounce music out of their car stereo speakers, the kind of woofers that rattle the car's suspension and bumpers, I don't mind.  I enjoy the beat's punctuation to my day.  That said, I enjoy it quite a bit less when the car is stopped at the red light at the intersection of Esplanade and N. Miro Street at midnight, but, hey, that's city living.

I like That Black Truck.  I like That Black Truck a lot.  It doesn't pass by our house very often, but when it does, it always makes me smile.  Luckily, I had my camera at the ready the last time That Black Truck came around.

It's a Renaissance truck

Catering?  Yes.  Lawn care?  Yes?  DJ?  Yes, again.  That Black Truck is many things to many people from all walks of life.  Besides the music that That Black Truck brings to the streets, and its can-do attitude, I appreciate the truck's stenciled ammo-can paint job and do-it-yourself aesthetics.  They could park That Black Truck in the NOMA lobby and it would fit right in with a lot of the other art on display.     

As I was taking that photo of the truck's side, a voice from a loudspeaker placed in the truck instructed me to point my camera in the cab's direction.  "Don't just shoot the side, brother.  We've got a better shot for you," the voice said.  Indeed.

Men on a mission

I don't know which one of these gentlemen is DJ Maniac, but they are all heroes in my book.  Thanks for visiting Esplanade Avenue, gents.  It was like seeing Mr. Okra and the Roman Candy Cart on our street, rolled up into one.

It was with deep regret that I watched That Black Truck pull away out of sight down Esplanade Avenue toward the Claiborne Avenue Overpass.  The acoustics under the highway are incredible and I'll bet That Black Truck parked under there and let those speakers boom, boom, boom.  I'll bet people were dancing.  I expect there was laughter and singing and an all-around good time.  Why do I think that?  Because that's what happened on our usually quiet stretch of Esplanade Avenue.

Big speakers project a happy noise

I don't remember what song DJ Maniac was playing out of the back of That Black Truck.  I may be confabulating, but I think it was a bounce version of this:



You never know what you are going to see in New Orleans.  You never know what you'll find when you turn a corner.  This is a magical city that isn't choreographed.  It blossoms organically, one bright and incandescent bloom at a time, randomly, like a parrot in your garden.  There are usually trumpets involved, but sometimes it is something more prosaic.  Sometimes, all it takes for magic to happen is three guys in a black truck.  That Black Truck.  Now you know what people are talking about when they talk about That Black Truck and they capitalize it when they say it.

You'll discover all sorts of things in New Orleans.  Your destination is known and it's gonna be full of surprises.

We look forward to meeting you.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade, a boutique inn in New Orleans.

Creole Syria and Other Mistaken Mysteries

Macaroons!

Someone recently wrote to me about Creole Syria and he sent me a link about what he was talking about.  It turns out he was confused.   Things currently or anciently in the Middle East are not my forté.  I specialize in Louisiana Creole, which means things that have happened and do happen in New Orleans.

Creole people live in the city of New Orleans and in the surrounding Louisiana civil parishes.  Creoles are people who are descended from people who came before them who lived out their Louisiana lives during the time the royal French or the royal Spanish or the imperial French governments had jurisdiction in our out-of-the way part of the world around the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River.  

What about the Cajuns?  Cajuns are descended from French Canadian settlers who relocated in Louisiana and they are different from Creoles.  The easiest way to put it is that Creoles live in the city and Cajuns live out in the swamp.  As far as I know, and I'm no expert, there is neither a Creole nor Cajun settlement in Syria, though I may be proven wrong as current events shake out in that region.

If there were a Cajun outpost in Russia, Vladimir Putin would be eating chicken gumbo while shirtless.  I guarantee he would.


Now you know what a Cajun sounds like.

If you can't understand Justin Wilson, you aren't alone.  Frau Schmitt can't figure out a thing he's saying.  He was the King of Cajun Comedy as well as a chef on public television.  My father used to love to watch his cooking show, but my father loved just about anything that reminded him of New Orleans.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Macaroons!!

"Macaroon" is a fun word to say, isn't it?  We get our macaroons at Sucre on Magazine Street.  We don't have them all the time, so don't expect them.  We have them when we have them, which means that we have them when one of us visits the cigar store across the street.  I'll leave it up to your imagine who that one of us might be: could it be Your Humble Narrator or might it be Frau Schmitt?  

Some people write us to ask if there are jaguars in New Orleans?  A:  Not recently.  The last sighting of a jaguar in southern Louisiana was in June of 1886 in Donaldsonville, which is about an hour's drive away. 

There was a recent sighting of a black panther in southern Louisiana in Iberia Parish.  Anything is possible in Cajun Country no matter how improbable it might seem.


Does that mean there may be black panthers in New Orleans?  It ain't necessarily so.  Certainly not the way you mean.  There are plenty of feral cats in our neighborhood, though.  They aren't around our house, but there are some blocks that are overrun with feral cats.  They help to keep the feral chicken population down.  We have feral chickens in our neighborhood, too.

The sitting room in our Les Pêches Suite

This may come as a surprise to our regular readers, but I'm not the biggest "Weird Al" Yankovic fan.  I can hear a lot of you saying, "You could knock me over with a feather," but, truly, if Weird Al releases a multimedia song parody, odds are I have no idea of what his source material might be.  That said, I got a critique from a Weird Al fan recently.  He sent me a link to a video.



"Dear Mr. King," our correspondent began, which was a very polite and proper way for him to start his correspondence.  I always enjoy being called Mr. King, as the people at the bank where I do my banking (where else would I do it?) well know.  It is one your humble narrator's names, after all.  Wanna know another one?  Another one is, Cutie-Scootie.  You can call me Matthew, which is my first name and it's the name that most people use.  (If you are reading this at the bank, you can keep calling me Mr. King.)

Our correspondent continued, "You may not realize it but your grammar is sometimes less-than-perfect.  You use Oxford commas capriciously and you sometimes omit or include possessive apostrophes without rhyme or reason.  While I am sure your sentence structure, which is usually immaculate and readable, is intended to reflect the way by which you intend to be heard in your readers' heads, your dangling participles leave much to be desired.  Your use of colloquialisms and gerunds sometimes muddies your message."  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....and so on.  The letter went on and on until I nodded off and dreamed I was in New Orleans.  Then I woke up and my dream had come true.

Thanks, Buster.  I'll take your critique under advisement.  Remember, though, I'm living in New Orleans and I've picked up the local lingo and en-FLEX-zee-ohn.  If you want to know what it's like to live in this magical city, you'll stay at La Belle Esplanade.  Mispronounce everything and everyone will know what you're talking about.  Living la vida local is what it's all about in our part of New Orleans.  It's nothing like this:


You won't find (m)any shopping malls in New Orleans.  You have to go to the suburbs for that.  When a brass band plays in New Orleans, people dance like nobody is watching.  If I commit any word crimes, please remember, I live in New Orleans, a Creole city.   I'm not a native.  I'm a convert.  There are worse crimes of mistaken identity that a person can commit.

We hope to meet you soon.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

I'm Always All Right in New Orleans

Overhead view of N. Rampart St., New Orleans, LA

4 out of 5 Australian travel agents read our blog.  Your humble narrator learned that from a reliable source.   High praise, indeed.  Thank you, one and all.  Keep sending business our way.  We love to treat everyone right.  

I'm not going to say if you're from Australia you'll get special treatment above and beyond what we normally provide but if you're from Australia I'll ask Frau Schmitt to break out the jar of Vegemite we keep on hand for breakfast.  I also promise that I will never mention Crocodile Dundee.  If you've been traveling the U.S. for awhile, by the time you reach New Orleans, you're already tired of the Crocodile Dundee jokes.  

We're not going to discuss shrimp on the barbie.

Enough of that.  We appreciate everyone who chooses to visit New Orleans, from wherever they may hail, even if it's from New Zealand.  We equally love Kiwis, too.  People from Australia and New Zealand hate when Americans confuse them.  They are two different countries.  Frau Schmitt and I know that.  She told me and she is usually right about these things.

It sometimes occurs to me when I'm chatting around the dining room at breakfast that I'm speaking some kind of alternate language where words mean one thing in the context that I'm saying them but they mean something else to the people hearing them.  I can tell by the puzzled looks I get.  Then, I backtrack and explain in a coaxial cable kind of conversation that winds around itself and is full of rich detail that is mostly forgotten and lost once it reaches its final destination.  It the parts that sticks to the bones that matter.  Just ask our dog.

I speak a New Orleans patois full of terms and references that only make sense if you live here.  I speak an international traveler kind of creole.  I speak like I'm from Connecticut, all business, shoot-from-the-hip Yankee.  I speak the sterling smooth tones of a welcoming host, which I am.  And I'm a goodwill ambassador for this magical city Frau Schmitt and I call home.  Frau Schmitt is, too.  Layers on top of layers, like a doberge cake.  You'd think I'd provide a link to "doberge cake," but, no, I'm gonna make you google it yourself if you're interested in what I'm talking about in this case.

Hallowe'en is coming

There's a house across from the Ursulines Academy that was featured in the New Orleans Advocate.  The Advocate is a newspaper, its a paper newspaper.  It's the rolled up newsprint that gets tossed on our front porch every morning, the one I read every day before our guests show up for breakfast.  It's the paper in which I solve the Jumble, in pen, in about one minute flat.  I'm not talking about the New Orleans Times-Picayune.  

Most people associate the Times-Picayune with New Orleans.  I never read that irregularly-printed, out-of-state-owned, turncoat rag.  Fluff and puffandstuff if you ask me.  Get your New Orleans news however you can, though.  Who am I to judge?  Have I mentioned that this is the #1 New Orleans blog read by Australian travel agents?  Now you know.

Hallowe'en House bachannal

I thought the house was on Claiborne Avenue.  This is going to be a thrilling bit of street grid geography for you, but bear with me.  I thought the house where the skeletons are was on Claiborne Avenue, but the Ursulines Academy takes up a full two city blocks.  One part, the narrow face where the athletic center is, faces Claiborne Ave.  Where the skeletons are, is on State Street, right across the street from the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor.  I've gotta admit, I've got mixed feelings about this tableau's placement.  

There is something to be said for mementi mori, though, so I don't have too many qualms.  When I stopped by to take pictures, two guys from Jimmy's Pest Control were servicing the property next door and the two pest control technicians who got out of the van were admiring the skeletons.

"What do you think?" I asked John.

John said, "I think I don't want to be a skeleton, even if I'm painted in Day-Glo."

"How about you, Juan?" I asked Juan.

"I think I should spend some time in the shrine across the street," Juan said.  Then he did just that.  John followed Juan while I was taking pictures of the Day-Glo skeletons and their dogs.

Out for a stroll, Uptown, New Orleans, LA

The past twelve paragraphs have been leading up to the real subject of today's installment which is the the subject of traveler's constipation.  Surprise!!

Get that giggle out of the way.  This is a serious malady.

All right, are you ready to continue?  

When some people travel, they are bothered by an intestinal sluggishness, if you want to call it that.  The cause may be the low-level anxiety of being in a new place.  It may be a shift in time zones or climate.  It may be the change in diet; after all, the food in New Orleans is very rich and it probably isn't what you're used to where you come from.  

We don't normally discuss this with our guests unless they bring it up.  Some people bring it up.  Whenever they do, it's in private consultation, guest to innkeeper.  It's like a doctor-patient relationship or attorney-client privilege.  Don't be ashamed to ask us anything.   We have been asked to provide answers for all sorts of questions.  Your secrets are safe with us.  That is what we are here for.  

Thankfully, no one has ever raised the subject at breakfast in front of our other guests, though I suppose that would be one way to quickly change the topic from talking about the difference between Australia and New Zealand.

Well, I found a video.  Please, any fetishists are encouraged to leave this page now.  This post isn't posted for your jollies.  That's why this video is buried at the bottom of this installment.  There is a way to encourage peristalsis manually according to the video evidence I've researched at a guest's request.  (Who says we don't go the extra mile?)

Frau Schmitt makes sure I have plenty of fiber in my diet and she is usually right about these things.  I prefer to call it roughage, but I'm old fashioned about these things.  There is plenty of fried food and cream sauce in New Orleans, but if you ask you can usually get a salad on the side. 

I've never tried the method illustrated below, nor have I asked any of our guests if they have gotten good results.  Most things that happen in our suites are none of our business.  I always believe patience is it's own reward.  However, if you are a mind to self massage the edges of your abdomen, here are some tips:


As always, venturing into uncharted territory for New Orleans B&B blogs, I'm just going to leave that at that.  No wonder Australian travel agents love this blog.  Your humble narrator leaves no stone unturned.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

P.S. If you are visiting New Orleans from Australia, we will never discuss this:

Never.
Never.
Never.
Never.