Voodoo Part One

[ateolf]

After that museum, we went to this other bar that was liked from before called Tonique. Then after that we walked across the street to Louis Armstrong Park. Some fun with the parking meter and I had to run back and re-up it. (I was having trouble the whole trip, I'd pay for parking online and whenever I went to extend a session it wouldn't work and I just had to start over anew...but this one, I think I had trouble with online so I did it directly in the meter so had to go back in person.) So I got back and had time to take another picture of the location of the cover art of No Dreams, then I found Mary Beth and it was really then time to split again. We went over to Marigny to hang out a little bit. We happened on another small bookstore we weren't aware of before called Frenchman Art & Books. It was very small and all new but I did pick up one book: James by Percival Everett. Then we dropped into The Spotted Cat to listen to a little music, just some very NOLA jazzy bluesy stuff. We stayed a little bit just to experience the experience. We even got little cat-shaped stamps on our wrists (I'm pretty sure the main reason Mary Beth picked that one to go to was the whole cat theme, which I cannot argue with). If there was something else we did, I can't remember now!

Now we're on to Tuesday. We started off with a delicious breakfast at Elizabeth's. Then I popped into Euclic Records and picked up a few cds: Ultramagnetic MC's: The Four Horsemen; Kool Keith: The Lost Masters; Kool Keith: Lost Masters Volume 2; The Knife in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock: Tomorrow, in a Year; Christian Marclay / Otomo Yoshihide: Moving Parts; Sarah Davachi: Selected Works I & II; and v/a: 8-Bit Operators (the latter is a chiptune tribute album to Kraftwerk). Then we took a little walk across the street to this park on the other side of the railroad tracks, over this big arc of a pedestrian bridge, Crescent Park is the name of it. There's an old dilapidated wharf with part of it restored and we walked around on it and looked at the river. Then we went and took a ride on the streetcar on the St. Charles line. We went over and got on at Washington and rode it in one direction, towards the CBD. Rode it to the end and back and just enjoyed the scenery. At night we had ourselves another fancy meal at Galatoire's (if I'm not mixing days up, but I think this is it). Mary Beth was upset that we got put in the back room instead of the famous main room, but the food ended up being very good. We had the first of these souffle potatoes (a novel way to eat potates! it's like you take two thin slices and put them together and fry them so they puff up in the middle...kinda like potatoes au gratin without the sauce mixed with french fries and chips and with its own unique puffy texture). Then lots of other very good food. Afterwards we put in an order at Verti Mart to pick up some sandwiches and sides to take out with us on the next day. Oh damn! I almost forgot to mention how the day started!! Wow! How could I!? It started with this tour at the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum! We get up and get there very early, as we're the first tour right when it opens (and we're there before it opens). Someone shows up and takes us in and at first has us wait around to see if someone shows up to guide the tour. No one else does so it falls on him. Well...this ended up being one of the most INTERESTING parts of the trip (and not at all for the primary reasons something like this should be interesting for). The amount of actual information about voodoo we received was PRETTY CLOSE to zero. And instead we got a lot of ridiculous stories about his personal life (which I imagine are all apocryphal and just little bits of "color" a tour guide might normally insert here and there) and a bit of information that seemed made up on the fly. Oh, here I go once again at a stopping point for a post and needing to move on to the next post. I hate to break this one up but maybe it's more fun getting your hands on it twice.

Comments

[ifjuly]

it wasn't that simple at all. we've had the backroom treatment before, i'm (which is sad really) used to that--it's that galatoire's straight up has multiple and differently presented/branded/named arms, all of those fancy old school places have taken that model, they're not simply different rooms but literally different restaurants with different menus and codes and expectations, where you have the flagship nicest restaurant, the casual steakhouse spot, and usually another separate cocktail bar for enthusiasts. we had a reservation expressly for the flagship restaurant then got surreptitiously walked through a behind the scenes labyrinth to get to the other restaurant, the casual steakhouse (and not even the nice part of it in front, because, i suspect, then you'd know more obviously and right away you weren't where you're supposed to be). it'd be like if you made a reservation for iris but got seated in a shifty ass way at second line. i think that's absolute bullshit, because yes, yes it is.

also, you're the one who should be annoyed really too, because one of the distinctions here is, they don't give a fuck what you wear at the steakhouse place, they do at the flagship. so bothering with the suit was a waste of time, which honestly, is another way it was a dis--if you bother to put on a suit and look nice you shouldn't then be interacted with in such a manner as indicates "on you, to us a t-shirt's just the same, makes no difference even though we said it did and you went through the hoops/effort."

and yeah, it was especially frustrating/anger-inducing bc literally the draw of galatoire's in particular is expressly the distinctive experience of being in the flagship main room. look online and see locals talking about it, it's A Thing. that's why you're going, that's why you make the reservation. so to then have that be a bait and switch, and a rude one, was wow.