Ever wonder what happens to the organic souvenirs that Customs confiscates from tourists upon returning from Costa Rica? We’ve all tried to get through Customs and have been relieved of our treasures over the years. I once met a catholic priest who actually got on a plane in Costa Rica with a parrot perched on his shoulder and almost made it all the way through to NYC– until he tried clearing Customs at Kennedy, where he was relieved of his companion. So, what do they do with all the butterflies, awesome spiders, sci-fi beetles and orchids (you bad boy!) that you tried so hard to smuggle across the border? Well, in New Orleans, they’ve taken the whole lot of them and put them on display in a museum, which just happens to be located next door to us here on N. Peters St!
The Feds have been renovating the massive granite Customs Building for years now, and we just thought that it would continue serving as the Customs Building. But Gerry learned from a very good source – taxi driver just arrived here from Nigeria – that the Feds have relocated Customs to a new building and that the building next door will soon open as an Insectarium!
Instantly, I had the answer to the question that has nagged us naughty naturalists for years! Gerry and I walked over there and peaked in the windows just to confirm and, sure enough, we could see big displays of butterflies and a whole range of insects sure to delight both entomologists and kids! We will soon have a wonderful place to go when we miss El Tigre. You might not see monkeys every day in the forest but you will definitely see a range of mouth-dropping insects! All thanks to you smuggling tourists! Okay, maybe I’m just speculating on how Customs got their hands on such a massive collection, but even the somewhat impaired logico-deductive thinking of a Bourbon Street drunk would lead to that conclusion.
Last night, we walked down Bourbon Street on our way home from the Erin Rose bar. It’s our place for a frozen Irish coffee, if we don’t have the energy to walk all the way down Decatur to Molly’s. The Frozen Irish is great at both places – a marvelous ice-cream dessert for the alcoholically inclined... Molly’s is also a must if you like cats – she has a beauty who sits on the bar.
Most residents avoid Bourbon Street – they head over to Frenchmen Street for good music and local crowds. But I still like wandering Bourbon Street and mingling with the tourists after dinner for one of the best free shows in the country. Some jack-ass wrote somewhere that Bourbon Street is one of the 10 top tourist traps in the country. What a load of crap! You don’t have to spend a nickel on Bourbon Street for entertainment, although the street performers do appreciate the tips. As the leader of a spectacular acrobatic-dance group said last night with a wicked smile on his face, “If you’re not generous with your tips, we’ll just have to go back to doing what we did before – visiting your homes when you’re not there…” After spending months in solitary tranquility in the forest, I feel that Bourbon gives me a chance to reconnect with humanity without actually, well, connecting. Gerald retorts: “Sure, if your idea of humanity is drunks, whores and thugs!”
Well, it’s true that you wouldn’t take your kids there after 6PM and, ladies, don’t go by yourself if you don’t want to get accosted (before 10PM) and assaulted (after midnight).
I’m starting to feel better. Still coughing a lot when I talk too much or stay up to late - as I found out last night…
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
‘Second-line’ cures what ails
Still sick and laying low in New Orleans. Reading a book about the demise of the Cathars – hardly the stuff of good cheer. Gerald’s gone out to buy me some more lemons for my herbal tea concoctions.
Suddenly, I hear a raucous brass band out in the street. I peer out the window of our 4th floor flat and see a big crowd approaching down the middle of the street. A second-line parade! Normally, I would rush down the stairs to join in with the festivity, but not this time. I decided not to push fate. Still, the second-line parades always have the same effect on people – just pure joy. So I stood at the window smiling and watching the whole thing – first the police escort motorcycles, clearing the road; then the big, spirited brass band; followed by the crowd, made bigger as it went on by with bystanders joining in. For the first time today, I felt this swell of good feeling. Still hacking and coughing, but heart filled with goodness. All is well. This virus too shall pass!
And when I die, like everybody else in this town, I want a second line funeral parade.
Suddenly, I hear a raucous brass band out in the street. I peer out the window of our 4th floor flat and see a big crowd approaching down the middle of the street. A second-line parade! Normally, I would rush down the stairs to join in with the festivity, but not this time. I decided not to push fate. Still, the second-line parades always have the same effect on people – just pure joy. So I stood at the window smiling and watching the whole thing – first the police escort motorcycles, clearing the road; then the big, spirited brass band; followed by the crowd, made bigger as it went on by with bystanders joining in. For the first time today, I felt this swell of good feeling. Still hacking and coughing, but heart filled with goodness. All is well. This virus too shall pass!
And when I die, like everybody else in this town, I want a second line funeral parade.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
A Year with Carmen by Mavis Biesanz
Mavis Biesanz
Scholar, anthropologist, gifted writer and author of many books (last published and a must read: A Year with Carmen), philanthropist, teacher, naturalist, spiritual seeker, animal lover, devoted friend, mother and grandmother….
Remember the time you came over for lunch while my mom was visiting? I was rushing and, at the last minute, I cut some pink bougainvillea branches and laid them down on the table as a centerpiece. Then, just after everyone sat down at the table to eat, to my utter horror, a slew of ants started crawling out from the plant and began wandering around the table. You just calmly shooed them all back into the bracts as if it were perfectly natural to eat lunch with ants on the table.
That’s just like you – making even your hapless hostess feel that all was well in the world. Your big heart shared love like that with everyone around you, from dearest friends and family to all of your beloved Costa Ricans. You never spoke about all the Tico children you surreptitiously supported through University, nor of the many works you carried out to improve the lives of so many. I learned of your generosity in many ways – once, from the local seamstress in Ciudad Colon, who remembers you as the angel who personally provided supplies and money to local impoverished kids, helping them to ‘live the dream’. Another time, a taxi driver spoke of how you ‘adopted’ promising Costa Rican students and helped to educate them all the way through years of school. You never abandoned anyone.
And those of us with the good fortune to have known you personally, how we all gained from your understanding, your compassion, your wisdom and, oh yes, your quick wit - at times your acerbic wit! But only dished out to those who could truly appreciate it! Even now, I can see your eyes, sparkling with affectionate playfulness. There was no greater joy than sitting down with you and feeling like the most important person in the world. That’s how you made everyone feel.
We spent much more time together during my volunteer years. How important you were to me then – in so many ways – gently coaching, sometimes teasing but always encouraging. As the years went by, we saw each other less and less often, you moved from our Ciudad Colon neighborhood to the lovely home that Barry and Sarah built for you in Escazu. Even now, I recall the precious moments we shared together during the full moon gatherings – friends and family everywhere, playing music, singing and merry making – and you sitting near the fireplace, taking your turn with each and every most important person in the world.
Barry told me that he would never let you win at scrabble, not even at the end. You would not have abided it. At the hospital, he gave me a copy of the last book you wrote – A Year with Carmen. Is that you on the cover? What a beauty – like an auburn-haired Reese Witherspoon. I’ve learned a lot more about you from that book. You still speak to me through it. We discuss the gilded cage...how much of it is of our own making? You are the only one who could understand even breaching the topic!
I thought about you again the day after seeing the film, Atonement. That film had me crying like a baby – actually wept throughout most of it.
So much has been left unsaid, unasked, not done. But now I understand, Mavis, why you never invited me into your book club - officially closed to new members. All I ever had to do was ask.
Pax vobiscum
Scholar, anthropologist, gifted writer and author of many books (last published and a must read: A Year with Carmen), philanthropist, teacher, naturalist, spiritual seeker, animal lover, devoted friend, mother and grandmother….
Remember the time you came over for lunch while my mom was visiting? I was rushing and, at the last minute, I cut some pink bougainvillea branches and laid them down on the table as a centerpiece. Then, just after everyone sat down at the table to eat, to my utter horror, a slew of ants started crawling out from the plant and began wandering around the table. You just calmly shooed them all back into the bracts as if it were perfectly natural to eat lunch with ants on the table.
That’s just like you – making even your hapless hostess feel that all was well in the world. Your big heart shared love like that with everyone around you, from dearest friends and family to all of your beloved Costa Ricans. You never spoke about all the Tico children you surreptitiously supported through University, nor of the many works you carried out to improve the lives of so many. I learned of your generosity in many ways – once, from the local seamstress in Ciudad Colon, who remembers you as the angel who personally provided supplies and money to local impoverished kids, helping them to ‘live the dream’. Another time, a taxi driver spoke of how you ‘adopted’ promising Costa Rican students and helped to educate them all the way through years of school. You never abandoned anyone.
And those of us with the good fortune to have known you personally, how we all gained from your understanding, your compassion, your wisdom and, oh yes, your quick wit - at times your acerbic wit! But only dished out to those who could truly appreciate it! Even now, I can see your eyes, sparkling with affectionate playfulness. There was no greater joy than sitting down with you and feeling like the most important person in the world. That’s how you made everyone feel.
We spent much more time together during my volunteer years. How important you were to me then – in so many ways – gently coaching, sometimes teasing but always encouraging. As the years went by, we saw each other less and less often, you moved from our Ciudad Colon neighborhood to the lovely home that Barry and Sarah built for you in Escazu. Even now, I recall the precious moments we shared together during the full moon gatherings – friends and family everywhere, playing music, singing and merry making – and you sitting near the fireplace, taking your turn with each and every most important person in the world.
Barry told me that he would never let you win at scrabble, not even at the end. You would not have abided it. At the hospital, he gave me a copy of the last book you wrote – A Year with Carmen. Is that you on the cover? What a beauty – like an auburn-haired Reese Witherspoon. I’ve learned a lot more about you from that book. You still speak to me through it. We discuss the gilded cage...how much of it is of our own making? You are the only one who could understand even breaching the topic!
I thought about you again the day after seeing the film, Atonement. That film had me crying like a baby – actually wept throughout most of it.
So much has been left unsaid, unasked, not done. But now I understand, Mavis, why you never invited me into your book club - officially closed to new members. All I ever had to do was ask.
Pax vobiscum
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Sick in N'Awlins
Why Oh why does shit happen?
Sick and miserable, day after day, sitting in this flat, it gets mind-numbing. I feel like the walking dead. The world goes by outside, and all I can do is slouch on the sofa; putz aimlessly about; read; doze; all in a wretched haze of yuck.
I never get sick in the country. Nobody does. From eons past, people went to the country to avoid getting sick. If you live in the country and want to get sick, you simply go and spend a few weeks in town. Oftentimes, you can pick up the virus on the very first day by boarding a crowded aircraft. If you don’t get it during transport, then you will soon after arriving to the city - at the theatre or anywhere else where humans flock and crowd together.
Back when we lived in PA, we shared the countryside with likeminded escapees from NYC, also seeking town & country living. A favorite of ours – Hervey – a true urban Thoreau, would always get sick during his periodic visits to the city. I would harp on at him every time he made plans to leave his charming down-country cottage for the Big Apple. Especially in December! “Don’t go there Hervey, you’re going to get sick again - like you always do!” And he would always respond – “what’s the point of living if not to take in the latest Broadway show… share a fine repast with dear friends… wander café to gallery? And off he would go to Manhattan and, sure enough, upon his return, we would find him sitting in his overgrown boxwood gardens, sniffling and congested, beloved cat, Goya, on his lap. Guests would have to mix their own cocktails that day. Sadly, Hervey is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on, thanks to his Coffee Town Road neighbor, Christopher Boas, who did a film documentary of Hervey’s extraordinary life – from his youthful NY cultural bonhomie during the great depression, to decades of outrageous weekends in the country…the films…the countess, the opera singer, the scandalous widow... Someday I hope to see the film.
But I digress as I always do. And when you feel hideous and hollow from congestion, you can’t be expected to write even semi-coherently. The only reason that I’m writing at all is because there is nothing on Comedy Central, and my eyes ache too much to read. And the Democratic nomination battle has become too tedious to watch, even for the most fanatical news addicts.
I admit liking Obama Girl...Stephen Colbert…Jon Stewart and especially Bill Maher. The ‘You Tube’ world has turned the traditional news media conventions upside down. Like everybody else in New Orleans, we howled in protest when the National Debate Committee bypassed our city - they said that the city wasn’t ready. What a line of utter crap and they all knew it – and you can rest assured that they, both individually and collectively, heard very clearly and explicitly from New Orleans! So we were thrilled when You Tube/Google announced plans to bring the candidates here for a virtual debate later this summer. What a grand way to ‘stick it’ to the traditional powers that be!
All of this makes good entertainment for those of us too sick to go outside.
I usually don’t get sick in New Orleans. It’s a different kind of town – better ventilated. At least, it is during the months when we’re in residence – in Spring, from Mardi Gras through Jazz Fest, and then again in Autumn, when the weather is fine and parties pour out into the streets and really get revved up.
After the Storm, a lot of full-timers left the city. But to where? Where can you go from New Orleans? Well, some of them found their way to Costa Rica. People there think we want to meet the Katrina refugees but we don’t. It’s true that after the Storm, many people had no choice, but we kind of doubt that anyone who lost everything would have landed in paradise. Given a choice, why would anyone abandon our beloved city when it needs everyone to come back home? Could it be that they just needed an excuse? I don’t want to judge the choices made by others, but we love the Big Easy and make our passion known whenever we get a chance, always trying to promote the city. Both of our gas-guzzling jeeps in Costa Rica have the bumper sticker: “New Orleans – Proud to Swim Home!”
As one Katrina refugee put it to me recently at a cocktail party in Costa Rica, to where she high-tailed it after losing her Lakeview mansion home: “I grew up in New Orleans – went to all the Deb balls! I know that city better than you! I believe Hurricane Katrina was God’s retribution to a sinful city.” Actually, New Orleans has always been populated by such sinners as prostitutes and criminals – that’s why it has been, and always will be, such a fun town.
But nowhere is fun when you’re sick and sitting in a stupefying funk in the flat.
It didn’t start out this way. I arrived in New Orleans just in time for the second weekend of JazzFest. Gerry had escaped some weeks earlier. Gerry’s take on ‘town vs. country’ is far different from mine. The country makes him sick (mostly in the head) and New Orleans rejuvenates him. When he’s not in New Orleans, he’s grumpy and homesick and, at every chance he gets and for any old excuse, Gerald (aka Famine) will jump on a plane and come to our home here in the Crescent City, leaving me back at Finca El Tigre.
On this occasion, I arrived just as Famine’s fellow Horseman, Pestilence, also arrived to take in everything New Orleans and especially the music scene. The first week we partied like nobody was looking - and then Pestilence got sick - then a few days later, Famine got sick. So for the next several days, we’re all cooped up here together in the flat, while I tried nursing them back to health. Gerald said it first, and there’s just no better word describing it than this: stultifying. Pestilence finally recovered enough to get on a flight back to Costa Rica. Unfortunately, I got the first symptom – sore throat – the next day and it went downhill from there.
The best remedies for colds & flu don’t require a trip to the pharmacy. You just need lots of fluids and sleep and time. Drink chicken broth and/or hot tea with lemon & honey and rest, rest, rest. Wait a minute! We’re in New Orleans after all! Aren’t there any medicinal cocktails? Yes, thank God, there are! Somebody said that God invented beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy. But beer is not a good remedy unless you drink just one – try saying that to your British mate. Luckily, options abound!
When we all fell ill in Havana, we discovered the wonderful minty Mojito cocktail. Here in New Orleans, you can order the refreshing Pimm’s cocktail or go straight for the gold: a Sazerac or two at Tujagues! Does it help? You bet! You feel great all the way through dinner and fall straight into bed and sleep for 12 hours. Next morning you wake up feeling worse than ever. And you swear that you will stick to the chicken broth…lay low…until the bug is finally gone. And then evening swings around again and you could swear that you’re feeling a bit better…
So what about today? Will we stay home or will I rally and take Gerald to Restaurant August this evening for his long, overdue birthday dinner? What do you think? Do you have any idea what it took just to get a reservation in there? We love Chef John Besh so much, that when he lost out to somebody or other from Cleveland as the next, great IRON CHEF, I turned off the show in disgust and haven’t tuned it back on since!
Salud!
Sick and miserable, day after day, sitting in this flat, it gets mind-numbing. I feel like the walking dead. The world goes by outside, and all I can do is slouch on the sofa; putz aimlessly about; read; doze; all in a wretched haze of yuck.
I never get sick in the country. Nobody does. From eons past, people went to the country to avoid getting sick. If you live in the country and want to get sick, you simply go and spend a few weeks in town. Oftentimes, you can pick up the virus on the very first day by boarding a crowded aircraft. If you don’t get it during transport, then you will soon after arriving to the city - at the theatre or anywhere else where humans flock and crowd together.
Back when we lived in PA, we shared the countryside with likeminded escapees from NYC, also seeking town & country living. A favorite of ours – Hervey – a true urban Thoreau, would always get sick during his periodic visits to the city. I would harp on at him every time he made plans to leave his charming down-country cottage for the Big Apple. Especially in December! “Don’t go there Hervey, you’re going to get sick again - like you always do!” And he would always respond – “what’s the point of living if not to take in the latest Broadway show… share a fine repast with dear friends… wander café to gallery? And off he would go to Manhattan and, sure enough, upon his return, we would find him sitting in his overgrown boxwood gardens, sniffling and congested, beloved cat, Goya, on his lap. Guests would have to mix their own cocktails that day. Sadly, Hervey is no longer with us, but his legacy lives on, thanks to his Coffee Town Road neighbor, Christopher Boas, who did a film documentary of Hervey’s extraordinary life – from his youthful NY cultural bonhomie during the great depression, to decades of outrageous weekends in the country…the films…the countess, the opera singer, the scandalous widow... Someday I hope to see the film.
But I digress as I always do. And when you feel hideous and hollow from congestion, you can’t be expected to write even semi-coherently. The only reason that I’m writing at all is because there is nothing on Comedy Central, and my eyes ache too much to read. And the Democratic nomination battle has become too tedious to watch, even for the most fanatical news addicts.
I admit liking Obama Girl...Stephen Colbert…Jon Stewart and especially Bill Maher. The ‘You Tube’ world has turned the traditional news media conventions upside down. Like everybody else in New Orleans, we howled in protest when the National Debate Committee bypassed our city - they said that the city wasn’t ready. What a line of utter crap and they all knew it – and you can rest assured that they, both individually and collectively, heard very clearly and explicitly from New Orleans! So we were thrilled when You Tube/Google announced plans to bring the candidates here for a virtual debate later this summer. What a grand way to ‘stick it’ to the traditional powers that be!
All of this makes good entertainment for those of us too sick to go outside.
I usually don’t get sick in New Orleans. It’s a different kind of town – better ventilated. At least, it is during the months when we’re in residence – in Spring, from Mardi Gras through Jazz Fest, and then again in Autumn, when the weather is fine and parties pour out into the streets and really get revved up.
After the Storm, a lot of full-timers left the city. But to where? Where can you go from New Orleans? Well, some of them found their way to Costa Rica. People there think we want to meet the Katrina refugees but we don’t. It’s true that after the Storm, many people had no choice, but we kind of doubt that anyone who lost everything would have landed in paradise. Given a choice, why would anyone abandon our beloved city when it needs everyone to come back home? Could it be that they just needed an excuse? I don’t want to judge the choices made by others, but we love the Big Easy and make our passion known whenever we get a chance, always trying to promote the city. Both of our gas-guzzling jeeps in Costa Rica have the bumper sticker: “New Orleans – Proud to Swim Home!”
As one Katrina refugee put it to me recently at a cocktail party in Costa Rica, to where she high-tailed it after losing her Lakeview mansion home: “I grew up in New Orleans – went to all the Deb balls! I know that city better than you! I believe Hurricane Katrina was God’s retribution to a sinful city.” Actually, New Orleans has always been populated by such sinners as prostitutes and criminals – that’s why it has been, and always will be, such a fun town.
But nowhere is fun when you’re sick and sitting in a stupefying funk in the flat.
It didn’t start out this way. I arrived in New Orleans just in time for the second weekend of JazzFest. Gerry had escaped some weeks earlier. Gerry’s take on ‘town vs. country’ is far different from mine. The country makes him sick (mostly in the head) and New Orleans rejuvenates him. When he’s not in New Orleans, he’s grumpy and homesick and, at every chance he gets and for any old excuse, Gerald (aka Famine) will jump on a plane and come to our home here in the Crescent City, leaving me back at Finca El Tigre.
On this occasion, I arrived just as Famine’s fellow Horseman, Pestilence, also arrived to take in everything New Orleans and especially the music scene. The first week we partied like nobody was looking - and then Pestilence got sick - then a few days later, Famine got sick. So for the next several days, we’re all cooped up here together in the flat, while I tried nursing them back to health. Gerald said it first, and there’s just no better word describing it than this: stultifying. Pestilence finally recovered enough to get on a flight back to Costa Rica. Unfortunately, I got the first symptom – sore throat – the next day and it went downhill from there.
The best remedies for colds & flu don’t require a trip to the pharmacy. You just need lots of fluids and sleep and time. Drink chicken broth and/or hot tea with lemon & honey and rest, rest, rest. Wait a minute! We’re in New Orleans after all! Aren’t there any medicinal cocktails? Yes, thank God, there are! Somebody said that God invented beer because he loves us and wants us to be happy. But beer is not a good remedy unless you drink just one – try saying that to your British mate. Luckily, options abound!
When we all fell ill in Havana, we discovered the wonderful minty Mojito cocktail. Here in New Orleans, you can order the refreshing Pimm’s cocktail or go straight for the gold: a Sazerac or two at Tujagues! Does it help? You bet! You feel great all the way through dinner and fall straight into bed and sleep for 12 hours. Next morning you wake up feeling worse than ever. And you swear that you will stick to the chicken broth…lay low…until the bug is finally gone. And then evening swings around again and you could swear that you’re feeling a bit better…
So what about today? Will we stay home or will I rally and take Gerald to Restaurant August this evening for his long, overdue birthday dinner? What do you think? Do you have any idea what it took just to get a reservation in there? We love Chef John Besh so much, that when he lost out to somebody or other from Cleveland as the next, great IRON CHEF, I turned off the show in disgust and haven’t tuned it back on since!
Salud!
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