The Work of Ernest J. Gaines

“How do people come up with a date and time to take life from another man? Who made them God?” -Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines is a heart-wrenching novel that deals with issues of race, poverty and incarceration. Although it is set in the 1940s, this country faces so many of the same problems that it didn’t read as at all dated. During our time in Baton Rouge, we got to explore some of the places from Dr. Gaines’ life.  

A tiny and oppressive old jail cell

One of the first things we did upon getting to Baton Rouge was head to Pointe Coupee Parish. This is the area of Louisiana that Dr. Gaines grew up in and, after he moved to California for a few years, ended up moving back to. Upon arriving, we were greeted outside the courthouse by Sherriff Thibideaux. He was really friendly, and brought us inside to meet the chief of police and the mayor of the town. Upon entering their meeting room the first thing I noticed was a massive “blue lives matter” flag plaque on the wall and I was immidiately nervous. I was nervous about what that meant about the people who had so warmly welcomed us in. I knew statistically that, because we were in the South and out of the artsy city, the people would be more conservative. But the idea of being led around by someone who had the combination of a) having a lot of power while we were in completely new territory and b) likely harboring racist and bigoted beliefs put me on edge from the beginning. As he talked and joked with the group (and also because I figured we had a safety in numbers and Andrew knew what to say if any suspicion fell on us), I became slowly more at ease, although I wouldn’t say I ever completely lost the wariness. 

The grave of the great Dr. Ernest J. Gaines

After talking with the sheriff, we were then shown into the old area of the courthouse, where jails that were in use from the 1800s to 1980s now lay unused, filled with boxes and boxes of unorganized archives collecting dust. This was the same courthouse that Jefferson would have lived in awaiting his execution in A Lesson Before Dying. They were in terrible condition. The paint was peeling, bunks were missing, trash and papers were scattered around. But the most haunting part wasn’t the state of the cells as they were now, it was the knowledge that they actually kept people here, in these tiny, hot, cramped cells. It was the knowledge that conditions like that are still happening all across the country. That human beings, often people targeted for their race, both were and are being treated so inhumanly. A Lesson Before Dying does a fantastic job of showing the audience Jefferson’s humanity and dignity, even though he is ultimately executed. 

The day after, we saw Ernest Gaines’ house. Cheylon Woods, an archivist at the Ernest J. Gaines center, showed us around the property and told us about its history. He built his house on the plantation his family was enslaved at. It remains a sugar plantation, with a lot of the old architecture still remaining. Dr. Gaines took measures to preserve the church the enslaved people who lived there would attend, one very much like the one in the novel where Wiggins taught. He also preserved the old cemetery where generations of enslaved people were buried in unmarked graves, including his aunt, who was a big inspiration for him. The cemetery is now home to his grave as well, which we visited. 

Original handwritten pages of the first draft of A Lesson Before Dying

The following day, we met with Cheylon Woods again, but this time at her home base at the Ernest J. Gaines center at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette. The walls were covered with various awards and plaques that Dr. Gaines had been awarded. After she told us about his life and how he had gotten various things, she took us into another room and took out two archival boxes. From them she took out the original manuscripts of A Lesson Before Dying. Seeing them was absolutely incredible. Some of the folders had pages of handwritten chapters, others had early typed versions that were different from the finished book. You could see edits and notes of Dr. Gaines in the margins. Here we were, holding pages he had written. I felt so connected to him. I pictured him writing the novel out by hand, sometimes struggling to think of the next words, other times furiously scribbling to try to keep up with his mind. The way he wrote notes in the margins to his editors really brought my mental image of him down to earth. He went from “the Author of the book” in my mind to a man. A man who was a pioneering Black author. A man who took it upon himself to tell the stories others wouldn’t. A man who saved the memories of so many people. 

Graffiti in one of the old jail cells at the courthouse

The work Ernest J. Gaines did to keep the landmarks and tell the stories of people who white people brutalized and then tried to forget is such a noble task, and one that is very similar to Wiggins’ task to allow Jefferson to experience proper humanity, even though he is being murdered by bigots who have too much power. I think it is so, so important to tell the stories of the people that society and mainstream historical narratives have tried to forget. It is vital to everyone that we remember the way people have been marginalized and oppressed and that we actively work to fight it. Dr. Gaines is incredibly inspirational in the way he worked to do this. 

A City for Writing

“New Orleans may be too seductive for a writer.” -Walker Percy, author of The Moviegoer and other novels

New Orleans has a long history of being a city for writers and artists. One of the reasons the Bookpacking experience is perfectly well-suited for this city is the way so much culture and so many people are brought into a totally unique and bohemian place, making it a wonderful home for aspiring writers and a fantastic subject for stories. Famous writers, like Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, and Mark Twain lived in New Orleans, and all of the books on our book list took place in or right outside of the city. 

The group standing with the Ignatius J. Reilly statue on Canal Street

Part of what made Bookpacking so cool was the ability to visit the places we had just read about, making the books feel so much more real. On our first night out, we all walked down Canal Street and not only got to see the places where Ignatius of A Confederacy of Dunces walked but also found a statue of him. After having just spent the length of the novel with this character, seeing him in person with his hunter hat and sour expression, draped in Mardi Gras beads, felt really special. New Orleans allowed the fiction to come to life. 

One evening, as we were in the process of reading Coming Through Slaughter, a book about the life of founding member of jazz Buddy Bolden, we went to Preservation Hall to listen to a live jazz performance. Preservation Hall was a small building and the age of the wood that made it up was apparent. Stepping into the hall felt like stepping back in time. We stood in the very back of the room. As the lights dimmed and the musicians started, a mood and energy filled the room unlike any other. The music pulsed through the space and the instruments seemed just as alive as their players. Each person had a turn for a solo, and as the different instruments went back and forth it was like the instruments were engaged in conversation with each other that I got to witness. It was easy to picture living decades ago, standing in that same room, listening to what was at the time this new kind of music, a music that seemed to be able to create life in the air. Through the music, I was suddenly connected to Bolden through more than just words and feelings, but through beat, energy, and melody. His spirit was in the music, and through music, everything is alive. 

Mardi Gras costume on exhibit at the Presbytère museum

Part of what makes New Orleans such a fitting setting for Interview with the Vampire is that the city seems to push the limits of what is possible to exist in reality. The city has a long history of suspected vampires and of ghost sightings, going right back to colonial days. Its history blurs the line in the city between fantasy and real life, something that makes it the perfect setting for a vampire story. It also makes it a wonderful place to write in general, because it’s somewhere where stories are able to seep into reality, and where people are able to step into stories. 

This is also seen in the novel The Moviegoer, where Binx’s experience of the city is constantly being compared in his mind to different movies he’s seen. Because of New Orleans’ one-of-a-kind literary quality, it really lends itself to someone who wants to see the world through the lens of a story.

Book of A Streetcar Named Desire that was signed by the original cast

Another facet of The Moviegoer is that throughout the book, Binx’s family is preparing a krewe for Mardi Gras, which is a group that gets together to make a float for the parade. Although Mardi Gras had passed this year, we got to go see an exhibit on the celebration and what went into making it at the Presbytère museum. No matter how detailed a description is of the Mardi Gras costumes, nothing could ever capture their majesty in real life. The costumes are huge, for one thing. I can’t imagine walking around in all of that, let alone in the Louisiana heat. Every inch of them is beaded, feathered, or colored. The opulence of the whole thing was absolutely astounding. I saw why it was such a big deal to the family to have to figure everything out. 

In addition to our Bookpacking books, we also got the opportunity to explore the city’s connection to other great authors. The Historic New Orleans Collection museum had an exhibit focusing on A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams’ play exploring toxic masculinity and relationships and mental health in New Orleans in the 1940s. The exhibit featured the desk Williams wrote at and some original manuscripts and film props, which were really cool to see. I had read A Streetcar Named Desire for school previously, and it made me really grateful I had. Every writing of New Orleans seems to have a different perspective of the city, and seems to see it as a slightly different thing. Because of this, the more I read the more ways I’m able to look at the city. 

My imagining of absinthe, aka. “The Green Fairy”, a popular drink both in New Orleans and among writers of a certain time period

Another stop we made in the French Quarter was the Faulkner House bookstore, named because it had once been the house of William Faulkner. It was a small but neat and beautiful bookstore. We passed a bar that had been frequented by authors like Faulkner, Williams, Rice, and Hemingway, where they would go to drink absinthe and write and talk. The unconventionality and artistry of the city has always given writers the freedom to observe other people and explore themselves in deeper and new ways. Especially for queer writers, New Orleans was somewhere they could safely experiment with themselves and were given the ability to be themselves in full rather than having to hide. 

The Capitols of Louisiana

Image found online: DesignsbyMinaD on Etsy

In the crowds of the Money Wasters second line parade, a particular T-shirt slogan caught my eye. It read: “I’m from New Orleans NOT Louisiana.” This perfectly captured the uniqueness of the parade – the mix of dance, jazz, and eccentricity that could only be found in the city. While we did start our trip in Grand Isle, the past two weeks, we have been immersed in the culture of New Orleans. However, the t-shirt begs a crucial question: What is life like in Louisiana outside New Orleans? After traveling to Baton Rouge, the capital of the state, I have a glimpse of this. 

“Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the city limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins.”

— John Kennedy Toole

The only excursion that Ignatius Reilly, the protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, has taken out of New Orleans is to the city of Baton Rouge. Although, for us, it was just an hour and a half’s drive away, to Ignatius, it is comparable to venturing out into an unknown continent. Ignatius’ perspective is certainly unreliable: his failed attempt to land a job at LSU seems to retroactively color his experience of Baton Rouge and Toole exaggerates this for comic effect. This exaggeration nevertheless touches on the great sense of change as we moved upriver and North from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. 

St. Joseph’s Cathedral

Geographically, it is instantly noticeable that, unlike New Orleans, Baton Rouge is slightly elevated over the Mississippi. Driving in, it was incredible to see the vast empty stretches of swamps and fields. While New Orleans is a lot larger and sprawling, the buildings and streets of Baton Rouge are more spaced out. As a capital city, its buildings feel imposing and authoritative. 

Although Ignatius seems to have detested Baton Rouge, a lot of what he idealizes politically seems to resonate with its history. Ignatius seeks a “good, strong monarchy,” and a “good, authoritarian Pope.” In our seminar, we talked about Louisiana’s former governor Huey Long and watched the 2006 film adaptation of Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men, based fictively on the life of Huey Long. He has a near legendary status in the city – his infrastructure, education, and health programs modernized the state – and is remembered as a champion of the causes of the poor against big oil industrialists. At the same time, he is also remembered as a near-dictator and demagogue who used corrupt political tactics, including violence,  to eliminate and threaten opposition.

“A perfect democracy can come close to looking like a dictatorship, a democracy in which the people are so satisfied they have no complaint.
”

— Huey Long

While he was assassinated on September 10, 1935, I can sense the specter of his authority in the buildings he constructed. The imposing feeling that struck me when we initially drove into the city seems to be tied to Huey Long. 

The Old Governor’s Mansion

I walk a few blocks down the road from our hotel and see the Old Governor’s Mansion that Huey Long built in 1929. The house is painted all white. It is on a slight elevation from the large green lawn that surrounds it. The entrance is held up by four large pillars that emulate Greek columns. The sheer size of the mansion exudes a sense of power that distinguishes it from the buildings that surround it.

Patriots

The New State Capitol building, however, epitomizes this sensation of power and authority. Huey Long’s tombstone statue towers over the capitol’s gardens. Towering over this statue is the art-deco style building itself. The inside of the building has immense grandeur, and I could feel the importance of the space as I observed the governmental representatives working at their desks. Yet, when I walk outside the building, I feel like I am meant to be intimidated. 

Pioneers

On either side of the grand steps to the entrance of the building are the two statues, “Pioneers,” and “Patriots.” The “Patriots” statue, which intends to commemorate those who have died defending the country, has a large medieval soldier thrusting his sword into the ground.

Andrew remarked that the art-deco style often could teeter into fascistic realms, and this unnerving statue gave off that impression. The “Pioneers” statue features a giant woman, supposedly representing progress, surrounded by French and Spanish explorers, as well as the Native American inhabitants of the land. While it is nice to see an acknowledgement of the indegenious population, seeing them grouped under the colonial label ‘pioneer,’ has an unsettling effect. 

---

The Old Capitol building, by comparison, is not nearly as imposing. While the eagles sitting atop the iron fence that surrounds the building, and its fort-like appearance do signify authority, I remember Andrew telling us about what Mark Twain felt about the building – it was a “whitewashed castle,” an “architectural falsehood.” While striking, it does stick out like a sore thumb amidst its surroundings. 

The place seems caught between the idealization of the past and the celebration of progress. The gothic-revival architecture echoes the middle ages. Some plaques right outside the building remember the 1779 Battle of Baton Rouge, where French and Spanish forces captured the British fort here. This was before the capitol building was even built. 

A model of how the capitol looked in 1852

Inside, there is a museum of political history that describes the repeated restorations of the building. Originally constructed in 1852, the building had to be reconstructed after the civil war in 1882, and then restored yet again in the 1990s since the building had fallen into disrepair after the capitol was shifted by Huey Long. There seems to be a need to continually reconstruct what Twain would see as an artificial medieval image of the past. 

Yet, the museum itself is built around teleological progress. A video exhibit, describing the history of Baton Rouge, goes over enslavement and segregation, proclaiming that this was supposedly ‘short-lived.’ Another room documents the history of voting rights and the progress toward democracy. Yet, this simplistic notion of progress seems to be at odds with the very building the exhibits are set in. 

A plaque outside one of the rooms marked that it was underwritten by the “Shell Oil Company Foundation.” This is the type of corporation that Huey Long was fighting against.

On the second floor of the old capitol building, I walked into a room that was filled with images of weddings – especially, pictures of the bride in front of stained glass. Looking at these wonderful images, the cynical part of me remembered Mark Twain. It was almost as if this room revealed the real significance of the building; not the museum exhibits.  Perhaps this was part of what Huey Long wanted to leave behind when he created the New Capitol.

Meaning in Mundanity

When I told others that I was going to Louisiana for the month of May, I got many shocked reactions and questions about why I was going to the South. New Orleans is in the South, but in my mind, a city known for its license and exuberant extravagance didn’t really match up with the redneck reputation of the deep South. However, as we walked through the “genteel” districts surrounding New Orleans such as the Marigny, the stomping grounds of Binx Bolling, our protagonist in Walker Percy’s classic novel “The Moviegoer”, I began to gain some clarity and truly see the values and ideas that built up the Old South.

Seminar in Audubon Park

Last week, we did this exercise during our seminar time in which Andrew asked us to come up with a list of descriptors that came to mind when we thought of the South. Answers were hesitant at first, but as we got rolling, we came up with a list of adjectives and phrases that played into both ideas, stereotypes, and descriptors of the Old South. Some were positive: “etiquette, poise, strong beliefs, Southern hospitality” while others more negative: “oppression, knowing your place, racism.” Looking at all of these, one thing struck out to me more clearly than ever before—one’s belief and value system was a key component of the idea of the South.

Part of Binx’s personal search for meaning in The Moviegoer included looking for the moral codes that other people in his life lived by, and trying to see how others use them to find meaning in their lives. Two of the ones exemplified most clearly in the novel are religion, explored through his mother’s strong Catholic faith, and the idea of Southern honor and dignity, which is exemplified in his Aunt Emily’s pressing for Binx to live life with a sense of duty and honor. Aunt Emily’s values are clear when she talks to Binx, urging him “I wanted to pass on to you…a sense of duty, a nobility worn lightly… the only things that really matter in this life.” Binx seems to reject these all though, and seeks to find his own purpose through one of his favorite activities—movies, which act as a symbol of his search for meaning through others’ lives.

“More than anything I wanted to pass on to you the one heritage of the men of our family, a certain quality of spirit, a gaiety, a sense of duty, a nobility worn lightly, a sweetness, a gentleness with women—the only good things the South ever had and the only things that really matter in this life.”

— Aunt Emily

As the title of the book suggests, Binx enjoys going to the movies not only for the fun of it and to escape daily life, but also as a search to better understand his own life. Even though the film itself Binx is sometimes critical of, he instead goes to the movie as an experience, saying “before I see a movie it is necessary for me to learn something about the theater or the people who operate it to touch base before going inside.” As a moviegoer, Binx watches the scenes of his life go by, confused and searching for meaning, but he continually returns to the theaters, holding onto the experience of the people he interacts with, the character’s stories he is able to watch, seeking an individual experience at the theaters, which subverts the conformity that American cinema tends to promote.

“If I did not talk to the theater owner or the ticket seller, I should be lost, cut loose metaphysically speaking. I should be seeing one copy of a film which might be shown anywhere and at any time. There is a danger of slipping clean out of space and time.”

— Binx Bolling

As we discussed all these things under a grand old oak tree in Audubon Park in New Orleans, Andrew shared about how the book was deeply profound and beautiful for him, one man’s search for meaning and how at the end, he was able to be satisfied with the little things in life rather than the grandiose promises, riding off into the sunset ideas that movies tend to press. Similar to another book we read on this trip, many of my fellow bookpackers felt strongly about the ending, disliking the fact that Binx seemed to have settled for suburbia and married his cousin Kate after wild romps with his many secretaries, who he treats as substandard. Binx’s initial objectification of women highlights his lack of values and desire for pleasure. By the epilogue, though, Binx comes to the conclusion that “it is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way” instead of the “big search for happiness”. Binx is now caring for both Kate and his half-siblings as a family man of sorts, indicating that while he may no longer be searching for this idea of a grand purpose in life, he has found pleasure in the small things that give him a life worth living.

There wasn’t a grand attraction or trip that really exemplified and brought the reading of The Moviegoer to life during our trip in New Orleans. Whereas other books had very physical and tangible experiences, the neighborhood in which the Moviegoer is set is quiet, the experience not particularly noteworthy in any way. And yet, I think that is deeply representative of Binx’s epilogue and the story which Walker Percy sets out to tell. There’s not always a hero, a fascinating and dynamic character who undergoes a daring adventure—rather, Binx is meant to be representative of the common people, a man of the world who could be like any other man searching for meaning.

It’s rather profound, the soul searching and reflection this book ponders, uncovering and journeying along Binx’s search to understand what it means to search for purpose. While it isn’t about faith or about Southern ideals of honor and dignity that his mother and Aunt Emily, who are representative of two traditional Southern values, Binx comes to find purpose with the people he’s with, taking care of his wife Kate and his half-siblings. And it’s in those little actions, that Little Way, that he is able to find meaning in mundanity.

The Dunce and the Daiquiri

““Is it the part of the police department to harass me when this city is a flagrant vice capital of the civilized world?” Ignatius bellowed. “This city is famous for its gamblers, prostitutes, exhibitionists, antichrists, alcoholics, sodomites, drug addicts, fetishists, onanists, pornographers, frauds, hades, litterbugs, and lesbians, all of whom are only too well protect by graft.””

— John Kennedy Toole

There’s a certain duality to New Orleans. No where else would you be able to find priests and nuns going to the cathedral for confession and mass on the same street as topless women and the “Trashy Diva Lingerie Boutique”. It’s a eccentric and colorful quirk of New Orleans that can be distilled into John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer Prize winning comedy “A Confederacy of Dunces”.

You can’t really escape this book in New Orleans. It’s on bookshelves in every bookstore we’ve gone into, and even in the most tourist-y of gift shops in the French Quarter, our “protagonist” Ignatius Reiley’s bushy black mustache and green hunting cap with its large green earflaps stare back at me, the only book in a boutique full of jewelry and various bric-a-brac. I’ve had people come up and tell me how much they love the book as I’ve brought it to restaurants and cafés to prepare for this blog post, New Orleans natives sharing how the book like no other captures the true eccentricity and “soul” of New Orleans.

It’s ironic how the first night we arrived in New Orleans, we immediately were greeted by a bronze statue of Ignatius. We had no idea he was there, and many of us walked past him without a second glance. However, the tousled earflaps drew us in, and to our great delight, the statue of our protagonist Ignatius greeted us with caterpillar eyebrows and his impressive mustache. A literary Ignatius definitely would not have been pleased with our ragtag group of California tourists stopping and taking pictures with him, us probably lacking “taste and decency”, our outfits “casting doubts upon one’s soul”. Since he’s a statue though, he has no choice but to entertain us bookpackers delighted at finding a character in one of our books captured in bronze during our first night in the Big Easy.

Group photo op with Ignatius!

What’s been interesting to me is how strongly my classmates have expressed their dislike for Ignatius. From middle school English to our writing classes and AP courses in high school through the books we’ve read in our time at USC, we’ve been constantly reinforced with the idea that in every story, there’s this arc, character progression that leaves our protagonists changed from how we initially met them. Ignatius' frustrating selfishness, clumsiness, and inconsiderateness led me to initially be irritated, but as I read, the comedy of the novel started to make sense to me. It’s quite like Don Quixote, as Ignatius similarly goes from adventure to adventure like how Don Quixote tilted at windmills, letting out gas and bringing about the stench of old tea bags wherever Ignatius goes.

“I dust a bit. In addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip.”

— Ignatius Reilly

In my mind, I think of Curious George, Sherlock Holmes or Paddington the bear when I think of what type of character I’m looking at Ignatius through. They each have their charm: Curious George is always curious, Sherlock is consistently witty and brilliant, Paddington charming and clumsy, and now Ignatius’ lumbering, gassy, and blundering figure joins the rest. The fact that they are static characters going through different scenarios is what makes the story so exciting, charming, or in our case, funny. When I realized that Confederacy of Dunces was one of those types of books, I no longer read it critically for metaphors, themes, or various analytical purposes, but instead as how Toole intended it to be—a truly laugh-out-loud comedy, timeless and absurd.

As we walked the streets of Bourbon Street coming back from our ghost tour on my last night in New Orleans, I couldn’t help but think about what righteous outrage Ignatius would have toward the tourists drunkenly drinking daiquiris, the racy stores and bars, and the party atmosphere Bourbon Street embraces. It’s part of the whole comedy, seeing how licentious and exotic the atmosphere is and the contrast to Ignatius’ chivalric ideals.

One of many Daiquiri shops around Bourbon Street

The city of New Orleans has been a true experience of a lifetime. As we depart New Orleans for the state capital of Baton Rouge next, which Ignatius describes as the “heart of darkness, where the true wastelands begins”, I’m excited to put the parties behind and explore the city in which our next book, Lessons Before Dying, is set. I’ll remember how colorful and exciting New Orleans is though, and if I’m ever longing for a piece of the wild and riotous city, Confederacy of Dunces is there to remind me of the eccentricity and soul of the city.

All The Small Things

As I write this blog post, we have just reached Baton Rouge. The last novel we read in the city of New Orleans was Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, and I’m not going to lie, the meaning of that book completely went over my head at first. The story follows a man named Binx Bolling as he goes on a bit of an existentialist journey trying to figure out the meaning of life.

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

— Walker Percy

By the end of the novel, Binx realizes that there isn’t some big mind-blowing answer. In reality, life is about all the small things that you experience and the people you encounter along the way. Binx evolves from a person who abhorred malaise in his life to someone who doesn’t need constant excitement.

I think it says a lot about me that I couldn’t identify and understand this lesson until it was pointed out to me during a seminar in Audubon Park. I am still searching for something greater. I expect every book we read to have a major revelation, which is why I failed to grasp the simple ending to The Moviegoer, in which Binx settles down and is surrounded by his half siblings and wife. Enjoying life with all of its ordinary activities didn’t seem like a considerable lesson to me but looking back on the novel and looking in at myself, I can see that it is an essential lesson. I started to learn this lesson back in Grand Isle with the French Creole way of life exhibited in The Awakening, but I think it started to slip away from me in the hustle and bustle of New Orleans. I am hoping to get back in touch with this idea of slowing down and appreciating what is in front of you as our trip starts to slow down once again.

“It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car, and a warm deep thigh.”

— Walker Percy

We did a lot of big things while we were in New Orleans. We went on a ghost and vampire tour, rode the ferry to Algiers, ate beignets at Café du Monde, saw a performance at Preservation Hall, followed a second line parade, and visited museums. We really put on our tourists hats and did all of the classic New Orleans activities, but when I think about this trip in a few months or years, I’m not sure if those moments will be the biggest takeaways. Even now, as I think about all the things we did there, I find myself cherishing all the little things most of all.

I think about the night Alex, Spencer, Leila, and Lauryn gathered in mine and Maya’s room with snacks and music to read our books and write our blog posts together, and somehow Leila and I ended up impulsively purchasing concert tickets.

I think about the time we returned from Audubon Park and walked to Pinkberry for frozen yogurt.

I think about the incredible Cajun meal we enjoyed at 30/90, complete with a crawfish boil, the best jambalaya I’ve ever had, and raw oysters.

I think about the day off we were given to write our first papers, spending time with Maya at The Shops, and buying tickets to Harryween.

I think about the delicious food we had at Thaihey NOLA, and the hilarious waitress who pushed all of us to make our dishes spicier.

I think about the time we tried sneaking into a nearby hotel to do laundry but immediately left because the washing machine smelled like a sewer.

I think about the mouthwatering Chinese food we had at Dian Xin on our final day in NOLA, and the 15-minute tarot card reading I received across the street.

There are a million more moments I could list out, but that would make this blog too long to read. Don’t take me wrong, both the touristy and educational parts of this trip have been great. I have learned so much about the history of Louisiana and our country. I have visited places and seen exhibits that have moved me and have probably altered the way I think about community, race, what it means to be American, and myself completely. I know I will walk away from this trip wiser and more aware of the world I am living in. But I think my biggest takeaway from this Maymester will be the mundane things I did with everyone on this trip, like eating out, going to the grocery store, or spending time together in someone’s room. I know I have forged some amazing friendships on this trip, and I am eternally grateful for that because it was something I really needed at this point in my life. I remember telling my mom “I’ve found my people here.” And I think that’s what Walker Percy was trying to teach in The Moviegoer. I’m going through the same process Binx did. Maybe the meaning to life is simpler than we think. Life isn’t about the extraordinary. Life is about family and friends. Life can just be normal, and that doesn’t make it any less great. 

We need to stop searching for the meaning of life and just start living it.

“There is only one thing I can do: listen to people, see how they stick themselves into the world, hand them along a ways in their dark journey and be handed along, and for good and selfish reason.”

— Walker Percy

The Monteleone

There is a party culture in New Orleans that I was eager to experience along with everything else the city has to offer. I was even more eager because I didn’t have the opportunity to celebrate the end of my college career at USC, catching a flight straight to New Orleans after commencement. So, as I found two other graduates on this trip, oh, was it so important that we had a chance to celebrate together. And when the 3 of us found out about the legendary Monteleone carousel bar, the same bar that greats such as Truman Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Tennessee Williams sat and drank in, we made that the location for our celebration.

As we arrive, we are in awe of the carousel itself, the live music, and the general liveliness of the place. It’s New Orleans at its finest, the doorman chatting you away, the jazz band playing, and swanky people from Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Mississippi chatting around with loud laughter. The bartender making drinks and people slowly going around the bar was such a thrill and beautiful sight to see. It took a while for us to find a seat at the bar, but when we did, we immediately ordered drinks and saluted ourselves. And as we made our slow rounds around the bar, we made friends around us in that New Orleans way; something I completely adore about this city. Everyone was so proud of us as graduates, and we got a shot sent our way in celebration.

There is something about the licensee of New Orleans, the fluidity of the Frenchness, that makes New Orleans a bit thrilling, and what New Orleans is. In the weeks we have been thriving in New Orleans, Andrew has covered so much of the history and culture that makes New Orleans a special place. We have talked about the Frenchness that exists in the culture, which creates this atmosphere of a laissez-faire way of life, the sexual way of living, and how people interact with each other; all creating the fluidity that exists in New Orleans. 

There is something more profound about the race relations of the South that impacts this French sensuality. As I sat on the carousel bar, 3 older white men to my right were enjoying their conversation. I found myself continuously catching eye contact with one of them until I bumped into one of his friends, and he began a little flirtish chat with me and told me his friend thought I was cute and he had a crush on me. Now, with the LA girl in me and the Frenchness of that moment, made me act a bit coquettish, and have this man buy me a drink.

I found myself in a long chat with an older man at this bar. This man, his name Trey was born and raised in Mississippi with the thickest accent to match. He asked me what I studied, and he gave me an anecdote about a philosophy class he once took. I leaned in and asked how old he was, with which he promptly replied 55. The academic in me continued to engage him in conversation. Hearing about ruining a sewage processing plant, how he was passionate about helping children, and how he thought I was more than cute and more than beautiful. There was a moment when Trey leaned over a little more and tried to touch my thigh, which led me to excuse myself, and he got into an intense conversation with the only male friend I had with me. Trey’s night with his friends intertwining with mine says so much about New Orleans, the South, and the license of white patriarchy that seeps through this city in ways I was not expecting to experience.

Trey from Mississippi came down to New Orleans this weekend for this state of licentiousness. For this ability to sit at a bar and talk to an “exotic” Black woman from California who could be his own daughter's age (which he told me repeatedly didn’t exist in his Mississippi drawl). But, I questioned if Trey from Mississippi would have taken the time to talk to me back home. Or if he felt he had the space to date a Black woman romantically when he was younger. Trey, raised in 1960s Mississippi, didn’t view me as a human, though. Trey didn’t ask me any questions about myself outside of what I studied and talked about himself the whole time but was completely able to hold a long conversation with my guy friend. Trey mentioned that he became a sloppy redneck when he was drunk, not focused on the fact he is saying this to a young Black woman. Trey had the license in French New Orleans, from the South, to fetishize me as a Black woman in a white space. Trey erased the existence of a human being from me and created pure objectification.

If it wasn’t any more obvious, Trey, a waste management professional, completely erased the existence of Cancer Alley. Cancer Alley, a place along the Mississippi River in the River Parish, is a predominantly Black community experiencing very high rates of cancer due to air pollution. The region between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is considered the sacrifice zone, where petrochemical production and waste occur. A Toxics Release Inventory showed Louisiana produced 8.9 billion pounds of waste in 2018 alone, and it was dumped near and around the River Parish. Trey called Cancer Alley bullshit.

Photo of Cancer Alley from Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/louisiana-cancer-alley-photos-oil-refineries-chemicals-pollution-2019-11

Andrew’s conversations about the Frenchness of New Orleans, the license and the licentiousness, and the hierarchical chivalry of the South all concluded on my night at the Monteleone. This history of New Orleans is in the atmosphere, and the history, making it so that a 55-year-old white man from Mississippi fetishizes a 23-year-old Black woman from Los Angeles and abstracts him enough to think he can flirt and pick her up. The delusions New Orleans offers are a wondrous moment for some.  It made the conditions in our society for a Black woman like me, to not have an existence outside of this man’s mind more than just an object. For a white man to talk about caring about kids while not caring about the environment, to deny the existence of racism while fetishizing a Black woman, and to have white supremacist ideas and to still want to have sexual relations with a Black woman because she is less than.

I found myself wondering if my friends wonder and analyze being perceived, and how people interact with them. I questioned if Trey thought I was maybe an escort waiting for his attention. I don’t have many thoughts outside of this analysis of the night and I laugh at the thought that he may be thinking about me as a fantasy, and I am studying him writing a blog. I wonder if I am too in my head like Holden from Catcher and the Rye, or Binx from The Moviegoer. Sometimes it is hard to write my thoughts about these situations clearly, but the duality that exists in the South and the French is a duality that exists in the minds of the people of the South, and everywhere around me. The intersection of racism, white supremacy, and white patriarchy is an interesting place to exist in, and I often wonder how the white male mind justifies it. It is a difficult identity to know when you are not being afforded humanity but to also play with the licentiousness that gives me simultaneously. I think this is why it is hard for me to afford empathy to characters like Binx and Holden. My identity is a duality.

My night at the Monteléone was interesting, to say the least. 

Coming Through History

Blog Post#3: Still Currently in New Orleans - Finished reading Coming Through Slaughter and now reading The Moviegoer

Started Writing on May 27, 2022

No matter how much you know, or how much you think you know, there’s still always so much to learn. During my time in New Orleans, I have learned something new everyday. I think it makes things easier because I am literally visiting a brand new place I have never been to for the first time, but at the same time it feels so much more bigger than just learning new things in a new place. New Orleans is a city that has so much history a part of it. It is in the build of the city, the tragedies it has gone through, the incredibly unique traditions, and even the people that live here and as a class we’ve been able to see a variety of museums and exhibits focusing on different things connected to New Orleans. 

We got to visit the Whitney Plantation, the Mardi Gras exhibit, and an exhibit about the hurricanes that New Orleans has been through, including hurricane Katrina. The place that left me feeling so much emotionally was the Whitney Plantation. I myself, being a person of color, and my parents have always made it a habit to learn about my past and history, especially when it comes to slavery. I like learning about it and I feel like I know a good amount about things that happened during slavery, but this visit to the plantation showed me that I still have so much to learn. It opened my eyes to just how bad things were back then, and hearing about some of the first hand experiences from people who were in the middle of everything while it was happening was like taking a slap to the face. When we had first arrived to the plantation we were given a souvenir about the life of an actual slave who had lived on the plantation and I think it all hit even harder when I was walking through this area in the plantation about all the experiences of many slaves that spanned over a decade and I actually found the name of the person I received on the wall. Her name was Ceceil George and she actually had a life on the Whitney Plantation and she was apart what makes the history there. Going there made me want to learn even more about slavery and I am going to make it an even bigger goal of mine to do just that. One of the things that I appreciated the most about the plantation was that it catered to remembering the slaves, not the people that owned. It was dedicated to learning about the lives of the slaves whether that was their names, their experiences, how they ran things as workers, and their own history. I’m glad I was able to visit. 

The Mardi Gras exhibit was very informative because all of the things I thought I knew about Mardi Gras were either wrong or had much more depth to it. It was extremely fascinating to learn how it was created and how it became what it is today. The exhibit also consisted of a variety of different outfits people wore on the floats. What I didn’t know was that a lot of the outfits actually had a lot of meaning behind them. I had assumed that some of the outfits were created for the aesthetic, but I was quite wrong. Lastly, right under the Mardi Gras exhibit was the one about the hurricanes. This one left me with a feeling similar to the one I felt after leaving the plantation because I knew that all of these tragic stories were about actual real people. Once again, I got to hear a lot about first hand experiences from people that lived through the hurricanes. I would have to say my favorite part about this exhibit was the ordinary heroes part. It was the part that was dedicated to random pedestrians who were seen as heroes because of the helpful things they did for people whether that was helping people get out of their flooding homes or helping a woman give birth on the street after the hurricanes had ripped through the city. New Orleans carries so much history and I love that it is memorialized here to be remembered and never forgotten. 

As I was visiting all of these locations about the history of New Orleans, I couldn’t help but think about the assigned book Coming Through Slaughter. Although this book is about the life of the infamous Buddy Bolden it also is about the history that connects to him and what New Orleans was like during the time he was alive. We literally got to visit the exact area where he grew up in New Orleans, which was quite surreal. One of my favorite things about this class and one of the reasons why I liked Coming Through Slaughter was because of the fact that it was about a real person and this class focuses on learning about the past and just how important it is for how things are today in this historical city. As the days go on and this trip comes closer to ending, it truly saddens me. Not only am I sad about possibly leaving the people that I now consider friends, I am sad to not continue learning more about New Orleans while being here. There is and always will be much more to learn, day after day.

Thank You for the Music

“Without jazz, life would be a mistake”

— Boris Vian

Lights. Camera. Action! When you turn any corner in New Orleans, everyone looks like they are shooting a movie. People don’t walk through the streets here: they dance. Here, people stop to listen and enjoy the live music. The city seems to have a rhythm to itself, because I too find myself dancing through these streets. There are times where I don’t even realize that I have a small bounce in my walk or start swaying side to side. It’s easy to feed off the energy of those walking down the street with you. I really do understand why this city is so special now. I’ve never seen another place where people dance walking down the street. It truly is magical, and something that couldn’t happen anywhere else but The Birthplace of Jazz.

However, I think to just refer to New Orleans as The Birthplace of Jazz is a disservice. This place is a thriving capital for jazz. Jazz is the heart and soul of this place, and this is something that anybody walking around can feel. The live street bands draw in crowds and bring people together. Everyone dances in any way that the music makes them feel. I can’t help but join any crowd I see, watching how everyone expresses themselves through movement. Everyone moves differently, however, it creates this beautiful blend. Between the music and the crowd, everyone works together to create a sort of harmony. From my time in New Orleans, I have learned that this is the epitome of jazz. Michael Ondaatje hits this exactly in his novel Coming Through Slaughter, which tells the story of the man who put jazz on the map, Buddy Bolden. The book itself is structured in a very chaotic way: there are no quotations, there are time jumps without any prompts, and it is often unclear who is speaking. While I thought this would frustrate me as a reader, this ended up being the reason I appreciated the book so much. It truly reflected the chaotic yet syncopated nature of jazz music. Jazz is so complex, yet at first glance, it seems so simple. I love that Bookpacking and reading Coming Through Slaughter gave me the experience to truly understand the complexities of jazz.

Here are some photos I took at Preservation Hall, one of the first places we experienced a live performance! The two photos on the right are taken from Google.

One of the highlights of the trip for me was watching the Moneywasters Second Line Parade. I really had no clue what to expect when Andrew invited us to attend. As we watched the floats and the crowds walk by, I was just trying to absorb all the action around me. Everyone was unified over their excitement of the music. People were full of life and celebration, moving their bodies however the music made them feel. It was so exciting to watch a sea of people interpret the music in so many ways but still manage to create a sense of unity. And then, we became a part of the crowd. Everyone was encouraging me to move to the beat and become a part of the crowd. I noticed myself start to sway, throw my hands in the air, and just take in everything around me. This was something I truly had forgotten to do.

When people learn that I grew up as a dancer, they assume that I can dance wherever I hear music. They assume that I can move freely on the spot. However, my career as a competitive dancer really restricted me from this. My instructors always taught me how to move my body, and from there it would just be memorizing how they interpreted the music. Especially as a ballet dancer, I had little creative freedom. I, like many others, fell into dance for my love of music. I loved the way that people let music take over their body, and then express those feelings through movement. It’s sad to see looking back now how I lost the ability to just feel music. Dance and movement really became a job to me. I would come to class and blindly follow my instructors, and many of my fellow dancers felt the same way. We would memorize the same routine, and all look uniform. Looking uniform was the ideal in competitive dance. It is so discouraging of individualism. Competitive dancers are taught to be robots of each other: we are all supposed to look and move the same. This rewired my mind, and I lost my love to just move to music. Burnt out from the cutthroat and toxic dance community, I officially quit when I was 16 years old. I lost my creative outlet and something I had known for most of my life. As I moved on, I still craved an opportunity to move freely. Coming to New Orleans really did reopen that aspect of my life.

I found this quote by Boris Vian that I put at the top of my blog that I felt reflected a lot of my experience with music thus far in New Orleans. Being surrounded by a city where everyone celebrates music made me realize that it is a powerful way to bring people together. Everyone expresses themselves in unique ways, and it all comes together so beautifully. As Boris Vian says, a life without jazz would lose a lot of this magic. For me personally, it would’ve been a mistake. I would’ve lost the love I have for moving to the music. Whether we are at Preservation Hall, parading with the Moneywasters, listening to live music on Frenchman Street or dancing on Bourbon, jazz lights up this city. Thank you, New Orleans, for teaching me how to just move freely again.

More than Just Music

“I am not sure but I’m almost positive that all music came from New Orleans”

— Ernie K Doe, Emperor of the Universe

In reading Coming Through a Slaughter, I didn’t quite comprehend how Buddy’s music was so unique that it couldn’t be recreated. However, upon being in New Orleans I now understand, how the genius of the music in Louisiana can only be understood in the details found in the experience of listening. From the last couple of days, I have learned through the experience of listening that the music in New Orleans reflects the people. It reflects their resistance, their history, and their essence.

What makes the music so different in New Orleans, is that it touches your soul. Walking through the city, you hear music all around you. The people you pass, all have a sense of joy which is unique as city life is often viewed as taxing.  From my experience, living in the city of Los Angeles the past couple of years, the citizens don’t have that particular spark which is found here. That spark that is contagious and changes your mood through just walking by it. Overall, based of my experience in New Orleans, it is a city that is unique in the sense that it has a welcoming aura that manifests itself with strangers coming up to say hi on the street or through members of the community expressing how we are all a part of their family; inviting you to join in on their celebrations despite just meeting.  I have never experienced this view on life in any other city that I have traveled to.  

The people of New Orleans have experienced so much in the last couple of years, that it’s hard to believe that they have any reason to celebrate. For example, at the Hurricane Katrina exhibit at the Presbytère, I was shocked to learn that the people of New Orleans still hosted Mardi Gras parades shortly after, despite the mass destruction. I expected that the people to be crushed and sad. Instead, they were celebrating life. It sort of reflected a feeling of gratitude that they were alive rather than the atmosphere of compliant and stress that is experienced in cities such as Los Angeles. What really resonated with me in this exhibit is an interview shown of a citizen of New Orleans. In this interview, she explained that in hosting the parades after Katrina, it symbolized hope for the community; that they as community will not be washed away. With the saying “This is our city” being said in such musical celebrations. This particular exhibit made me realize how the music created in New Orleans was more than just an artistic melody but rather it is a beautiful representation of resilience. It changed my perspective in music but also in life. It showed me that the beauty in the creation of music, is that it teaches us that we as a society, need to be more appreciative of the little things we have and have achieved.

Moreover, during our stay we had the opportunity to witness the Second Line parade of the social club, Money Wasters. I had never experienced, a parade such as this particular one. It was a parade that could be best described as full of life. There were people dancing on roofs and with their pets. But perhaps the most prominent feature of the second line parade, was the saying on their banner, “DAMN if we do, DAMN if we Don’t”. For me this reflected, the history of the second line parade. It acknowledges the West African culture robbed from the enslaved people that founded the city; showing that their essence as a culture still remains. It also showed how to be together in shared spaces, dancing together, rubbing shoulders in the middle of the action alongside the band playing, or walking at the edges meeting new and old friends. It was profound in the sense, that the joy expressed in these parades showed that it is possible to create a unified and inclusive society.

The music created in New Orleans, literally cannot be recreated anywhere else as it is a reflection of the city itself. The city has many monuments reflecting its association to music, commemorating the good and bad times the city has faced. It even reflects the blend in culture that exist in the city. One example is Congo Square in which bands from New Orleans currently come together on Friday afternoons to play. This is symbolic of the square’s origins of being a universal sharing platform for the enslaved people.  This is similar to the development of the jazz scene that is still prevalent through the city. As deciphered in Coming Through a Slaughter, jazz represented a way in which individuals and groups could gain recognition, self-worth, and respect in the tremulous 1900s.

If you listen to the Jazz Bands on Frenchmen or go to Preservation Hall, you could still feel that sense of proudness to be New Orleans through the music. One of my favorite music experiences in New Orleans has been at Preservation Hall. What is unique about Preservation Hall is that it focuses on preserving the musical traditions that founded the city. With witnessing the performance at Preservation Hall, I realized the uniqueness in their mission. It wasn’t about preserving the traditions but rather the resilience of the African slave influences and the immigrant influx faced by New Orleans. For me, I felt it reflected one mixed culture rather than all the entities that influenced the genre; it represented my view on hearing the word diversity. What is special about the city is that these ideals expressed through the music are reflected even through the clubs on Frenchmen and Bourbon. Hearing a salsa interpretation of jazz through the Brass Band at 30/90 on a Friday night, it made me feel represented. However, it also made the person right next to me of African Descent also feel represented. This is something, I never have observed elsewhere.

The music of New Orleans is a representation of what society could be if we leave race and social classes behind: unified & joyful. I never felt so inspired and touched by music as I have in New Orleans, nor do I feel I will be inspired anywhere else as the music produced here has been a byproduct of the experiences faced. At the end of the day, I feel that we can all learn important lessons from the details in New Orleans Music.

Street Performers

Second Line Parade

Money Wasters Parade Banner

Preservation Hall

Jazz Artwork found at the Historic New Orleans Collection

The excesses of new orleans: Embracing incompletion

“The excesses cloud up the page . . . the rest of your life a desert of facts. Cut them open and spread them out like garbage.”

— Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje’s “Coming Through Slaughter,” often feels like an archaeological project. Unearthing histories whose traces are scattered throughout the urban ‘desert of facts’ that is New Orleans. The image of spread out ‘garbage’ is incredibly off-putting, but that is the harsh reality of most material histories that are not preserved in conventional archives or museums. Yet, there is something potent about this ‘excess,’ the capacity to overflow that transgresses a more curated and manicured history. 

Of course, Ondaatje is transparent that these “facts have been expanded or polished to suit the truth of fiction,” yet, the polishing of these facts does not make Buddy Bolden’s story, as told by Ondaatje, any less excessive. As I read the novel, it felt like I was collecting detailed fragments of a larger picture; each character: Nora, Robin, Webb, Bellocq possessed their own fragments of Buddy. Yet, as I reached the end of the story, the larger picture never fully formed – I was just left with a collection of fragments. This lack of completion, to me, enables the excesses of Buddy to ‘cloud up the page.’ After two weeks of traveling, I have come to embrace this sense of incompletion. 

When speaking about my travels to places, I, like a lot of tourists, have the tendency to remark: “I have done this,” almost as if an entire place has been rendered complete by my mere act of visiting it. This is simply untrue. 

I had about an hour to meander around the French Quarter before the Preservation Hall Jazz performance. I decided to visit a second-hand book store I had heard about: Arcadian Books and Prints. Shelves of dusty books covered the walls of the tiny room; piles of books seemed to sprout out of the ground. The place was overflowing. Weaving through walls of precariously stacked books, I was overwhelmed. Usually at a bookstore, I like to scan every shelf from top-to-bottom, but rummaging through everything here would be impossible. I just had to give in to the excesses of the forty-one years of history and literature. 

“The right ending is an open door you can’t see too far out of.”

— Michael Ondaatje

Before the Jazz show, we were made to stand at the back of the antiquated Preservation Hall. My vision of the stage was obscured by a wooden pillar that cut through the center of the room and the backs of others in the audience in front of me. Restlessly, I continually adjusted my angle of viewing to see as much as I could. It was exhausting. 

Preservation Hall

Eventually, I leaned against the wall behind me and just listened. I remembered how Buddy Bolden described the parades he played in. People walking past him would hear “just the fragment” he was playing – they could “come in where they pleased and leave when they pleased” – they could hear “all the possible endings.” During the jazz performance, I often missed what the drummer was saying as he introduced each new piece; sometimes, the music faded into the background as I zoned out into my thoughts; other times, I could clearly grasp the rhythm of the song and tapped my feet in sync with the music. 

---

After one of our seminars in Jackson Square, where we discussed the literary history of New Orleans, Andrew sent us a map of the French Quarter marked with key locations visited by authors who were associated with the French Quarter’s Bohemian zeitgeist: Truman Capote, Sherwood Anderson, Tennesse Williams, William Faulkner. It felt like a scavenger hunt. Although these authors’ legacies are preserved a lot more concretely in the canon of New Orleans’ culture, I felt an affinity with Ondaatje – visiting spaces and digging out the individual histories contained within them.

Some of the locations, like the inside of the Hotel Monteleone or Faulkner House Books, seemed to be preserved through time. The ornate carousel bar was still operational inside the Monteleone. Faulkner’s house was now a sophisticated bookstore with first-editions of his books, and framed letters written by famed authors like T.S Eliot.

On the other hand, I felt a little underwhelmed by some of the other locations. Hotel Maison De Ville, where Tennessee Williams supposedly wrote parts of Streetcar, was closed. All I could see were its old doors and a commemorative plaque. 538 Royal Street, where Williams used to live across from a gay bar, the St. James looked no different, now, than the other shops on the street. It housed a cosmetic store. The Old Absinthe House, the meeting place for celebrated literary figures, was now more of a sports bar with football helmets hanging from the ceiling.

“. . . the neighborhood of five million strangers, each shooting out his own personal ray? How can I deal with five million personal rays?
”

— Walker Percy

Although my interest was directed towards these specific authors, there were millions of strangers who may have left traces of their ‘personal ray’ in those spaces. Even though there are attempts made to preserve and sometimes commodify the presence of these authors, most of their material presence is smothered by the multitudes of other unnamed presences. While it is exciting to individualize these spaces, I increasingly felt like the authors I was tracing were dissipating into the excesses of history.

---

“He was scared of everybody. He didn’t want to meet anybody he knew again, ever in his life.
”

— Michael Ondaatje

Buddy is frightened when he realizes that he does not have complete possession of himself. He dissociates. When history becomes so fragmented and dispersed, it is easy to feel lost. Is it even possible to hold onto something that is so scattered

When I visited the Hurricane Katrina exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum in the Presbytère building, I saw one way this might be possible. The main room of the exhibit had clusters of television screens with speakers attached to them. A spotlight directed us sequentially to each of these screens, where we listened to multiple accounts of the harrowing experience. The people speaking ranged from policemen, firemen, and nurses to regular New Orleanians who lost their livelihoods. Everyone’s experience was essential.

There were recurring themes: the dehumanization of the victims of this disaster by the media, the ineptitude of institutions, and the profound cooperation between people that allowed them to endure. Still, I do not think it is possible to paint a complete picture of what happened. I left the exhibit knowing that there was so much more to the experiences that I could never begin to comprehend. These shared, yet personal experiences could never be contained within a desert of facts.

Search and Rescue on Humanity Street - David Rae Morris

The Great Escape

“To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.”

— Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

After jamming out to the sweet tunes of jazz, our group transitioned into the grand search for life’s meaning and purpose. This thematic search is brought to you by a Big Easy literary classic, The Moviegoer. Written by Walker Percy, the novel revolves around an ordinary New Orleans citizen named Binx Bolling. After turning thirty, Binx sets out to pursue a more fulfilling life, one in which he can escape the mundane tasks of his stock brokering occupation. Using the spirit of Mardi Gras as a backdrop, Binx pursues an authentic experience that goes beyond his passion for the cinema world. In the next paragraph, I became aware of a cuisine that I did not even know I was searching for.

Until that fateful Tuesday evening, I only knew of Southern food as a fusion-less commodity. I have witnessed impoverished Cajun and fine-dining Creole, both here and in the vibrant downtown Los Angeles. And from those experiences, no chef dared to victimize my beloved crawfish and tender alligator to fit the needs of a modern, progressing society. And then there was Tsunami. We went to this restaurant for your basic sushi essentials and more: Miso soup, California rolls, dynamite rolls, and seaweed salad. To spice things up, we ordered a few appetizers like gyoza pork dumplings and Ika fries (basically strips of fried calamari tenderloin paired with a spicy mayo sauce).

My request to the kitchen went as follows: dynamite roll, ragin Cajun roll, eel nigiri, and a lush side of collard greens. That’s right, collard greens, but not just the kind you would find all across the French Quarter; these ones in particular contained kimchi spices and a spicy chili posture. I was unfortunately unable to order the big easy roll due to a lack in stomach capacity. However, thanks to the brave soul of one of my eaters in arms, Emery, we were able to accommodate some space on the table for this guest. While on this subject, let’s unpack what the big easy roll had to offer: snow crab, tempura shrimp, and – dare I say it – crawfish. After a couple bites, my agitated state of mind over this fusion passed over and I now craved something far more than the basic dishes offered at a sushi restaurant. Next up was the ragin Cajun, a generic avocado roll with a vital Southern component: panko-crusted alligator. These fusion-style dishes were what made me consider the importance of escaping the norms of society. Rather than play it safe and order the locals’ common staples, I should prioritize on getting out of my comfort food zone…yes, I am looking at you Ashley (the other seasoned foodie of this Maymester expedition). With the sake and lemon drops coursing through my veins, the night’s conversations felt fruitful and endless.

The evening came to a restful conclusion with the mango Hawaiian bread pudding, a sweet ending to a tasteful Tuesday!

“Losing hope is not so bad. There’s something worse: losing hope and hiding it from yourself.”

— Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

After a couple days with somewhat severe flashflood weather, me and the gang decided to hibernate in one of our hotel rooms and watch the movie A Streetcar Named Desire. The movie, which takes place in New Orleans, was adapted from a play written by an American screenwriter named Tennessee Williams. In the story, Stella finds herself in a toxic relationship with her husband Stanley who comes from a lower class. This battle between masculinity and femininity is best exemplified in the poker night scene where Stanley and Blanche, Stella’s older sister, are jostling for power over the radio. In the end, Stanley throws out the radio and slaps Stella. Despite Stanley’s violent tendencies, Stella denies her true circumstances in an attempt to hold onto control. She is a strong woman for not losing hope in the marriage itself, but at the same time she is denying herself the chance to walk away and escape from the harsh, working-class neighborhood that she remains bound to.

On Thursday, the gang and I drove deeper into the heart of New Orleans history with the visiting of the Louisiana State Museum. Located in the French Quarter, this museum hosted not only a rich background in Mardi Gras lore, but also featured powerful messages from the 2005 Hurricane Katrina. Within the Mardi Gras section, I found myself transported to another dimension, one in which capuchons were the fashion statement and medieval chivalry reigned supreme. It was really fascinating to see the connection between The Moviegoer’s mentioning of krewe’s – social organizations similar to a Second Line band – and to see them showcased in the exhibits. I learned more about what it meant to be a part of Mardi Gras spirit; this event is not just seen as a time to celebrate and let go of social restraints before Ash Wednesday and Lent. Rather, this special occasion was a time to masquerade into the upper class, to put on the costume, to become closer with society while at the same time maintaining class appropriateness. One of the exhibit sections that resonated with me were these 1870s costume designs for the Rex krewe. Coming from an Iranian household, it was spectacular to see both the mixing of my Persian and Creole heritage.

King’s Costume, Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club

King Rex nonchalantly sipping on his chalice

A sugar rush in every bite…nom nom nom!

Before the museum visit, I had a personal score to settle. The great debate commenced for the best beignet in the entire city of New Orleans. The two contestants: Café Beignet and Café du Monde. Our group’s preferences resulted in a tie, and I had set out to break it. The first of the beignets that I devoured came from Café Beignet. The pastries here were more on the larger, softer, puffier side, almost resembling that exterior of a doughnut. Powdered sugar caked the entire patio that we were sitting on. At one point, I think I became a delicious beignet myself. The beignet at this establishment was satisfying, but I had to make sure that we were indulging in the finest confection known to the Big Easy.

A lonesome beignet awaits its afternoon café au lait bath.

Afterwards, me and the gang went over to Café du Monde. Looking from the incredibly long lines, I could tell that we were in for a treat…or rather, we were just suckers in the endless cycle of tourism (luckily, it proved to be the former). While in line, our ears were greeted by Maurice the street musician. A native of South Carolina, Maurice introduced us to some country classics while also wielding a trombone. This additional instrument was unexpected yet typical of the New Orleans atmosphere; the musician had successfully fled the country melody norms and embraced the free spirit of NOLA. After the long wait, my teeth were finally given another taste of the beignet. Here at Café du Monde, the pastries are smaller and a lot more denser, but this serves a purpose. Holding a café au lait, dip the beignet into the cup and you’ve just become a pure native of the city. As stated by some of the group members, the coffee will be extremely bitter, but that’s okay. It is the powdered sugar – which litters the patio floors like a battleground – that will balance out the flavor to perfection. Once the last of the beignets entered my stomach, the verdict was clear: Café du Monde won my heart and taste buds.

To celebrate the class of 2022 graduates of this Maymester, our tiny group headed over to the French Quarter in search of the Carousel bar. The party consisted of me, Key, and Chelsea. Located in the Hotel Monteleone, the bar featured a carousel-themed area which slowly spun in a counter-clockwise manner. This place held a special place in my heart; it was a way in which us grads could retreat to our childish days and escape the mundane functions of the job world. To kick off the celebration, I ordered a Sazerac: a New Orleans classic containing rye whiskey, botanical bitters, simple syrup, and a lemon peel. Fun fact: it is believed that this drink is the first mixed cocktail in the world. The first sips were a bit on the strong side, with a wood-like aroma. To mellow out things, I switched gears and ordered a Fleur Des Lis. My mouth was now experiencing a complete contrast in flavor notes: sweet, refreshing, acidic. Normally I do not reach for the gin cocktails, but I had to make an exception as it was recommended by our bartender of the night, Parker D. Revolving around their workplace for nearly fifteen years, Parker and his sidekick knew how to run a bar and keep the lively spirits from dissipating. The live jazz playing in the background awakened my senses and gave me the courage to order off the menu. Parker took in my preferences – blackberry, lemonade, and rum – and concocted a satisfying beverage.

Sazerac

Fleur Des Lis

Ask Parker D, he’ll know!

In the course of my sipping and clinking of the glasses with the mates, I stroke up the nerves to conduct an interview with who appeared to be a local of the city. The old man was named Trey and he had a light, airy, Southern accent. His full-time work was water treatment in Mississippi; while not a glamorous occupation, this man had every intention of continuing his education in hopes of changing his financial circumstances. Later in our brief chat, I asked him about his thoughts on geological disasters like Hurricane Katrina and, most recently, Hurricane Ida. Without a moment of hesitation, Trey stated that all we could do was rebuild from scratch. My last inquiry regarded his views on Cancer Alley, a wide stretch of the Mississippi River dedicated to over a hundred oil refineries that specialize in petroleum production. This notorious name originated out of countless residents being diagnosed with cancers that specifically target the stomach, lungs, and even kidneys. In response, Trey denied the dire situation with Cancer Alley, stating that sources have found no cancerous substances in either the water samples or lab rats. My interviewee was a humble, yet resilient character. While we may have had our disagreements on the latter topic, we still shook hands and parted ways in the most courteous and honorable way possible.

Me and the grads took our final swigs of our respective elixirs and made our way off the carousel. The night was a last hurrah before submitting to the cold, bitter, heartless world…I’m just kidding! But seriously, these are the heartwarming moments that I will turn to in my first weeks at the office, reflecting on what has been rather than what could have been. New Orleans is the harbor for which we may deviate from the norms and openly express our inner identity.

Good Morning Sunshine

“I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man that you really want to hear about his business, the look that comes over his face is something to see”

— Walker Percy

As we make our way towards the halfway point of our New Orleans Maymester experience, my heart grows heavier. I’ve made so many great friendships with the people from our course and within the city that I can barely handle the thought of leaving it all and entering the “dog -eat-dog” world of Los Angeles again. Ironically, I think back to a particular night in Leila and I’s room, with Maya prancing around listening to the new Harry Styles album and Ashley swiping through dinner options for the week. We were laid about the beds on our phones, ping ponging conversations about books, food, school, and our adventurous plans for the summer – when we landed on the question: What were your first impressions?

We laughed at all the funny first impressions we had of each other, but essentially, none of us thought we would ever become close friends. We all assumed that this Maymester was going to be one of those experiences where everyone got along with each other for group activities and then once it was over we would all go our separate ways. To all of our surprise, we have managed to become extremely close and continue to make wonderful memories together and with the people we meet each day in Louisiana. And I would say that the most exciting aspect of our group is that we all are different in our own ways, and coming from very different backgrounds gives us so much more to learn and understand about each other, ourselves, and the vibrant city around us.

As we made our way through the many historical museums, nature walks, parks, and cultural landmarks of the city – I took comfort in knowing that if I was ever intrigued by something, felt a deep connection, or even wanted to have a quick laugh – I could depend on anyone in our group to lend an ear. I remember reading through the morbid exhibits in the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum and was particularly interested in the treatment that was recommended for women, back in the day, who were showing symptoms such as “feminist thoughts”, “sexual desire”, or “masturbation”. The suggested treatment plan at the time was a combination of physical isolation from society by being confined to a bedroom for months on end, with a restriction on “over-stimulating activities” such as reading or writing. Immediately, this reminded me of what the doctor had recommended to diagnose Edna’s “abnormal behavior” which is what we now know was depression. Also, it reminded me of another short story The Yellow Wallpaper where the main character began to see hallucinations in the yellow wallpaper in her room from being isolated for so long. Without having to say a word, Payton and Emery were already behind me, in the same state of shock as I was to see the delusion behind the practice. It was almost comical, how horrible some of the treatment plans were for the body and the mind – and I’m glad I had a few friends with the same dark humor to enjoy the museum with.

More seriously, after exploring the Whitney Plantation, there was a constant sense of support amongst everyone in the group. Although the tour was intended to serve as a memorial to those who lost their lives on the plantation, I felt of pain in my heart and a nauseous guilt built within me. With every interview inscription I read that depicted the first-handed abuse innocent people suffered, I grew overwhelmed with sorrow. And I believe the most intensely surreal moment of the tour was the artwork of the beheaded men who gave their lives for their rebellion. Seeing how young some of the men were who chose to risk their lives in the name of freedom was undeniably terrifying but also yielded the utmost honor. By the end of the tour, however, I felt a pit in my stomach that almost brought me to tears. Thankfully, as soon as I found a seat by myself on a bench near the entrance, it wasn’t long before Maya was right next to me with her head on my shoulder with everyone else not too far behind. The comfort we took from each other was from presence alone. This brings me back to The Awakening when Madame Ratignolle laid her hand over Edna’s when she sensed that Edna was feeling overwhelmed. It made Edna realize that she had never had a friend so openly affectionate as most of them were “self-contained.” I related on this level because the majority of people we meet these days retain a certain level of distance both physically and emotionally in order to preserve ego. Whereas the people on this Maymester are not.

The best part of this city is that the relationships don’t end with the people who came on this trip with me. In New Orleans, conversations with people who meet walking around the city are a dime a dozen, and friendships are easy to come by. For example, the Lafayette Hotel has a couple bellhops and security guards that work throughout the day and I already know most of them by name, hometown, and some I even know their favorite restaurants in the Quarter. Kevin, one of the bellhops, always says, “Good Morning sunshine!” when he sees me and never fails to ask about what Andrew has planned for us that day. I know Kevin’s hometown, that he is 4 years into retirement, loves to go boating, and that his mom cooks the best jambalaya in town – which is more than I can say about anyone I have sat next to everyday for my semester long classes at USC. So, unlike Los Angeles, the conversations feel real – people aren’t robotically asking: “Hi, how are you” with zero intention of hearing your answer. I look forward to going out and meeting new people every day I’m in New Orleans, which is painfully ironic to Coming Through Slaughter, where Buddy struggles with a crippling loneliness. Nonetheless, this makes me ever grateful for the many friendships I have been lucky enough to make on this trip, and has opened my eyes to the superficial aspects of life I grew accustomed to in Los Angeles. 

A Language Called Jazz

Jazz is woven into the fabric of New Orleans. Its wild, soulful, vibrant, colorful tones fill the air as I walk through the streets of the French Quarter or as I’m in a restaurant eating spicy crawfish and gumbo. Its syncopated rhythm welcomed us on our first night in New Orleans on Bourbon Street, an informal group of street musicians filling the humid night air with their music.

These street musicians are the ones, the people on the ground and in the streets, where jazz is first born and comes to life. Having played both violin and piano for many years of my childhood, I know firsthand how difficult the style of jazz is. Whereas classical Baroque or Romantic era music follows simple patterns, rhythm, and style, the beauty and complexity of jazz is its wild and eccentric freedom, the refusal to be bound by convention and instead be pure emotion, syncopation, and improvisation coming from the artist. Jazz was always the most complex and most difficult to master of the many different styles, and yet for many, it seems to flow naturally out of their artistic selves.

Jazz statue in Louis Armstrong Park

Buddy Bolden, legendary cornet player, is one of these people. When people think of jazz and New Orleans, Louis Armstrong usually comes to mind. However, it was Bolden’s work as a pioneer in the field that paved the field for a young Armstrong, playing in the red-light district of Storyville, to hone and popularize the style of music Bolden performed. In our book for this period of our bookpacking experience, Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter, Bolden’s story is displayed in a fragmented, syncopated form to mimic the style of jazz he brought to life.

“Though I knew Buddy’s blues before, and the hymns at funerals, but what he is playing now is real strange... He’s mixing them up. That is the first time I ever heard hymns and blues cooked up together.”

— Dude Botley, on Bolden's jazz

The story is presented in what seems as bursts of unrelated thoughts, highlighting not only Buddy’s unstable, fragmented mental state, but also as a nod to the rifts played in jazz music as scenes and descriptions of the story suddenly lurch into unpredictable new ideas. The improvisation is what makes jazz so unique, as the music can range from pain to sheer joy depending on the performer, a celebration or a mourning or even both at once. We see this in the book, how Bolden’s bursts of thought and streams of consciousness in the novel illustrate the highly evocative and emotional process that is jazz.

While we were able to hear this musical improvisation on the streets of New Orleans in the French Quarter, nowhere were we able to better see and experience jazz at its most celebratory and enthusiastic than at the Second Line Parade that Sunday afternoon featuring the Money Wasters Social Aid & Pleasure Club and the Dignified Achievable Men Social & Pleasure Club.. After having frantically run about searching for the Divine Ladies, we finally found another group—the Money Wasters, parading on St. Bernard Ave. and Claiborne Ave. Social clubs are rooted in tradition and necessity, many having been formed to help its members through illness and burial costs. During the “second line season”, there’s nearly always a social club parade to be found around Tréme or Central City each Sunday afternoon. After passing a small group of players and a few floats, we finally found the main attraction—with a large crowd of people, the second line, exuberantly dancing on sidewalks and in the streets to the music of a brass jazz band. As our class joined in, dancing, parading, soaking up the music, the sweat, the sheer joy and pure energy as we traveled down the streets of New Orleans in this one beautiful moment in time. Even as much as we stood out from the crowd that was there, we were welcomed with open arms and invited to join into the event that declared the vibrancy and refusal to be silenced that this community declares. There’s no way of capturing that moment as eloquently as I wish to be, as there’s no way to feel that palpable warmth and excitement that swept over me as we watched and paraded with people who just exuberantly celebrated life through music and dance.

There’s an interesting emphasis on the senses in Coming Through Slaughter. More so than any other type of music, jazz is heavily influenced by sensory emotions, it being a very rhythmic music that almost dares the listener not to sway or move as the music swings by on its bluesy path. I found myself in a trance listening to the music at Preservation Hall, where our class was able to listen to a group of extraordinary musicians play the trombone, piano, drums, sax, clarinet and cornet in a style that Andrew mentioned as being true to how the groups of Buddy’s time would have played. There’s a moment towards the end of the novel where Buddy is now in an insane asylum, where he would be kept until his death. While he’s there, he slowly stops speaking, instead going around touching things. As a violinist, I know how important touch is to the playing of the instrument—it’s the connection between the instrument and the brain, unconscious movements that draw the sound out of the body of the instrument into the world.

“He does nothing, nothing at all. Never speaks, goes around touching things.”

— Michael Ondaatje

Music is the soul of the city of New Orleans. It draws out every raw emotion and shares it generously for the world to see. It’s what connects one person to another in this human experience called life down here, a universal language we communicate in and through, an emotional experience, and it truly is such a blessing to be able to witness this all firsthand.

Preserving a History of Scratched-Out Faces

How do you preserve a history? What spin do you put on it to make it interesting? What tone do you take; story do you tell; character do you stay true to?

We’ve been in New Orleans for over a week: we’ve read a lot, seen a lot, learned a lot, and lived a whole lot more. So, when we’re in the present, enjoying these spaces or learning these things, how do you preserve a history so that people can learn? I knew nothing about Buddy Bolden – I didn’t even know he existed or was the predecessor of Louis Armstrong before reading Coming Through Slaughter. So what I read in the book became my reality of him: the artistry of the writing, the scandal, the musicality, everything I knew about Buddy Bolden stemmed out of this piece of writing. But it turns out some of the factual things we take for granted in the book were actually disproven after its release. Though it’s by no means Ondaatje’s fault, how do you create a history out of a single photograph and no documentation?

Much like the Voodoo Museum we visited, it’s an eclectic collection of rumors, interviews, and imagination. There is so much we’ve lost to time, and there’s no way to get it back than to rewrite by imagining, almost like Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments where she reconstructs personal unknown histories through known sources of life at the time.

The only surviving document of Buddy Bolden is the picture that sits in our books, we have nothing of him, not even his music because he refused to be recorded. Did he not want to be preserved? Was his art and his soul not meant to be captured through a recording device, beautiful sounds compressed, scratched into and reproduced through a crackling Victrola?

Perhaps it’s better that way, to imagine the beauty of his music than to hear it in contemporary contexts. It’s more romantic. When we packed ourselves into preservation hall, hot and sweaty and tired from the day, the music brought life back into that room and into our bodies. In such close quarters, the room buzzed with sleepy calmness and the involuntary, primal reaction to dance to the music. It was like stepping into another world again, the back and forth between the high brass and low brass, gravelly singing, and conversational tradeoffs of melodies right next to all of us. What an incomplete thing it would be to experience something like that through a video, through audio; and what a blessing to be there in person.

And what of the Money Wasters’ Parade? I tried to record moments, tried to take pictures to remember, but what a moment; what a way to go! Just swept away by the crowd, by joy and dancing and laughter, with friends all around you, strangers, people that love life. How do you preserve that, how do you live it and understand it without being there? I was so happy; I feel some kind of inexplicable joy even now, just thinking about it. How could I write into words that experience, how could you do justice to it with a recording of the band that’s almost drowned out by the excitement of the crowd?

Who knows, there’s always a possibility that a recording could capture all of that, but perhaps it’s a choice, like Bellocq scratching out the faces of some of the women he took pictures of. At the cost of alienating your audience, what risks do you take in telling a story? Is it better to have mystery, to wonder what those women looked like or why he made them unrecognizable, or to expose all, to give everything to the world and hope people can find something to take away from it?

And what of difficult histories? Histories of cruelty and abuse and enslavement; how do we preserve those histories? Visiting the Whitney Plantation was the first time I had visited a preserved historic site and felt that it was inappropriate to take pictures; there was just something that didn’t feel right to me about taking pictures of anything other than scenery. Was this history so gruesome and unjust that I felt unconscious guilt in taking pictures like I would normally do? But everyone had a visceral reaction to visiting this site, would not taking pictures harm that history more by not preserving it?

And the fact that we were all given a lanyard with a child’s name and statue but not their history, it wasn’t something that we could follow throughout the tour and learn more about. All we received was a card with a body and a quote, something to keep as a souvenir after visiting and learning about a site where people were enslaved and treated like property not so long ago. Things like this begin to show the frayed edges that academia hasn’t completely worked through to present this history to non-academics visiting the site; which leads us to the question of who is allowed to frame histories?

One of the most shocking things I found when visiting the Tennessee Williams exhibit and talking to the exhibit curator, Winston, was that in the film version of Streetcar Named Desire, the filmmakers attempted to include the sexual assault scene, even with the Hayes’ Code still in full swing at that point in time. And it was interesting to read the room as well when watching the film with everyone; there was the understanding that this was obviously a bad thing, but getting the sense that with the gratuitousness of current cinema, the broken mirror scene didn’t seem like enough. But what is enough when sexual assault takes place? Must we see it to believe it? Must we believe something through concrete, visual evidence before we begin to trust a victim?

I wonder why people involved in the film production wanted to include that scene, but then again, it’s Hollywood so I don’t wonder. But then, who do we entrust with our histories?

Perhaps not so much auteur filmmakers, but those with a passion and compassion for these stories. The historian that dedicated her work to finding the names of people enslaved on the plantation and memorializing them throughout the tour with walls of honor as constant reminders. The couple that run Faulkner House books and know the everything in the shelves like the back of their hands. Even Ondaatje, who weaves a complex narrative and sparks an effort to make Buddy Bolden become known.

It takes a special love and conscious effort to keep history alive. It takes academics, curators, historians, authors, students, readers, and so many more to keep forgotten histories relevant and accessible. It takes a fictional biography, a Preservation Hall, a second line parade, a museum tucked away in the French Quarter, a plantation converted to a museum, and a hand-curated map of pins and notes tracking down where authors of the classics spent their waking hours. It takes all these things so that we can continue to live and experience life to our fullest.

Communicating Through Music

In this next leg of our trip, we read Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje and explored the magnificent music scene of New Orleans. As a Communication major and Music Industry minor, I spend so much of my time exploring media forms (especially music) and the roles they play in our society. So of course, this was the part of our Maymester that I was looking forward to the most.

My entire perspective on music changed during the first semester of my freshman year at USC after taking COMM 307: Sound Clash: Popular Music and American Culture with Professor Josh Kun. Our studies were centered around Blues People by Leroi Jones, a book that explored the evolution of music in America. Jones asserted that all music, every single genre in the US, could be traced back to the slave trade. Music started out as a way for enslaved people to communicate with each other in the fields without overseers or masters knowing what was being said, and at the very core of this was the concept of call and response. You can see it in the gospel music of African American churches today. Music was one of the main tools that brought enslaved people together. In New Orleans, groups of enslaved people would gather in Congo Square on Sundays and play music. That is where jazz was born. Additionally, music was how Black people expressed their feelings about life, race, and inequality in society. The issue was that White people would oftentimes move into these spaces and take away from Black voices. Black musicians would then react to this by creating new genres of music and formulating a fresh sound. According to Leroi Jones, that’s how jazz turned into swing, which then turned into bebop. And if you keep tracing the genres of music that have popped up in America, you can probably draw a line from the music created on plantations to the hip-hop, rock, R&B, country, and pop music that we hear on the radio today.

“The blues was conceived by freedmen and ex-slaves—if not as the result of a personal or intellectual experience, at least as an emotional confirmation of, and reaction to, the way in which most Negroes were still forced to exist in the United States.”

— Leroi Jones

While visiting New Orleans, I was able to see so many of the concepts Leroi Jones and Professor Kun described through first-hand experiences with music and through Ondaatje’s description of Buddy Bolden’s life. Music is a form of community. It brings people together and gives them something to share and bond over. This aspect of music is what drew me to the industry in the first place. There is nothing better than the feeling of being in an audience, hearing thousands of people scream the lyrics to a song, because it resonated with each and every one of us in some way even if we all lead completely different lives. You could see this both in the jazz band performance we saw at Preservation Hall and the second line parade we observed featuring the Money Wasters Social Aid & Pleasure Club and the Dignified Achievable Men Social & Pleasure Club.

Particularly, the second line parade was an exhibition of music’s ability to draw people together like no other. Energy buzzed through the crowd. There were hundreds of people following the band and the floats. People danced through the streets and on rooftops. Food and drinks were being sold. Even a group like ours, which stood out like a sore thumb in the crowd, was welcomed with open arms. Members of the community urged us to dance, and one man even told us we were all family now. I have never experienced anything like that in my entire life, and it reinforced how powerful music can be. Outside of all the fun that comes along with second line parades, I think it holds a much deeper meaning in the Black communities of New Orleans. I’m sure a lot of the significance and meaning is lost to me as someone who cannot identify with and understand the Black experience in America. I can see what an integral role music plays in their lives and try to empathize, but I will never truly be able to get it because I have not had to endure the atrocities this country has imparted on Black people. That being said, what I did seem to notice was that second line parades and other musical events are this community’s way of coming together, lifting each other up, and showing the people and institutions that want to oppress them that they won’t be silenced. Music is part of their voice.

Mural featuring Buddy Bolden taken from Google. The mural was destroyed by Hurricane Ida, so we were unable to see it ourselves.

This recognition of music’s significance in New Orleans and the Black community makes Buddy Bolden’s story all the more tragic. In his role as one of jazz’s greatest musicians, he found a lifestyle and community. Unfortunately for him, I think the creativity and fame got to his head. I find it a bit sad and haunting that Buddy’s final fall from grace occurred during a second line parade. This was a place in which Buddy had always excelled. Second line parades were where he first made his mark on the jazz world of New Orleans, randomly joining the bands until people started to expect his appearance. Knowing this about Buddy’s career, it feels like a circle truly closed when he had his mental break. But I think the worst part of Buddy’s story is the way he was placed into an insane asylum and kept there until his death. He spent 24 years locked up there. He never played music again, and according to Ondaatje’s telling of the story, he slowly stopped speaking too. He just touched things. I find this interesting for two reasons. First, it’s almost like putting Buddy in that insane asylum silenced him. He literally stopped talking, but knowing that music is a form of communication, he really lost his voice in two ways. Second, his fixation on touch is quite fitting because touch was required to play his cornet. He had to use his fingers.

“He does nothing, nothing at all. Never speaks, goes around touching things.”

— Michael Ondaatje

I remember a point earlier in the book when he’s laying with Robin, and she feels his fingers “pressing the flesh on her back as though he were plunging them into a cornet”. In that moment, she thought he was acting mindlessly, but in reality, he was “improving on Cakewalking Babies.” Was that what Buddy was doing all those years in the insane asylum? It’s like he was trying to say something but couldn’t. He was trying to find his way back to his voice and mind.

If you didn’t realize it before, I hope you can now see how empowering music is. And if you still disagree, I dare you to take a visit to New Orleans and witness all that music can do and represent with your own eyes and ears.

Beauty in the Face of Pain

“As if the night had said to me, ‘You are the night and the night alone understands you and enfolds you in its arms’ One with the shadows. Without nightmare. An inexplicable peace.”

Canal Street at dusk

New Orleans is a city unlike any other. That became clear from the moment we arrived. On Tuesday evening we walked down Canal Street to Bourbon Street seeking out dinner, and I was struck by how lively the city was. We ran into a band playing on the street, its passionate music filling the night. Although it was dark out, the neon signs of every color lit up the street like an arcade. It was overwhelming how much there was to see. There was the beauty of the lights and music and joyous crowds, but, especially on Bourbon Street, there was an atmosphere of sleaziness that was inescapable. The next few days, we explored the French Quarter further. Getting away from Bourbon Street, the age and culture of the city became more apparent. Boutiques and galleries and tourist shops sat below old French apartments, with wrought-iron railings overflowing with hanging plants and Mardi Gras beads. We went to the Pharmacy Museum and the Voodoo Museum, two very little places crammed full of old artifacts and interesting history. It was the little spots of authenticity scattered around in the touristy area that made the city feel so vibrant. The contrast between the modern and the historic gives the city an out-of-time feel to it. 

French style old houses and overgrown ivy

I identified with the city as soon as we arrived. There’s something about the mixture of artistic beauty and pain that resonates a lot with me. It is filled with ghosts. In Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice explores the gothic side of the city through the goings about of Louis, a man who is able to get a new outlook on life when he is turned into a vampire. This novel does a brilliant job of showing the darkness of New Orleans, and how that’s not always a bad thing. I have always found a certain comfort in the gothic and macabre, and Rice’s exploration of the city through this light really resonated with me. As a vampire, Louis is able to fully realize how beauty and pain are inseparable in his life. Before he was turned, he was horribly depressed following the death of his brother and facing the resentment of the rest of his family. As a vampire, he becomes re-immersed in life, simultaneously being given the freedom to go out into the city with new eyes and a new perspective on time as someone who lived through centuries, and also having to wrestle with the moral consequences of needing to kill to survive. As a nocturnal city, New Orleans allows for Louis to go out and re-engage with the world. And even in all of the pain of having to live a secret and subtle life and having a very toxic relationship with Lestat and having to figure out how to cope with his new reality, he is able to find moments of beauty, with experiencing the city and raising Claudia. He sees that pain doesn’t negate the possibility of pleasure, and good things can be built in spite of hardship. This is something I find to be true as well. The upside of this revelation is that even in moments of pain and sadness you know that there is a way to always find and build beautiful things. 

Vampire Boutique shop

Art print I bought from a street vendor artist, Custom Gambler

As someone who deals with chronic mental health issues (and has for a while), I find the idea that there can be beauty despite underlying pain to be incredibly uplifting. It means I don’t have to wait for my struggles to be resolved in order to experience any form of happiness. On the scale of my single unimportant life, it is the difference between simply surviving and properly living in the day to day world. Because of this, it is vitally important to find reasons to keep going and to enjoy life as a way to resist the negativity in the world. New Orleans is a city that seems to embrace sadness and the macabre, and instead of being bogged down by it, it expresses it through art, music, and community. 

New Orleans is undoubtedly a city built on a lot of pain. It was built from the beginning with a system of slavery like the rest of the South, meaning the city was literally founded on the suffering and dehumanization of the majority of its population. As time went on, although slavery got abolished, the systematic oppression of Black people was never dealt with and therefore only evolved to be more subtle in the modern world. Although an amazing culture was formed out of it, the undercurrent of pain can still be felt in every aspect of it. 

The simple geography of New Orleans is another source of pain. The weather of the swamp doesn’t lend itself to civilization, and the onslaught of heat and storms makes it seem like a very hostile place to make home. In 2005, the entire city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, leaving everyone who lived there with only scraps of their former life. The entire city had to completely rebuild. 

So many of the beautiful things in this city—the music, the buildings, the museums, the rich and unique culture—were created not by ignoring the pain that ran throughout the city but as a resistance to the pain. It’s a mindset that says not to give up but to resist and fight against the sources of strife, no matter how futile it may seem. It says that beauty can come out of pain, that hurt doesn’t make good things impossible. 

What a Wonderful World

What A Wonderful World

I see streets of community and love, 

I see pain and suffering, anger and strive

The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

I can’t help but appreciate every aspect of life walking around New Orleans. There is a jena se quoi I have never experienced before. Everything around me is a constant reminder of celebration and of horrific pain and suffering. There is a juxtaposition of the painful past but a celebration of rebirth and renewal everywhere around me in New Orleans. I see it in how the city paints beautiful murals and maintains rooted history even when Hurricane season comes every year and wipes away homes and loved ones. I see it in the Second Line Parades in the Treme, where the community celebrates itself so intensely and with so much love. Yet, parades take place right along the streets where they are heavily policed and are living paycheck to paycheck, increasing the levels of death and poverty in such a vibrant community. I hear it in the Jazz music played, in the passion that the musicians play with, the pain that exists in the bellows of the music. The expressions of Jazz and the Blues, the lives behind the musicians making the music, and the history of the trumpet buuuup. 

I see it in an amazing vibrant community of New Orleans, right downriver from Plantations with ugly history, that is often attempted to be erased but is heavily part of why this city is what it is today. This pain and celebration are what makes New Orleans what it is, and what creates the experiences of Black people who are heavily influenced in making New Orleans what it is, creating the raw culture of expression, love, pain, and death; everything that encompasses life and what makes it so wonderful. As I take on New Orleans, through the food, culture, and music, the more I feel like I belong, the more I find myself and parts of me, and the more I can say what a wonderful world. 

As we entered the wonderful place of New Orleans, I was 3 days away from my 23rd birthday. 3 days away from aging just a little more, and entering a new stage of maturity and reflection. This being the first birthday away from my closest family and friends, it really felt like a growing moment for me. I was eager to make plans for Bourbon St, Frenchman St, and other fun places while balancing my hunger for cajun food, beignets, and crawfish etouffe. It was also a state of reflection, a reminder of the lack of immortality in my life. As we read Interview with a Vampire by the late, great Anne Rice, I was struct with a question about being immorality young, and never growing up. As I age, I learn more that my perspective on life is wrapped around my experiences, and aging is what makes life worth living.

“As I get a little older, I realize life is perspective. And my perspective may differ from yours.” - Kendrick Lamar, The Heart Part 5

Tombs at Lafayette Cemetery No. 2

And Death. Death is an important part of what makes culture what it is, and what makes life so precious. Without death, we aren’t able to celebrate life, and what makes life so living. Without death, we aren’t able to reflect on what gave it all meaning. The history up the Mississippi River of what life used to be like for Black people in New Orleans, enslavement and captivity. This upriver from the vibrant and loving community of Black people that thrive, and are so familial compared to the culture in Los Angeles. The Treme’s celebration of life through the Second Line Parades taught me that this transition from enslavement to freedom, although still a struggle in life, itself is a sign for celebration.

The tombs that rise above the ground in gothic Catholic style are right along the route of these celebrations are a representation to everyone of how short life is, and how we should enjoy it while we are still here.

Thinking about Death specifically, makes me ponder the life of Buddy Bolden. Bolden’s life is an embodiment of Jazz: the sex, love, and pain of a musician’s life are worth living for, and worth interpreting how it tells us a story of their life, but also the communities they thrived in. The abandonment, the deceit, and tricks. The music he made is the narrative of New Orleans, the narrative of the Black community in New Orleans. His cornet acts as a dialogue to the story of segregation and racism, and what these conditions have created. Decades of pain, decades of lynching, and second-class citizenship. But the people of the Treme and Storyville, the predominately Black, red-light district during the 1900s New Orleans, continued to thrive and celebrate living. Bolden’s music embodies this and tells the story of this representation, of New Orleans. These stories embody me, as a Black woman, trying to find the meaning of what life is living for.

Preservation Hall, Jazz Performance

Pink house in the Garden District! My favorite.

This representation and history; the sex, pain, music, and culture is the blood in the veins of New Orleans and makes it the city it is today. All of New Orleans’ historical literary history, to its history of enslavement, and too now; the aging of this city continues to shape her beauty, all working simultaneously. We have explored New Orleans for a week, exploring the debauchery of Bourbon St, the wonders of the Garden District, to the poverty of the Treme. Death and youth are what are heavily pondering my mind as we tour centuries-old tombs, as my birthday comes and passes, and as I see the weathered faces of the community here, all in tandem with reading Interview with The Vampire. Louis, the vampire being interviewed, gives a long history of his life, and his experiences, to conclude that internal life is not what it is made out to be – all for Louis to conclude that his life is not worth living, human mortal life is. In this poetic way, Louis is suggesting that death and aging is what keeps us alive, keeps us hungry to live, and what keeps us celebrating life.

New Orleans is an embodiment of birth and rebirth, it is in the air, in the uprooting of the trees, and the broken cobblestone on the road and on the streets. It is in the hurricanes that come every season and clears away and makes space for anew. I hear it in the brass bands playing in the French Quarter, and the artist singing their songs of love and pain. I see it in the aura and in the literary expressions of the writers that have existed here. It is in the music that is created, in the celebrations of life, in the second-line parades, and in the way, the Black community celebrates life after death. It that wonderous jena se quoi I mentioned earlier.

Being a Black woman in America, and experiencing life in New Orleans has given me more context to living. It has taught me how to live and age gracefully, by embracing community, music, culture, and love. As I age, I learn more about what is important to me and what I need to learn. Being a Black woman also means I am stripped of my femininity, and of my ancestors. Learning about myself means embracing these bad things, and embracing the community, music, and life that can help it all define me as I continue to grow.

The life of Buddy Bolden, of jazz, and the life of Lestat and Louis tell me a story of the beauty of life. How the ups and downs, the pain and suffering, and the celebration all communicates the wonder of life. I see the beauty in how community shapes you, and how a village can literally raise you. The cycles of death and rebirth in this city show me that as I age and live life, I gain perspective through experiences, community, and love. To gain these insights, I have to go through cycles of pain, confusion, and rebirth. And through this culture, music, and love of this city, I learn that this all is what makes life worth living. As I age, I can’t help but think to myself. What a wonderful world.

A Step in Celebration

“And this sadness gave a subtle satisfaction and held me a long time in that spot; and it held me to the city; and it didn’t really leave me that night when I went away.”

-Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

New Orleans is anything but silent. It’s everything I expected – and didn’t expect it to be. But the one thing I’ve found that I’ve come to love most is that fact that the city is teeming, just filled to the brim with life. Its streets are wonderfully worn down from the constant foot traffic and the buildings loom overhead in their wearied French Colonial style, paralleled by unfixed ruins left behind by the hurricane. It has its bright lights and exciting night life, but a lurking danger and mystery that we’ve come a little too close to, both in real life and in the novels we’ve read. There’s excitement, unpredictability, and celebration, but a profound sorrow for the history of people who were enslaved and suffered in these places that’ve been converted into restaurants and hotels without reparations to those who are due it.

This city could very well be immortal, or seem that way, with its history and its naturally exciting nature – but there’s something unnatural about immortality, even for a city.

Still, wouldn’t it be nice to be immortal? Experiencing generations of history, being able to do everything and be everywhere you could’ve possibly dreamed of. Instead of coming on a four-week long experience, what if you lived in New Orleans for decades at a time, taking your time to watch its culture grow into what it is today?

But if you look at the infrastructure, you see that the even the architecture that the city is so well known for is bursting at the seams with nature. Alleyways hide glimpses of lush greenery, walls are disrupted by branches breaking through and brushing countless shoulders on sidewalks, concrete is upturned and crumbles at the roots of trees that have been around longer than we’ve been alive.

What better way to realize that life will find a way? And what better way to remind us of our own mortality? That we’re not meant to be immortal, that even the things we build to structure our lives are meant to fall away and be rebirthed. New Orleans celebrates life and death and that extensive range of emotions that life in between those two points. Having only been here for a few days, you can practically feel the sorrows that the city’s history has, but the joy, too, that’s been able to come out of it because joy, like life, persists.

“What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? And what is ‘the end of the world’ except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself?”

-Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

In Interview with the Vampire, Louis lives through whole centuries of change and nothing is so important as the companions he surrounds himself with. Births and deaths of inventions, historical events and people (non-vampires) all blended together and sometimes weren’t even important enough to mention in his personal history. But his companions: Lestat, Claudia, Armand; they were his history, because what is a history or a culture without others to make it resonant?

Roses in front of a statue in Congo Square.

We had talked about Thoreau at one point during this trip – perhaps on Grand Isle – about his quote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” that our lives are misguided and unfulfilled by our learned attachment to worldly possessions. Initially, I hadn’t interpreted it this way: this general consensus about its meaning felt negative and even a bit condescending to me, but the first impression those words left on me was a certain kind of sadness. What desperation is so harsh that it cannot be shared? Why, when we’re so full of life, would we choose to live quietly? If we want something, even a worldly possession, shouldn’t we live and desire it and celebrate our feelings loudly?

It seems that in New Orleans, life is lived boldly and loudly. There is celebration, even in death. In Louis and Lestat’s everlasting life, they strive to form eternal bonds by creating new vampires and trying to sustain those relationships over decades, but they can’t: Claudia dies, Armand leaves, Lestat can no longer even step out of the house to support his own needs. Our relationships and our emotions won’t last forever, so it matters now that we treasure each other and these moments we have together as a class even more so because we are mortal, and this is a chance in a lifetime to experience a city like this. We don’t choose mortality, much like the vampires in Anne Rice’s novel don’t choose to be immortal, but in this city, I think it matters only how we choose to live that life.

Smallness and Grandness

“She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.”

-The Awakening, Kate Chopin

Panorama of the beach view from the cabin.

Upon boarding the plane, I was really excited to see Louisiana. My mom grew up there and I was looking forward to seeing this part of her past. The end of the semester had been very stressful and the idea of being able to explore literature in a different environment and getting away from Los Angeles had become more and more seductive as the weeks wore on. Pulling up to our Grand Isle cabin on Saturday evening, it was clear that this was going to be wonderfully different from the hectic life of college in the big city. 

In the novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin explores the difference between the typical American way of living with an emphasis on working and production and the French culture of taking pleasure in and enjoying life. Our first few days on Grand Isle were supposed to allow us to spend time in this French mindset. One of the first things that became clear about Grand Isle was its extraordinary stillness. This wasn’t a tourist spot. The beach the cabin sat atop was empty with the exception of the occasional shrimper or crab trapper. The island was still suffering from the hurricane of the past year, with many buildings in complete ruin and piles of debris lining the road. Nevertheless, the beauty and authenticity of the island were breathtaking. It was in this open land that we were given the chance to dive into the novel. 

The novel opens with the main character, Edna, lazing on the beaches of Grand Isle, just as we were all doing. The story of her time there seemed to come to life before me as I could look up from the book to the very place where she sat. We had nothing to do except read and explore. It was hard to adjust at first to the idea that we were supposed to do nothing, but it was such a welcome relief from the oppressive nature of school and the city. I was able to finally breathe. The days stretched out before us, but not in the agonizing way they seem to do when there is too much work and not enough space for thinking, rather in a way that made it seem like we were operating in nature’s time rather than on a manufactured corporate schedule. I woke up early on our first morning, still adjusting to the time change, and was greeted with a blissful quiet, the heat settling on the beach and the last shrimping boats finishing up their nighttime catch. The smallness of the town made the grandness of the ocean feel even bigger and more powerful. As more people woke up, a bunch of us walked out the few yards from the cabin to the beach. We read a bit until the heat and the sun made us seek out the warm ocean water. As we sat on the rocks just offshore, a group of dolphins swam by. Being here felt so magical.

Hurricane-struck house.

In the novel, Grand Isle offers Edna a place to get away from the constraints that society placed on her. The French focus on relaxation, both with friends and independently, gave her an escape from the creeping depression and suffocation she got from daily life. This was something that resonated a lot with me. The way life is normally, and especially at college, it’s very easy for me to fall into dark places and very hard to find my way out. This isn’t to say that leaving the city cured my depression, but not having something constantly to do and not always feeling pressured and stressed by the next thing you’re supposed to be doing is such a relief after living like that for so long. Here, in the open air, I am finally able to pause and look around at what I have instead of focusing on what else I should have done. Sitting in the world in the French way, experiencing the moment as it is rather than rushing through it, I feel so much freedom. Freedom to breathe, freedom to feel happy, freedom to see how beautiful the world can be. I can look out at the evening sky, filled with colors and clouds, and just take a minute to appreciate how beautiful the world is on its own, before people come along and fill it with business and things to do. 

Sketch of the broken jetty remains.

The true power of nature on the island was even more evident in the wake of the hurricane. On one of our days, we went to some jetties to walk out over the water only to find there was nothing left but crooked posts and wood piles where there had been structure only a year before. It emphasized how the lives of the people and the things they built were always less important than nature. The destruction of the hurricane was horrible, but the idea that what we do is so impermanent in the face of nature has a beautiful grandiosity to it. No matter how much we try to plan around it, the ocean and the sky are always there, bigger than any of us can picture. I find it important to be reminded that the stresses of human society are not really all that important always.