The Latest Entry In The Musical Memoir: A Cajun Country Concert

Spring, 2012:

A picture of my old elementary school’s gymnasium. In the image - taken last year - students are shown performing music in front of a crowd of parents, a performance experience I myself went through when I attended the school.

A very young Aidan sits in the stuffy elementary school auditorium, packed in like a sardine along with the rest of the fourth grade class. It is an oddly warm spring day in the Bay Area, and the air conditioner has yet to be cranked up to account for the extra heat, leaving us students to languish in our sweaty state. However, I am not paying attention to the heat or the sweat rolling down from my temples to my chin. Instead, I am laser-focused on the presentation taking place on the auditorium's small, quaint stage. The elementary and middle school orchestra teacher, Ms. Dong, is presenting the opportunity to join the symphonic orchestra, showcasing the various instruments we could pick up and learn. Ms. Dong meticulously presents and describes each instrument - the violin, the viola, the cello, and the bass - proceeding to play small riffs of music on each instrument to demonstrate. All the various beautifully crafted wooden instruments entice me, but one instrument, in particular, captivates me. The cello, with its sleek design and elegant notes that are not so high as to be at times screechy like with the violin but not so deep you have to strain to hear the instrument be played like with the bass, was the instrument that on that day I chose to start learning, beginning a ten-years-long musical journey.

Fall, 2019:

Near the beginning of my freshman year of high school, my private cello instructor introduces me to the Bach Cello Suites, a collection of music that is a hallmark of cello solo performance. I slowly flip the pages of the new music book, taking in the new book scent as I lay my eyes upon the first song in this somewhat lengthy book: The Prelude to Suite One. I proceed to play the piece at the behest of my teacher. The recurring, swift crescendos that are followed by note drops putting me on whole different strings from one note to the next proves difficult for me when I first sight-read the piece. However, as I run through the music a few times, I start to catch on. The melody is deep and compelling, whenever I feel like I am figuring out the pattern of the piece, Bach switches up the tune in the next bar. However, throughout The Prelude there is a theme of rising and falling, rising from low to high notes and swiftly falling back down to low notes. After this lesson, I would continue to work through the Bach Cello Suites until the day I graduated from high school, a day when I turned my attention to my next musical challenge: figuring out how in god’s name I was going to learn the trumpet in time for the fall marching band season at USC.

Fall, 2022:

The USC Spirit of Troy Trojan Marching Band making its way down the field at last year’s Cottonbowl game against Tulane University in Dallas, Texas.

As the loud, domineering drums beat out a rhythm on the field for the first time this football season, the band, standing on the sidelines, readies itself to march. “Oh yay!” they shout, as they begin to walk down the football field, a tidal wave of red and gold swarming over the green turf. Five counts after the first row in our formation march out onto the field, I begin to make my way down the turf. The heat is nearly unbearable, as on this early fall day in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the USC vs. Rice University football game is taking place, a heat wave is sweeping through Los Angeles, putting temperatures at dangerously high levels. However, the band and I continue on through the sweltering heat, thanking our band director for at least letting us wear light USC athletic wear instead of our traditional, heavy Trojan uniforms. The second I start marching down the field, I begin to blow wind through the mouthpiece of my trumpet, letting out a high shrill that begins our first USC fight song. Over the last few months of summer, I have been religiously practicing my trumpet, getting to a level where I can comfortably play all of USC’s steeped-in-tradition songs. The practice pays off on the field, as I nearly flawlessly work through the music, adding to the chorus of sound coming from the band that riles up the crowd in the stadium. While a different experience from playing classical music in an orchestra - which is the music I primarily performed on cello for the majority of my ten years playing the instrument - marching and playing fight songs was a thrilling experience like no other, a moment that showed me there were many different, enjoyable ways to perform music.

June 4, 2023:

I haven’t picked up and played a cello in nearly five months when around Christmas I busked in a small coastal town in the Bay Area to raise funds for my brother’s youth symphonic orchestra. I also have not played bluegrass music since middle school during my brief and excruciatingly boring stint as a cello playing the tedious bass line in a small, school bluegrass band. Because of these two facts, I was understandably quite nervous when I uncertainly volunteered to join in and play with the group of local bluegrass and country musicians congregating for a jam session in Tom’s String Instrument Repair Shop. These musicians - who vary both in their individual musical ability and their instrument of choice, with the jam session featuring guitars, a mandolin, and a few fiddles - come from across Southern Cajun Louisiana, meeting the first Sunday of each month at Tom’s shop to play music, chat, and simply have fun.

Cole and I play along to a country tune struck up by a veteran guitar player in the music group

I wait patiently in the adjacent dining room with my cello as the circle of country musicians finishes their slow, heartfelt country tune in the front parlor of the small shop. As they are wrapping up the piece, I start processing in my head the overarching musical patterns of country and bluegrass music, attempting to understand what general rhythms I must follow to lay down a solid bass line in the songs to come. After the congregation is done with their piece, I walk into the room and take a seat, proceeding to bend down and extend the pin rod of my cello so it’ll make contact with the ground and hold the instrument in place when I play. Shortly after completing this, one of the guitarists strikes up a lighthearted, fleeting country tune. I sit there listening along to try and pick up the key the veteran guitarist is playing in. I figure the key is A minor, so I start plucking out an A note on the second lowest note string of my cello. As I get more accustomed to the music, I start picking out other notes in the piece, finding not only A notes, but E and C notes as well. I then begin to alternate between the three notes as the music demands, later adding little riffs and fancy trills to my note transitions. Playing along, I begin to lose track of time and a sense of where I am. At some point, I close my eyes, letting the music wash over me. I can feel the vibrations of the strings as I pluck out the bass line, the pressing of my fingers against the cello’s sturdy wooden fingerboard, and hear the departure of the notes as they leave my cello and join the beautiful mixture of sound made by the country musicians group. One song melds into the next until I can barely tell when songs start and end except for the fact that with each new song, I have to momentarily listen in to create a new, improvised bass line that fits the piece. As the last song comes to an end, I open my eyes. Other than my fingers - which haven’t plucked cello strings this much in months - feeling like they are on fire, I feel elated. Over the last semester, I became so busy with school that I was never able to play my instruments, so making music once again in such an intimate environment where everyone is playing for simple enjoyment felt more amazing than I ever imagined it would be coming into the experience. I had returned to making music, and it felt great.

The musical side of our journey is what, coming into this opportunity, I was most excited about. I remember during my previous visits to New Orleans for college tours strolling down Frenchman Street, hearing from all directions the sound of loud, lively jazz music that burst forth from the jazz bars and clubs lining the street, beckoning me to come inside and listen closer. As a musician and jazz enthusiast, New Orleans and Louisiana’s rich musical history enticed me, pushing me to explore Cajun, Creole, and New Orleans music further. I am pleased to say I certainly have been able to dive further into these unique musical genres during this trip. Though musical discovery has been present throughout the bookpacking experience - such as when we watched a live New Orleans jazz performance at Preservation Hall, read Michael Ondaatje’s novel on the life of famed early New Orleans jazz musician Buddy Boldin, titled “Coming Through Slaughter”, and explored Frenchman Street as a cohort - the culmination of this joyful musical discovery was certainly the small town, Cajun jam session at Tom’s Repair Shop. I can’t express how much joy this experience brought me, an experience I never would have had unless I had gone on this amazing bookpacking journey that brought me to remote areas of Louisiana I had never before explored.

I have been playing music for the past ten years, meaning time-wise the short time that I played impromptu bass in the small repair shop was only a small blip in my many years of playing. However, the emotional impact this unique music performance experience had on me has made this small moment immensely memorable. Though our bookpacking journey is unfortunately coming to an end, the memories I have made on this trip - and especially the musical memories - will never fade, always being a joy-filled, once-in-a-lifetime experience I can always look back on fondly.

Signing off, Aidan Williams

The Eroded Economy & Education of The Bayou State

The main hall of the Louisiana State Capitol building. Politicians and tourists alike can be seen milling about beside informational tables staffed by advocacy group representatives.

As I walked around the grand halls of the Louisiana State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, I walked among Senate and House members conversing in the halls, preparing for the upcoming afternoon session. While this was an enthralling behind-the-scenes look at state political operations and conduct, walking past an advocacy booth hosted by The Concerned Women of America - a group advocating for the repeal of state abortion rights - sobered me up, allowing me to comprehend the reality of the situation. The House and Senate members I was walking among are primarily Republican politicians that make up one of the most conservative state legislatures in the country. In May, with the striking down of Roe V. Wade by the US Supreme Court, these Lousianian politicians passed legislation banning abortions at all stages of pregnancy, with very slim exceptions in cases of rape, incest, or “medically futile” pregnancies. Additionally, The Louisiana legislature - taking inspiration from their fellow Gulf Coast Republicans in the Florida Legislature - has recently passed a whole host of “Don’t Say Gay” bills banning grades 1-12 educators from teaching or talking to their students about homosexuality. While a dower realization, thinking about the politics of Louisiana led me to dive deeper into the bookpacking novel our cohort was reading at the time, Ernest J. Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying”. For those not familiar with the book, “A Lesson Before Dying” is the story of a Lousianian African American man named Jefferson who is wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Before his death, however, his grandmother employs the Jefferson's old public school teacher, Grant Higgins, to instill a sense of humanity in the Jefferson, who went through a humiliating and dehumanizing criminal trial process. Exiting the Capitol building, I started contemplating why it was that, according to the public school superintendent in the novel, Dr. Morgan, public schools across Louisiana were at the time suffering from state funding shortages, a problem that persists in Louisiana public education to this day. While a lack of funding could certainly be partially explained away by the behavior of the Republican legislator in Louisiana that I spoke of earlier - specifically how Republicans are less likely to raise taxes to invest into public education - I suspect the issue of a lack of public school funding in the state has much deeper roots. I believe this issue stems from longstanding issues found in Louisiana’s economy, problems that prevent the state from increasing taxes and state government spending to better support public schools. However, to prove this theory, I have to dive into a complicated yet important topic: the economics of Louisiana.

The Louisiana State House of Representatives, near empty during midday recess

Before jumping into the investigation of Louisiana's economy, it is important to note that though the story of Ernest Gaines’ “A Lesson Before Dying” took place in the late 1940s, the economy of Lousiana hasn’t changed all that much since the 1940s, as the state still depends on many of the same flawed industries to prop up its economy. So, by investigating Louisiana’s present-day economy, we can also come to understand the economic forces of 1940s Louisiana that forced Grant Higgin’s school, as well as other Louisiana public schools, to grapple with a lack of state funding.

During our stay in Grand Isle, when running along the beach at night, I could look out upon the ocean and see very clearly the lights of offshore oil rigs in the distance. Driving along the Mississippi River, oil refineries - which require vast amounts of water to drive the refining process - are a common sight. And just recently, driving into Lafayette I saw out the window the building occupied by The Petroleum Club of Louisiana. The presence of the oil and petroleum industry is inescapable in The Bayou State. Petroleum refining alone made $95 billion in revenue in Louisiana in 2022, making it the largest industry by revenue in the state. Coming in second place is Louisiana’s oil and gas drilling and extracting sector, pulling in a whopping revenue of $36.9 billion in 2022. And in third place is the Gasoline and Petroleum Bulk Station industry - a sector that stores, sells, and distributes bulk quantities of gas and petroleum to sell to large corporations, state and national governments, and global militaries - which brought in $30.5 billion in revenue. So, the top three industries by revenue in Louisiana are all connected to oil and petroleum extraction, storage, and distribution.

While this reliance on the oil and petroleum sector may not seem all that bad - as the revenue these industries pull in is real money that is capable of sustaining a massive state tax stream - this is in actuality a deadly serious issue. The number one rule of investing that investors aren’t quick to forget is to diversify your assets so that if one investment fails, you have the others still standing to support your portfolio, and this rule applies to states as well. If the petroleum and gas sector in Louisiana were ever to fail - which is certainly always a possibility considering oil and petroleum are finite natural resources that can swiftly vanish as deposits are drained - the state would find itself in economic freefall, losing the large corporate tax revenue stream that it so relies on. The government would be forced to severely curtail government spending, slash state programs, and operate on a highly restricted budget. The Louisiana State Government is likely fully aware of this fact - since they have been relying on the oil and petroleum industry to prop up their economy for decades - and are likely reluctant to increase government spending - which includes public education funding - so that in case the oil and petroleum industry does one day fall they will have to make only small, inconsequential budget cuts rather than massive, crippling cuts. In other words, The State of Louisiana is constantly hedging their bets due to their damaging reliance on the gas and petroleum industry, and average Louisiana citizens are the ones feeling the pain from these precautionary measures.

Along with helping create a political environment of avoidance of increasing state spending, Louisiana’s heavy reliance on the petroleum and oil industry also forces the state to keep corporate tax rates low to avoid backlash from big oil and petroleum companies operating in the state. There are three oil and petroleum companies that hold a near triopoly over the domestic oil and petroleum sector: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, and Marathon Petroleum. This dominance of the oil and petroleum industry by a few large corporations is a serious problem for the gas industry-dependent Louisiana. If legislators ever propose to increase taxes on corporations operating within the state, these three behemoths of oil companies can simply threaten to discontinue operating in Louisiana, a move that would tank Louisiana’s oil-dependent economy and force the state to operate on a dangerously tight tax budget. While if Louisiana were dependent on a more robust, competitive industry - think tech, media, or agriculture - the discontinuing of one or a few companies’ operations in the state wouldn’t be such a problem as there would be other organizations from the same sector present to fill in the gaps left by the departing companies. However, by relying on such a consolidated industry, Louisiana has put itself in a truly horrible position. In Louisiana’s current situation, if one of the three large oil and petroleum companies ever decides to shutter operations in the state in protest of increased corporate tax rates, there would be no other large oil corporation to fill in the gap, and Louisiana’s economy would be fully and completely devastated. In Louisiana, big oil holds all the cards, and legislators are left in constant fear of corporate backlash if they ever step out of line, attempting to raise taxes and better fund state programs such as the public school system.

The empty streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter during the Coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak brought the city’s once-thriving tourism industry to a screeching halt.

While oil and petroleum production is by far the largest source of tax revenue for the state of Louisiana, there are other smaller industries worth mentioning that help support both Louisiana’s economy and the government’s tax stream. However, these economic sectors hold faults that just like with the oil and petroleum industry make them poor pillars to base a state economy on. The Louisiana tourism industry, which pulls in an annual revenue of $6.1 billion, is a sector that has rapidly expanded in Louisiana over the past decades as the state - and the city of New Orleans specifically - has fashioned itself as a prime domestic tourist destination. However, profits from tourism dramatically ebb and flow with both national and global developments. In periods of economic downturn and recession, tourism profits take a massive hit as consumers look to cut unnecessary spending, with travel generally being one of the first expenditures to be slashed. Additionally, global events that may restrict or completely shut down travel - such as the COVID-19 pandemic - can tank the tourism industry. In short, tourism is an unpredictable sector, and states such as Louisiana simply cannot rely on this industry to bring in consistent, sustaining tax revenue.

Another smaller sector in Louisiana’s economy worth briefly mentioning is the car sales industry, which in 2022 in Louisiana made $15 billion in revenue. However, this industry falls prey to the same faults as the tourism industry, as when consumers need to get tight with money - as happens during depressions, recessions, and periods of economic downturn - they are less likely to buy a new car. Instead, consumers often opt to stick with the cars they have and simply repair them if they’re having car troubles or rely more heavily on public transportation to get around, two actions that siphon money away from the car sales sector.

Louisiana has never been known as one of the more economically strong and robust states in the Union, and by examining its economy more closely it is easy to see why. The issues present in the state’s economy are in part why Louisiana spends so little on educating its students, with the state spending an average of $12,359 on each student’s K-12 education compared to New York’s $26,605 per-student expenditures. And while one can hope the state will eventually have the funds to solve this issue, the problem will likely only grow worse as currently the state's economy is actually decreasing in size. This year, Louisiana's GDP - which stands for Gross State Product and is a common indicator used to track the health of a state’s economy - actually decreased by –0.5%, putting Louisiana in 47th place nationwide for state GDP growth. After our visit to the Capitol, I returned early the next day to take a stroll around and contemplate the findings of my research, trotting up the grand stairway entrance and into the warmly lit, storied building. Now looking at the politicians strolling in for a morning legislative session, I consider them differently than I at first did, seeing them as individuals stuck between a rock and a hard place fiscally rather than inherently malicious Republicans refusing to invest in public education without any practical justification. Unfortunately, the problem of a lack of public school funding that Grant Higgins and his congregate of students faced in “A Lesson Before Dying” is an issue that Louisiana public school students are and will continue to face in the future, thanks in large part to a state economy that holds nearly insurmountable issues.

Why Tulane?

““The place was too modest to attract the attention of people of fashion, and so quiet as to have escaped the notice of those in search of pleasure and dissipation… [Edna] often stopped there during her perambulations; sometimes taking a book with her, and sitting an hour or two under the trees when she found the place deserted.””

— Kate Chopin's "The Awakening"

Why Tulane? It sounds like a question one would find on their college application. However, this is the question I have been asking myself over the past week while our cohort has been bookpacking the Big Easy. I have spent countless hours of my stay here in New Orleans on Tulane’s campus - specifically in the air-conditioned, near-empty Tulane Newcomb Business School Complex - reading, blogging, and writing essays for class. The first few times I came to the business school I knew exactly why I was here: it was a quiet place to study and escape the relentless New Orleans humidity and heat, as well as a place that I remembered from my college admissions visits as quite a nice spot to lounge. However, walking along the naturally lit, silent halls and sitting in my plump, Mississippi-river water-green revolving chair for the fifth or sixth time just this week, I wonder what draws me to Tulane. I also contemplate what leads some authors - including some of the novelists whose works we have read while bookpacking - to incorporate Tulane University into their novels, either by recounting their characters’ experiences as students of this prominent New Orleans university or by making the campus a literary setting for events to unfold on or around.

The area in which I sat down to read, study, and decompress each day at Tulane, featuring the Mississippi-river water-green chair.

Part of the reason I personally keep coming back to and thinking about Tulane is that it has become my spot in New Orleans. Just as Edna’s spot in Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” was a small, secluded coffee shop in the New Orleans suburbs - a spot she could go to read, relax, and decompress - my place is Tulane University’s Business School building. On the fourth floor of the building, it's so air-conditioned it almost feels as if I am back in the Bay Area hiking on a foggy morning, so silent that the drop of a pen could disturb the calm serenity of the place, and almost completely naturally lit by the magnificent skylights spanning from one side of the elongated building to the other. Sitting in my comfy chair with a book in hand, I understand how Edna feels when she rests below the canopy of tree branches shading her secluded cafe’s patio; in such a lively city that never sleeps like New Orleans, it feels great to have a calm, quiet, and most importantly personal place in which to decompress. 

The other reason for my return to Tulane is that the university holds a special place in my heart. Not only is Tulane one of only three universities I was seriously considering attending - and walking along the oak tree-lined pathways I can imagine a life in which I had indeed chosen to attend - but also I have visited the school on numerous occasions and now feel connected to both Tulane’s campus and the surrounding area. I have come to the university three times before for college campus visits at various stages of the college admissions and decision process. With each visit,  I have been able to explore and enjoy the campus, the adjacent Audobon Park, the many amazing restaurants nearby, and the streetcar system running along Saint Charles Avenue. Each visit and every new experience made has solidified the location as my favorite area in New Orleans, which is why I knew when coming back to the Crescent City for this Maymester that I had to revisit Tulane.

Shot of the Tulane Newcomb Business School at night.

I know why I love Tulane and have come to associate it with the New Orleans experience, but the question I have been asking myself is why Tulane is present in so many New Orleans novels. In John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces” both Ignatius and Myrna Minkoff are described as to have studied at Tulane - with Ignatius specifically earning a Master’s degree in Medieval studies from the university - and in Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer” the protagonist, Jack “Binx” Bolling, and his friend Walter are said to be former students and fraternity brothers at Tulane. Additionally, Binx is shown in Percy’s novel returning to Tulane to watch a film at a local theater he once frequented and reminisce about his collegiate years.

Picture of John Kennedy Toole taken in 1961, two years after Toole graduated from Tulane.

I believe that the pervasive presence of Tulane in popular New Orleans novels is due to two factors. The first factor is that many prominent New Orleans writers local to the area - and specifically white authors since the university didn’t desegregate until the 1960s and even afterwards the university educated only a small percentage of Black New Orleans college students - attended Tulane themselves. After attending this prominent university, these alumni authors probably felt it only made sense that their New Orleanian characters attend the school they had come to not only love but to associate with New Orleans and the New Orleans collegiate experience. In other words, due to these authors’ own New Orleans collegiate experiences at Tulane, they likely felt when creating their characters that it was only fitting their New Orleanian characters attend, in their eyes, the one true New Orleans university. Another reason that these alumni novelists may have chosen to incorporate Tulane into their characters’ stories is that they may have been aiming to base their characters on themselves. In pursuit of this goal, it’s only natural that these authors’ characters would attend the same university as them and have a similar collegiate experience. One example of this is New Orleans author John Kennedy Toole, who both during and after his time as a Tulane student was known to be somewhat of an outsider, an intelligent yet strange person who had a hard time forming relationships with others. The protagonist of Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces”, Ignatius, holds many similarities to the creator he is partially based off of, being both a Tulane alumni and a misfit.

An image of Tulane students gathered in protest, from the 1970 student yearbook.

However, the more exciting reason that pushes authors to incorporate Tulane into their stories and characters is that Tulane has such deep academic roots in New Orleans - especially among the city’s white population - that it is virtually impossible to emit Tulane from New Orleans stories centered around New Orleanian characters. Founded in 1834 as a medical school to help counter epidemic smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera outbreaks, Tulane has since developed into an elite, private research university that is not only considered the premier university of New Orleans but of the greater Deep South. While Tulane has and continues to educate scholars from across the globe, it has always disproportionately serviced the Louisiana - and specifically New Orleans - community. Because of this, there is a long history of white New Orleans families sending their children to study at Tulane, just as the parents of the family once did. While Tulane has historically serviced generally wealthier, white New Orleanians - meaning the history of New Orleanians being educated at Tulane only applies to select groups in New Orleanian society - many New Orleans novels center around characters from this exclusive group. Some examples from our bookpacking books of New Orleans novels that center on this rich, white group include “The Moviegoer”, “The Awakening”, and “Interview With the Vampire”. So, when these numerous New Orleans novelists - who are writing books centered around wealthy, white New Orleanian characters - are deciding what educational background to endow upon their characters, it only makes sense for these characters - given the university’s long-held ties with the rich, white New Orleans community - to have attended Tulane. Tulane is linked to New Orleans’ wealthy, white community through decades of history of educating this select group, so to write a story centered around a New Orleans wealthy, white character is to inevitably write a story with ties to the Crescent City’s premier university.

For the umpteenth time, I exit the Tulane Newcomb Business building as the sun sets, the dimming light illuminating the oak trees with an orange hue. As I wait along Saint Charles Avenue for the streetcar to arrive, I gaze upon Tulane. Do I wish I had attended Tulane even now? No, I love USC and my (albeit short) experience as a student at the university has been truly amazing. However, the side of me that loves New Orleans, this fantastical and mysterious city, will always hold some longing for Tulane; this side of me knows the experience of being a student at the university would not only have allowed me to better understand the university and its historical importance but also better understand the city of New Orleans which has been so heavily influenced by its premier university. This thought wisps away with the arrival of the nearly empty streetcar. I step onboard and watch through the open streetcar window as Tulane fades in the distance, knowing I will be back the next day to go through the same serene routine.

Bipolar Characters, Bipolar City

“I wait gloomily. Long ago I leared to be wary of Kate’s revelations. These exalted moments, when she is absolutely certain what course to take for the rest of her life, are often followed by spells of the blackest depression.”

— Jack "Binx" Bolling, "The Moviegoer"

A room in the New Orleans Presbytére Museum’s Mardi Gras exhibit featuring costumes from past Mardi Gras celebrations that Krewe members wore.

The museum was the epitome of duality. On the top floor of the New Orleans Presbytére Museum was the Mardi Gras exhibit. The floor held bright colors, light New Orleans jazz music playing in the background, and a playful atmosphere that was reinforced by the fun, light-hearted material being presented on this festive celebration. Going through this exhibit, I felt myself smiling, imagining what it would be like to attend one of these fantastical parades. However, the downstairs section of the museum was a wholly different experience. This floor featured the Hurricane Katrina exhibit, a bleak and sobering display that called viewers to step into the shoes of New Orleanians who lived through this horrific natural disaster. Placards speaking on the death count, the governmental failure to coordinate and rescue those trapped in the storm, the progression of flooding that occurred as the levees broke, and the personal experiences of those stuck in the city, all contributed to a dark and depressing atmosphere. While the sudden transition in the museum from a lighthearted, playful Mardi Gras atmosphere to a dark, grim Hurrican Katrina ambiance was a shock to the system, it was helpful in that it got me thinking about duality. I started contemplating the duality not only present in New Orleans but also in the literary characters we were reading about in our bookpacking novels.

A display in the Presbytére’s Katrina exhibit.

There is a duality present in various characters we have read about in our bookpacking books. The first example is Buddy Bolden from Michael Ondaatje’s “Coming Through Slaughter”, who is a lively, highly sociable person who has everyone around him gravitating towards him in social settings, but at times he falls prey to jealousy, sadness, and even insanity. Another great example is Jack “Binx” Bolling from Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer”, a man that constantly contemplates lofty philosophical questions regarding spirituality, gender relations, and personal values, but leads a rather dull, unimaginative life as a stockbroker. However, the greatest duality present in certain characters in our books, and a duality that I have come to be highly fascinated by, is in fact psychological. There are two characters we have read about who have severe bipolar disorder, a condition defined by psychological duality.

In a psychological sense, bipolar disorder is fundamentally the duality of emotional states. Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder in which those afflicted swing between periods of manic, uncontrollable happiness, excitement, and high motivation, and periods of crippling depression, hopelessness, and a lack of motivation to live life. Fundamentally, those affected by bipolar disorder make massive leaps on a frequent basis from one end of the spectrum of emotions to the other, a jump that is often jarring and can have significant negative consequences for affected individuals.

Two characters from our bookpacking novels experience typical signs of bipolar disorder - though before continuing on I will say that these characters are never labeled by the book as having bipolar disorder so my diagnosis is based solely off contextual literary evidence. These bipolar characters are Edna Pontellier from Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening” and Kate Cutrer of “The Moviegoer”. 

Examining these two bipolar characters, they both act in eerily similar ways that would suggest they both suffer from serious bipolar disorder. In Edna’s case, she is shown to swing between moments of immense happiness, motivation, and inspiration, and moments where she is depressed and doesn’t feel like doing anything, feeling like life is pointless. The best example of this is Edna’s behavior when in “The Awakening” she returns to New Orleans (for a summary of “The Awakening” refer to my first blog post). At times, Edna has high motivation and excitement to do anything and everything she wants to do, such as buying a new house - which she dubs the “Pidgeon house” - or working on the art she is so passionate about. At other times, Edna falls into a deep depression, longing endlessly to be reunited with her love, Robert Lebrun, and despising her life to the point that she ends up killing herself by drowning. Another aspect of Bipolar disorder is that when bipolar individuals are in states of depression they are more likely to make poor decisions, and Edna’s extramarital affairs with both Robert and Alcée Arobin could be seen as poor choices she wouldn’t have made in a more mentally healthy state. 

Looking at Kate Cutrer from “The Moviegoer”, just like Edna, Kate swings between manic episodes of extreme happiness and excitement and moments of deep depression in which her family has to care for her to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. For those not familiar with the book, “The Moviegoer” is a story that follows the life of Jack “Binx” Bolling, a New Orleans stockbroker and Korean War veteran. What makes this book so interesting is Binx himself, as while he is a self-perceived enlightened thinker who often ponders upon a range of philosophical topics, his real life is much tamer and unimaginative, with him being simply a businessman who enjoys two things: makjing money and going on dates with girls, such as Kate. Kate is shown in the book experiencing moments of ecstasy and excitement where she feels like she has figured out her life and her purpose, quickly running to Binx - the person she feels most comfortable with -  during these times and telling him of her revelations, as well as how she is going to profoundly change her life to follow her new goals. On the other hand, Kate goes through moments of deep depression and where she holds low motivation to live. During these times, she refuses to attend important events, disappears without telling anyone, and even at one point attempts suicide. Even though in the book it is stated Kate is working with a therapist and taking medication, considering the story takes place in the mid-20th century when there wasn’t much awareness of bipolar disorder, it is unlikely she was receiving the proper care necessary to deal with her overwhelming condition.

Tesla and Twitter President Elon Musk. Musk and his large following is a real-life case study on how audiences can find bipolar individuals and their actions enticing and riveting.

Now the question is, why do these two prominent New Orleanian books both feature bipolar characters? The first and more obvious answer to this is that bipolar characters are enticing characters to follow and ones that readers are drawn to pay attention to. Bipolar characters are often depicted acting sporadically and haphazardly in a way that is highly intriguing and creates exciting literary situations. Even outside of literature, it can be seen that people are drawn to bipolar individuals. Take, for example, Tesla founder Elon Musk. Must not only holds a large audience of followers who are addicted to him and everything he does and says, but he has also captivated the news media, which now constantly discusses him and his actions. This captivation with Musk is due to the eccentric, ridiculous things he says and does, outlandish actions that are likely undertaken during manic episodes Musk experiences as a bipolar individual. Simply put, bipolar characters are captivating to audiences, and authors are quick to include them in their stories in order to draw readers in.

However, the less obvious reason for the inclusion of bipolar characters in New Orleanian stories is that the psychological duality of the characters reflects the duality of the city in which these stories are set. New Orleans is a city defined by duality. There is much suffering that this city has experienced, but there is also much hope, happiness, and fun that the city partakes in. Thinking back to my experience at the Presbytére Museum, on the one hand, New Orleans has to constantly face devastating natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina that frequently bash the Gulf Coast, but on the other hand, the Crescent City holds fun-filled, cheery festivities such as Mardi Gras and second lines. The city has dealt with the horrors of slavery, racism, racially-motivated police violence, and discrimination, but it also partakes in amazing jazz performances, comedy shows and plays along Canal Street, and even drunken celebrations on Bourbon Street. The Big Easy holds such a duality in that it goes through immense moments of pain and hardship that are juxtaposed with moments of joy and excitement. Given the duality of New Orleans, bipolar characters - who hold psychological duality - in New Orleanian stories don’t feel out of place but rather inextricably linked to the setting in which their story takes place. Bipolar characters are fitting additions to New Orleanian stories, which explains why both “The Awakening” and “The Moviegoer” feature a bipolar character.

While these contemplations on the duality of New Orleans and the literary characters we are reading about started in the Presbytére Museum, these thoughts have continued to jostle around in my brain as my New Orleans journey has gone on. These ideas came up when I went to see a live recording of NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me at the Saenger Theater on Canal Street. During the show, I sat among a crowd of laughing, joyful audience members, but then, after leaving the theater, I walked along streets lined with beleaguered homeless people settling down for the night. These thoughts also came up when strolling through the picturesque French Quarter, with streets lined with smiling tourists and locals alike, and then making my way into the Treme to view houses still yet to be fully repaired after the damage that Hurrican Ida inflicted. These contemplations came up looking at Google Maps in our seminar, noticing how both the Garden District and the Lower Ninth Ward seemed from the Satellite View to have an abundance of green vegetation incorporated into their suburban neighborhoods; then realizing that with the former area, the heightened presence of vegetation was due to an abundance of money to fund elaborate landscaping, and with the latter sector of the city, vegetation had overgrown the abandoned houses that had been destroyed and flooded in Hurricane Katrina. The setting that a book is written and takes place in certainly affects the story. What I have found while bookpacking and contemplating is that the duality of New Orleans has heavily affected the New Orleanian books we are reading to the point where if these stories were to take place in any other city, the narrative and its characters would feel totally and completely out of place.

A Catholic Conundrum

““God kills, and so shall we… for no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.””

— Lestat, "Interview with the Vampire

Cafe Du Monde’s famous powdered beignets alongside a cup of New Orleans chicory coffee, also known as Café Au Leit

Beignets are heavenly. Light, fluffy deep-fried pastries made magnificent with the addition of a heavy coating of finely powdered sugar on top. Because of my love for these pastries, I have created a routine out of having beignet breakfasts. Each morning, after waking up and working out, I head off on foot towards Cafe Du Monde, New Orlean’s most famous beignet restaurant. I hop on the streetcar, which heads down Canal Street until it turns parallel to the Mississippi River, hugging the edges of the French Quarter as it propels me toward my final destination. Jumping off at Dumaine station, I briskly stroll to the Cafe, pick up my beignets and Café Au Leit to go, and then make my way towards the nearby Jackson Square. As I sit down on the park bench, I look up to gaze at the large branches of the oak tree providing me shade on this hot, humid summer day. I then swivel my head towards the large, imposing church sitting adjacent to Jackson Square and towering over the French Quarter. 

One day, when sitting under this magnificent oak tree, after finishing my beignet breakfast, I decided to head towards the church - which I learned from a placard is named the Saint Louis Cathedral after the famed King Louis IX of France - and slowly walked inside as if in a trance. After sitting down on a creaky, old wooden pew to take in the beauty of the church’s interior, my mind started to wander. I started thinking about the book our bookpacking cohort was reading in New Orleans - Anne Rice’s “Interview with the Vampire” - focusing specifically on the philosophical religious questions the book raises, how those inquiries arise, and the fitness of New Orleans as a literary setting in which to attempt to answer these faith-based questions. 

The Saint Louis Cathedral towering over Jackson Square

And just a quick side note before diving into the sticky subject of religion, I myself have been an atheist my whole life. Despite this, the role religion plays in our history, as well as today’s social and political scenes is so great that to avoid examining religion out to disbelief would be a disservice to people like me who are trying to better understand a place and its people. In my case, that place is New Orleans.

In Anne Rice’s novel “Interview with the Vampire”, Rice deep dives into examining faith-based questions - specifically questions regarding God’s role in our lives - in the setting of New Orleans. To deal with these massive, overwhelming questions while still telling a compelling story, Rice uses vampires as subjects to form these questions on. For those who haven’t read the book, “Interview with the Vampire” is the story of a plantation owner living in New Orleans in the 1750s who nearly dies but is “saves” when he is transformed into a vampire by another vampire named Lestat. Part one of the book - which is the portion of the book in which most of Rice’s questions of faith can be found - chronicles Louis’ self-reflective quest, with Louis attempting to determine the ethical, social, and most importantly spiritual aspects of vampirism. As Louis further uncovers what it means to be a vampire, he begins to question the nature of vampirism, and in turn the nature of God. Louis contemplates, if God has the power to create life but also the power to destroy life, do life-taking vampires serve as agents of God? In other words, do vampires exist to aid God in the destruction or taking of life by draining the blood out of someone each day to satisfy their hunger, or are they working against God, killing people before the time God has chosen for them to transcend their mortality?

To try and answer these questions of whether vampires are the agents of God or actively work against him, Anne Rice pushes readers to examine what God’s role is in our lives through interactions Louis has in New Orleans. Since the book takes place in the highly Catholic setting of 18th century New Orleans, the mortals that encounter Louis and recognize him ward him away with crosses, calling upon God to smite this vampire, this agent of the devil. Obviously, the religious citizens of New Orleans see vampires as working against God, with vampires releasing people from the mortal world before their time and therefore working to compromise God’s plan. However, Louis’ vampire friend, Lestat, holds a different opinion. He believes that God is not simply a kind, loving creator of life, but God is also in charge of taking life to complete the human life cycle. Because of this, vampires work as agents of God, helping God take life in sync with God’s plan. With these differing opinions, the central question is if vampires fit into God’s plan for humanity and its people, or if they actively work against it by aiding the devil in sowing unholy chaos and disorder.

While the faith-based questions Anne Rice presents in her book revolve around vampires and their role, what these questions are really examining is the role God plays in our lives. Is God simply a force of good, creating life and protecting humanity, or does God take a more holistic approach, working to both create life and take life, therefore managing all stages of the human life cycle? While these are great, probing questions, there is no way to answer these inquiries because there is no way to know God’s intentions or actions. Since the early days of Christianity, religious scholars and intellectuals have been contemplating the same questions Anne Rice poses in her book, and since there is no way to answer such inquiries there will never be agreement on what God’s role is. 

Though unsolvable, it is highly significant that Anne Rice asks these religious questions in her book, as over her lifetime she constantly left and rejoined the Christian faith out of uncertainty. These questions are likely highly important to Anne Rice, and by examining “Interview with the Vampire” readers can gain insight into Rice’s own religious contemplations and considerations. Additionally, recognizing the faith-based questions Anne Rice poses helps in understanding the meaning of Rice’s book, allowing readers to look past the story and dive into why this narrative is being told. This book was made not only to be a compelling read, it was also meant to interrogate religious idealogy and have readers question their own religious beliefs regarding the role of God.

An engraving of the French Quarter’s Saint Augustine Catholic Church made in 1858

These religious questions on the role of God in our lives - which as previously mentioned are set up in the context of the religious role of vampires - are able to be effectively communicated thanks to the setting in which this book is located: New Orleans. New Orleans is the perfect literary setting for a story that questions the role of God in our lives. This is because the Crescent City has a deep-rooted religious, and specifically Catholic, history. When New Orleans was first founded by French colonizers, they were quick to set up Catholic churches and areas of worship around the city, with there being five prominent catholic churches in and around the French Quarter. Additionally, under French rule, it was determined that for colonizers to be faithful subjects of the Crown they had to adopt the Catholic faith. Because of this, the entire city was from its founding engrossed in Catholicism. Later, when slavery began to take root in New Orleans, the French Code Noir - which was a set of laws governing the treatment of slaves - mandated that slaves be instructed and baptized in the Catholic faith, as well as have Sundays off for worship and to attend mass. These various religious historical events shaped New Orleans into a city with a rich Catholic-based culture, making this an amazing city in which to investigate the Catholic faith.

Without these deep religious roots that seeped through New Orleans in the time in which Rice’s book takes place, Rice would not be able to set up the important faith-based questions her book examines. There would be no religiously zealous citizens to scorn the vampires as agents of Satan and the devil, and Lestat - a native of New Orleans himself - would not have had the religious background to contextualize vampires in the grander topic of God’s plan for humanity. So, without New Orleans as a literary setting, there is no strong religious context, meaning there would be no strongly Catholic characters to connect the question of vampires’ roles with questions of God’s role, meaning it would be impossible for Rice to incorporate her complex religious inquiries into her narrative. Without New Orleans, “Interview with the Vampire” is simply a compelling story, lacking the deep meaning that makes the book so great.

As I walked out of the Cathedral, I headed down Saint Louis Street to take in the wonders of the French Quarter. I then made my way back to the hotel by crossing Canal Street - a street that historically divided the French Catholic section of the city from the American Protestant area. I then made my way through the business district where slave auctions were once held, auctions that continued a system of slavery propped up by religious beliefs that maintained white supremacy was ordained by God when he created man. I finally made my way down Saint Charles by streetcar, getting off at the stop located next to Xavier University - the first historical black and Catholic university in America - to walk over to the adjacent Tulane University to read and study. It is impossible not to notice the signs of Catholic influence in New Orleans, just as it is now impossible for me to read a New Orleans literary work and not analyze the religious aspects of the book. Thanks to my stay in New Orleans, I was able to recognize the city’s Catholic influence and the effect it had on Anne Rice’s novel, leading me to obtain a much richer understanding of the novel and its meaning.

Wakening to “The Awakening” by Running Grand Isle

On each of our three days' stay in Grand Isle, I woke up promptly at 6:00 AM before the sun had risen. I threw my workout gear on, laced up my running shoes, and started my hours-long journey jogging down the beach. On the second day of our stay here in this prime Louisiana vacation destination, I decided to run further inland of the island to find a tree to do pull-ups off. While this obsessive workout behavior may very well be a problem I should address, in this situation my obsession allowed me to recognize a key aspect of Grand Isle that I wouldn’t have been able to truly recognize otherwise. Grand Isle is an extremely small island. Running parallel to the ocean, its length is only seven miles long and its width is even less impressive. For instance, when running the width of the island, it only took me a mere five minutes of passing through small, quaint neighborhoods and crossing near-deserted roads to jog from one side of the island to the other. With such a tiny island, there simply isn’t much space for people to spread out.

A Google Street View image of the street I ran down which helped me realized the small width-wise size of Grand Isle. It is important to note this image was taken in 2013 before Ida. Now various houses on the block lay in waste or are under repair.

While a trivial realization, fully recognizing the small size of Grand Isle did help me understand a key aspect of one of the books we read in Grand Isle for bookpacking, Kate Chopin’s "The Awakening". For those not familiar with the book, the story follows the tale of Edna Pontellier, an American protestant who marries into a Creole family in New Orleans. Chopin is discontent with her life as a mother and wife, leading her to try and break free of restraints placed upon her as a woman in a patriarchal society. Readers witness Edna trying to break free first in Grand Isle, a Louisiana coastal vacation island in which the beginning of the story takes place, and later in New Orleans. In the novela, all the various characters introduced in the section of the book set on Grand Isle, including both Edna and the Creole cohort, seem to know each other well from their interactions on the island. They act as if they are one big family when they wade into the ocean together at night, attend church as a cohort, and come together for meals.

While the intimate and near familial connection between the individual characters on Grand Isle can partially be chalked up to a similarity in the Creole characters’ backgrounds as well as their warm and friendly French-influenced personalities, the main factor contributing to the strength of the characters’ bond is simple: space. Not only is Grand Isle a small island, but the houses in which the characters lived were consolidated in one small square section of the island, amplifying the lack of distance between residents. This consolidation of Grand Isle vacation housing was due to the planning of the entrepreneurs who transformed Grand Isle into a vacation destination, who chose to transform the slave cabins of Grand Isle’s old plantation into vacation housing (pictures shown below). Because of this, the vacationers and their residences on Grand Isle which are featured in Kate Chopin’s book were extremely close to one, making interaction – which could likely lead to residents bonding and even forming friendships - between residents not simply likely but inevitable.

Pictures illustrating the layout of the plantation run on Grand Isle from 1816 until its shutdown shortly after the passing of the Emancipation Proclomation (1863). The left image shows how the plantation itself only took up a portion of the larger island, while the right image reveals the close proximity of the slave cabins, which were later converted into the vacation housing in which Kate Chopin’s characters reside in.

It is important to note that the close proximity of Grand Isle vacationers to one another is significant because it is a strange anomaly not found in traditional vacation experiences. Typically, with vacation destinations, vacationers are purposefully spread out to allow residents to enjoy a private or semi-private experience. This is especially true with expensive vacation destinations, where residents pay extra for complete privacy. However, in Grand Isle, this is oddly not the case, as even though it is an exclusive and relatively expensive vacation destination, residents are packed together like sardines in a can. One way to explain this anomaly is that the residents of Grand Isle may in fact want to be close to one another specifically so they can meet other Creoles of similar socioeconomic status. Similar to how today’s billionaires and ultra-rich individuals come together at premier events across the globe to connect with others of similar backgrounds and experiences, these wealthy Creoles may want to do the same during their luscious summer vacations. So, businessmen such as Edna’s husband can fraternize and gamble with fellow businessmen and New Orleans elite at The Club. At the same time, their wives and children can mingle on the beach, in their vacation houses, and at church services.

This sense of community that is created through a lack of space on Grand Isle is highly impactful to Chopin’s story and how it unfolds. In this tightknit community, our protagonist, Edna, meets Robert - who is her love interest and the man whose rejection of her is the final straw that leads her to commit suicide at the end of the book – as well as the many other influential characters she interacts with both on summer vacation in Grand Isle and back in New Orleans upon her return to her home city. In other words, every character that Edna interacts with and helps guide her immense character development through the story is introduced to Edna thanks to the close proximity and corresponding tight bond of Grand Isle vacation community.

The influence Grand Isle’s relatively small size on its community is not only important in Chopin’s book and the time period of the 1850s in which it was set, it also holds relevance in our present. Running around Grand Isle while cursing the absurd heat and humidity of Louisiana all the way, I certainly took note of the size of the island, but I also witnessed how connected this small vacation community was. As I jogged along oak-tree lined southern suburban neighborhoods, I watched as neighbors greeted each other warmly as they drove or walked by. I saw two mothers watch their kids play on the swing set in one of their front yards and locals warmly chatting in the parking lot of the local supermarket before driving off in their large Ford pickup trucks. Running along the beach, I witnessed families setting up beach chairs, speakers, tarps, and food in preparation for a beach day. College students and teens on summer break splashed around in the waves or played a game of volleyball together, enjoying the warm day and the temperate ocean water. There is a sense of community on Grand Isle that I haven’t witnessed or experienced anywhere else I have vacationed. While I’m used to a coldness and lack of interaction between vacationers wherever I travel, the Grand Isle residents seem connected in a way that I believe largely boils down to space. If there’s only seven miles of land to work with and a limited number of residents, people are bound to run into one another and strike up conversation that could possibly lead to friendship, adding to the sense of community on the Gulf Coast island.

Though running is not for everyone, I encourage anyone who comes to Grand Isle to explore the island in one way or another. By doing this, travelers truly get a feel for the size of the island as well as the strong bond that the island’s tonight community holds. Not only will this heightened understanding of Grand Isle allow visitors to better analyze novels set on the island such as Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening”, but it will also allow vacationers to better connect with the Grand Isle community for which they are temporarily a part of during their stay. There’s fun to be had on the island, but there’s a lot of learning to be had as well, so be sure to to walk, run, bike, drive, and simply explore this amazing and storied island when you visit.