New Orleans > USA

crawfish étouffée taste far better than election stew

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Back in the USA, Spooky Season season didn’t end with Halloween.

There’s an eccentric in New Orleans who specializes in turning old dolls into horrifying specters of the end-times because of course there is, and have you ever been confronted by a demonic doll? What about seven, eight, or nine? What about an entire house?

TRIGGER WARNING: FAKE DEMONIC CHILDREN

The above photos are some of the few I took during my glorious pre-election visit to New Orleans, one of the last bastions of genuine civilization in the USA.

Not to fear, however—I shan’t spend much time discussing last week’s election because the last time I wrote in earnest on this platform about American politics American fascism, I realized the only thing more exhausting about reading others’ political opinions is writing them myself, so

here’s all I’ll say about Donald Trump:

I didn’t spend the last decade writing about Nazism how to remain human during inhumane times¹ because I thought the USA were a shining beacon of tolerance atop an incorruptible hill.

To put it plainly, the election results didn’t surprise me one bit, and most of what I believe about Trumpism can be summarized in the following paragraph, which begins chapter 5, entitled “Civilization,” in The Requisitions:

And yet, some remain shocked how a megalomaniacal real-estate-developer-cum-reality-TV-star crony capitalist could be crowned (yet again) leader of a nation that explicitly extolls the virtues of obscene wealth, celebrity cultism, puritanical moralism, mass-produced cheeseburgers, same-day-delivery-destruction-of-the-environment, and a comically grotesque work-ethic that equates unregulated business busyness with virtue …²

But I digress.

I know what it means to miss New Orleans

because my heart rate is spiking, and yours probably is, too.

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In my mind, New Orleans remains as much of a feeling as a place where the day-to-day grind of consumption gives way to the magical and fragmented synchronicity of raw, sultry, unadulterated encounters. Because if civilization exists, it’s to be found in fried oysters and Poboys and cocktails and shripm and delectably drunken nights that end with staggering breakfast plates and street-dancing.

A Lavish Halloween Party

I sit next to a man with a box of donuts in his lap. The donut man is, in fact, a rocket engineer dressed as Dexter, the forensic blood spatter analyst turned serial killer (it turns out citizens of the USA love to be entertained by sociopaths).

The rocket engineer opens the box of donuts to reveal a selection of delectable treats; I choose the one with chocolate frosting. The rocket engineer tells me he splits his time between New Orleans and somewhere “east of Orlando,” where the rockets are built.

“You’re a writer,” I tell him. His smile is tired. “No, I’m not,” he says and proceeds to recount a story that he believes is some kind of proof:

“I’m a divorced forty-something rocket engineer. I’m of Dad Age,” he says, “Which means my other buddies and I like to go to various Dad-Band concerts. One night, I thought it’d be funny to call our group of dad-band fans the Grateful Dad.” He laughs. “And you know, I thought I was being clever, being funny, you know? But it turns out that it’s already a thing—that many dads call themselves The Grateful Dad—so no, I’m not a writer. It’s all been said before anyway …” he laments. “Sure,” I reply, “but nobody listens.” “Yeah, well, I’ll just go back to listening to my favorite dad bands now. I’m okay with just being a Dad-Head.”

Food

Tom Robbins said it better than most—

The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off.” (Jitterbug Perfume)

—and I’m happy to report that I succeeded in eating the swamp monster off of me.

At Elizabeth’s in the Bywater, I had carne asada with poached eggs and pico de gallo. Augusta ordered the boudin balls with poached eggs, shrimp rémoulade, and grits.

One morning while Augusta was on a photo shoot, I walked alone through the Marigny and ordered “The Crabby Wife” at Horn’s Eatery, a crab cake smothered in fried eggs atop crawfish étouffée. Later that afternoon, a tropical rainstorm swept into the French Quarter. I found cover at Verte Mart and ordered a Philly Cheese Shrimp on a roll.

I enjoyed Jack on the Rocks at various drinking establishments whose walls tell far more stories than any Instagram story ever could. At the Halloween Party, I drank black-elixir-activated charcoal Margaritas and ate Angus sliders with caramelized onions that had no business being that tasty at 1 a.m.

On multiple mornings, wearing flip-flops and shorts, I strolled down Saint Charles and took a right on Jackson until I reached Stein’s Deli on Magazine, my favorite sandwich spot in the city. I ordered the sausage egg and cheese with/ avocado & tomato on an everything bagel (smothered in Crystal hot sauce, obviously) and a strong cup of coffee spiced with sugar and whole milk.

Towards the end of my stay, I sat down at The Joint in the Bywater for pulled pork smothered in tangy BBQ sauce with sides of mac and cheese, potato salad, and a buttermilk biscuit to soak up the rest.

Augusta Sagnelli

ordered ribs with coleslaw and barbecue baked beans. We both drank from those tall red plastic cups you see in weathered establishments, sipping sweet iced tea with plenty of ice from cups the size of our heads.

Music

With Jack Daniels in hand, I sat down in the Orpheum Theater to listen to the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra play with Sweet Crude, a Cajun band whose singer, Alexis, a dear friend, has one of the most beautiful voices I’ve ever heard and makes me want to become fluent in Cajun French.

Afterward, sitting in awe at Alexis’ performance, I finished my whiskey and settled into my symphony seat to listen to the Lost Bayou Ramblers play their Grammy award-winning set, which was recorded right there in the Orpheum Theater; I sat in delectable, tipsy awe.

At the Halloween Party, I listened to a group of Bulgarian chanters and the cellist Helen Gillet, “a whirling dervish of the cello” whose style is both all her own and reminds me of Andrew Bird. I also played blues harmonica with one of the city’s legendary pianists whose name I can’t recall because every. single. professional musician in New Orleans is a legend in their own right.

On Royal and Frenchmen and Magazine and Chartres, I heard brass bands and harmonicas and folk guitars and soulful jazz and drank cold beers at my favorite dive in the city, Cossimo’s, over a few games of darts and pool.

I took almost zero photos in New Orleans because my wife is the most talented photographer I know. In any case, New Orleans isn’t a city that can be captured with a machine—it must be lived in and tasted—and here’s photographic proof of how

Augusta Sagnelli

and I chose to experience Halloween:

A vengeful Rufio from Hook and a Black Widow Spider Queen:

And that’s about all I feel like saying about the USA.

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Paris Friends: this Friday, November 15 @ 8 pm,

I’m performing a solo piano/vocals recital in the basement of my local watering hole, Au Chat Noir (76 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud). It will be the first time I ever play this collection of original songs in public, so come on down if you’re keen to sit in a basement and listen to 40 minutes of piano and vocals (paying subscribers will have access to the full recording next week).

Substack Friends: A FREE Literary Roundtable

This Saturday, November 16th at 5 pm CET / 11 am EST, I’ll be having a virtual conversation with novelist

Eleanor Anstruther

and

Sean McNulty

of the successful Substack literary deep dive Auraist to discuss what we think and feel about literary fiction, a nebulous term that academics love to use and the general public loves to hate.

REGISTER HERE or come on down.

A Substack Round Table Event

onwards and upwards,

Samuél

1. History, memory, and love intertwine in The Requisitions, a historical metafiction set in Nazi-occupied Poland. “Vibrant, shadowed, compelling and ultimately symphonic, The Requisitions offers the gift of love in an impossible situation”—Nor Hall, author of Those Women and The Moon and the Virgin

2. “Just” is one of my favorite Radiohead songs because of the refrain (YOU DO IT TO YOURSELF, YOU DO, YOU AND NO ONE ELSE), and I can only hope the history books will read this moment in American United Statesian history as a genuine reckoning with just how sanctimonious full of shit we all are about the interplay between individual responsibility and collective shame.