“Farewell,” they cried, “Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey’s end!” That is the polite thing to say among eagles.
“May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks,” answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, Or, There and Back Again
Central Business District
New Orleans, Louisiana
This is the eagle on top of the Duggins Law Firm building in downtown New Orleans.
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl
While in New Orleans over Halloween we stopped at the New Orleans Lager and Ale (NOLA Brewing) company for some free beer (yes, this is truly the best of all possible worlds) and ran across a street magician plying his wares amongst the slightly tipsy crowd. He would attract attention with a spinning, levitating, and ultimately, flying card. Then he would run through a series of close-in slight of hand magic – mostly card tricks. At the end, he would pass the hat for donations.
It was worth the price of admission.
Street Magician
New Orleans, Louisiana
“Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee affords.”
― Richard Brautigan
Everyone I talk to about New Orleans says they went to Cafe du Monde for chicory coffee and beignets. That’s fine if you want to do the touristy thing, I suppose – but there is better coffee and there are much better beignets.
My favorite is the New Orleans Coffee and Beignet Company, in Uptown, off St. Charles, about halfway to Tulane. You’ll never eat beignets on Decatur again.
Take the streetcar.
New Orleans Beignet Company
Gargoyle
n. A rain-spout projecting from the eaves of mediaeval buildings, commonly fashioned into a grotesque caricature of some personal enemy of the architect or owner of the building. This was especially the case in churches and ecclesiastical structures generally, in which the gargoyles presented a perfect rogues’ gallery of local heretics and controversialists. Sometimes when a new dean and chapter were installed the old gargoyles were removed and others substituted having a closer relation to the private animosities of the new incumbents.
—-Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
When in New Orleans, sometimes we stay at the interesting St. Vincent’s Guest House. The place is decorated with the wonderful bronze sculptures of Thomas Randolph Morrison. Especially notable is the work entitled “New Orleans Gargoyle” hanging off the clock tower – a horrible monster grinning while offering his victim’s disembodied head to passers-by.
I had read that there was another copy of this sculpture hanging around New Orleans. A developer had converted an industrial building in a run-down area into luxury condominiums and had hung the sculpture on the side of the building to help attract attention.
With a little online sleuthing I found the thing was at the corner of Chippewa and Jackson. In the Lower Garden District. It was an easy ride over to snap a photo. The light wasn’t perfect (the statue was half in shade) and I couldn’t get too close (the property was fenced and gated) – but it was cool to see the guy hanging there, leering, and showing off his prize.
New Orleans Gargoyle,
Thomas Randolph Morrison,
New Orleans, Louisiana
“Don’t you just love those long rainy afternoons in New Orleans when an hour isn’t just an hour – but a little piece of eternity dropped into your hands – and who knows what to do with it?”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
A lot of my photos from New Orleans are taken from my favorite spot. It on the corner of Governor Nicholls and Decatur in the French Quarter. There’s a bar/restaurant called the Mojo Lounge – and there is a table right on the corner, outside, on the sidewalk, under the balcony. I’ve been known to hang around until someone leaves that table and jump in. The Mojo is primarily a bar, but like a lot of bars in New Orleans, the owner is a chef and takes pride in his food. But the real attraction is the view from that corner table. It’s in the quarter, but far enough down toward Frenchman that it’s not too touristy. There’s a bicycle rental down the street and Wicked Orleans catty-corner across the street. That makes for an interesting parade all day and all night.
I discovered the place a few years ago after being caught in a sudden torrential downpour while walking away from the French Market one Saturday before Mardi Gras. I ducked in and ended up staying all day and most of the night.
Outside the Mojo Lounge, New Orleans, Louisiana
Two orange bikes rented from A Bicycle Named Desire, French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
“He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the discovery – love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a blinding on something that had always been half in shadow, that’s how it struck the world for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded.”
― Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire
“For one wild, glad moment we snapped the chain that binds us to earth, and joining hands with the winds we felt ourselves divine.”
― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Magazine Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
“I was like, Am I gay? Am I straight? And I realized…I’m just slutty. Where’s my parade?”
― Margaret Cho
French Quarter
Halloween
New Orleans, Louisiana
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata
French Quarter
Halloween
New Orleans, Louisiana
“I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
― Langston Hughes
Looking up the Mississippi from the French Quarter Levee.
New Orleans, Louisiana
“Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light? Or just another lost angel… City of Night? ”
― Jim Morrison
French Quarter
New Orleans, Louisiana
Halloween
Bill Chance 