PrettyFakes

Short notes on our recent trip to New Orleans:

First of all, did you know that any money you spend in New Orleans cannot, by definition, be wasted? That was the logic Contessa and I used to justify our recent one-night getaway to N.O. (A note to our New Orleans friends: sorry we didn’t get in touch with you! We hope to see you soon! Love and kisses!) Sure, we’ve thrown a party or two lately, but with all the traveling Contessa has been doing, we haven’t done anything really fun just for us lately, and so that was our plan.

And fun it was. We stayed at the super-awesome Prince Conti Hotel and dined at Bayona, where I had some kind of filet of lamb, in this case a lamb who had been pumped full of butter and heroin. Contessa said her food was good, but I could tell she secretly envied my tweaker-sheep filet, so I watched her closely and kind of jabbed my knife at her hands whenever they strayed too close to my sweet smack-lamb, and occasionally threatened her in a loud voice and then hissed at her a little bit. I found out the hard way that I can’t spit like a cobra. Yet.

On the subject of New Orleans’ return, I’m sure everyone by now has seen that the shops on Magazine Street are being terrorized by roving gangs of marauding transvestite shoplifters. To which your legally mandated response is: Only in New Orleans! We visited a used clothing store in another part of town that was managed by an Official New Orleans Eccentric ™, a woman dressed in several layers of gauzy white 1930s garb all held together with several strands of pearls and topped off with a misshapen and water-stained hat. It’s my belief that she sleeps in this outfit. I turned down her repeated offers of wine or lemonade, and I’m still convinced that was the right decision, because I really didn’t want my stuffed corpse to serve as a mannequin in her shop for years to come. She was assisted by a younger woman in black—Contessa thinks it’s her niece, and I think that might be right, or at least that the lady believes it’s her niece, and eventually, the young woman will come to believe it as well—who quavered and shook. In retrospect, I suspect she was trying to pass us coded distress signals. Oh, and did I mention they had live music? A pianist, playing and singing songs from a book of 60’s hits—for the first time, from the sounds of it—loud enough to drown out the whine of the dismembering saw in the basement.

That said, you know, it was awesome, and they were all really nice, and Contessa bought a cool dress, and we plan to go back.

I also visited a comic book store nearby, which looked like a set for a comic book shop in a movie made by people who hate comic books—poorly lit, piles of unorganized, overpriced, and humidity-rippled backstock, and run by two guys talking loudly about what an asshole a third guy was. On the bright side, I was able to easily find the Doom Patrol chapter of DC’s Silver Age crossover that came out in 2000—because it was with the new comics. Alas, my quest to find a copy of Jack Kirby Collector #44, which features an essay on The Demon by PrettyFavorite Catpants, bore no fruit. I finally just gave up and ordered it from TwoMorrows today.

Oh, and we stopped by Faulkner House Books in Pirate’s alley, where they know everything and everybody, and where I purchased (the famously Richard-Ford-spittle-flecked) Colson Whitehead’s John Henry Days, William Styron’s Lie Down in Darkness, and G.W. Cable’s Old Creole Days.

Anyway, it was a great trip and we had a great time. We’re gradually falling in a little bit of love with New Orleans, as many Baton Rougeans do.

Unrelated Rock Stuff:

Also, why did no one tell me that Destroyer’s Rubies is such a great album? Is it because you know that I typically don’t like Destroyer at all except for “Here Comes the Night,” and am prone to go on and on about how Dan Bejar needs the rest of the New Pornographers to offset his tendency to noodle? Listen, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times: don’t pay attention to whatever nutty musical opinions I might voice when I’m still buzzed and bloody from the ritual sacrifice. Here’s a rule of thumb: if I’m holding a curved dagger or referring to the mug I’m drinking beer out of as a “flagon,” just assume that you can safely ignore whatever I’m saying. Because I would have hated to miss out on the chipped-tooth-glam oblong disco ball decadence of this album. It makes me want to sew the spangles back on my jumpsuit, tear ‘em off again, and cry in an alley. Link to free MP3 downloads here.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 10th, 2006 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Books, Comixx, In the South, Professor Fury, The Rock and The Roll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.