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In my twenties, my brother told me I was a romantic and I bristled, me, never. But for years, I’ve harbored a secret wish to live in the French Quarter and have a menial job while I write. That was the dream I had when I was in California, but now that I’m back home and living on the bayou, my dream has now morphed into retirement in the Quarter. We talk about T selling her condo uptown one day and transferring to a Quarter condo and turning over the LaLa to Tin so we can live the pedestrian gadfly life of the Quarter.

I lived there when I was in my twenties, on Burgundy and Governor Nichols, across from Cosimos. It was quite the life as I worked as a hostess at Arnaud’s and spent my life in places like the Chopping Block, Marty’s, the Golden Star now Meaux Bar, and Cosimos. I have a scar on my right shin from falling into a manhole on Royal Street one night walking home from dinner with the first love of my life, who is now dead.

For the Tennessee Williams Festival one year, I went on a walking tour because I thought it was being led by an old professor of mine, Dr. Kenneth Holditch. Unfortunately, that day he was not up for the walk but he did do the introduction. Nonetheless, the tour was so wonderful as we walked along and basically relived Tennessee’s life. Across from one of his old apartments was a small hotel for sale. I dreamed one day to own it and live out my days there.

As I was finishing Where We Know New Orleans As Home, I came across some wonderful depictions of the Quarter, written better than I could have, so I’ll include them here:

There used to be a pelican in the neighborhood of Jackson Square. … I was a symbol. I am still a Symbol in my ghostliness. I betoken the old-fashioned life of the Pelican State that is passing away. I represent the quaintness that is dying out, and the antiquated thing that shall soon become as ghostly as myself. The old city is becoming Americanized, and I am glad that I am dead.

from Lafcadio Hearn “The Pelican’s Ghost” (1880)

I am in New Orleans and I am trying to proclaim something I have found here and that I think America wants and needs.

There is something left in this people here that makes them like one another, that leads to constant outburst of the spirit of play, that keeps them from being too confoundedly serious about death and the ballot and reform and other less important things in life.

The newer New Orleans has no doubt been caught up by the passions of our other American cities. Outside the “Vieux Carre” there is no doubt a good deal of the usual pushing and shoving so characteristic of American civilization. …

At any rate there is the fact of the “Vieux Carre” — the physical fact. The beautiful old town still exists. Just why it isn’t the winter home of every sensitive artist in America, who can raise money enough to get here, I do not know.

Sherwood Anderson, “New Orleans, the Double Dealer, and the Modern Movement in America” (1922)

New Orleans may be too seductive for a writer. Known hereabouts as the Big Easy, it may be too easy, too pleasant. … The occupational hazard of the writer in New Orleans is a variety of the French flu, which might also be called the Vieux Carré syndrome …

When the French Quarter is completely ruined by the tourists — and deserted by them — it will again be a good place to live.

Walker Percy, “Why I Live Where I Live,” 1980

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 29th, 2011 at 8:54 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.