I am New Orleans

We went to see The Kids Are All Right last night because T wanted to see it. I was watching it again from a sort of character point of view. I initially went to see the movie by myself and thought, wow this couple is Tatjana and me – I’m the Annette Bening character and Tatjana is the character Julianne Moore plays. But later a friend said she had seen the movie and loved it but she and her husband were convinced it was the opposite that I am the Julianne Moore character – causing me to suddenly wonder who the hell I am?

I have to say seeing the movie a second time was just as enjoyable as the first time. We saw it at the new Canal Place Theater, which has leather club chairs and little table tops almost like you are in a dinner theater. We were able to order food and drinks, we opted for a gin and tonic and truffled popcorn as we were headed to eat afterwards. It was just perfect. We then went over to Three Muses and walked in as an interesting band was playing – one guy on guitar singing and another on this drum concoction – they were singing those types of songs that reminded me of early folk – sort of that “Give me that old time religion” type lyric, which afterwards I learned most of their lyrics were original. It was all good fun.

Then we walked around Frenchman Street – on the corner a band gathered from nowhere it seemed – young boys playing big brass and making some good down home funky music. They drew a crowd who stopped to tap their feet and an elderly gentleman appeared from nowhere carrying a golf club and began to dance and direct traffic on the corner.

Early in the day I had seen a bumper sticker on a truck that said I AM NEW ORLEANS and as we milled around the crowds, we peeped into the DBA and the woman said you should go in this guy is an icon for  us here in New Orleans. I said, “I’m from New Orleans and I’ve never heard of him” and we kept walking, reading the line up at Snug for this month, then crossing over to the Spotted Cat, and finally we meandered back to the brass band on the corner.

Tell you the truth you can’t find a night like this just anywhere, New Orleans is evocative even when it is keeping it real, and well maybe there is no type of who I am, but maybe I might be happy just thinking of myself as New Orleans. Yeah, you right.

2 Responses to “I am New Orleans”

  1. Alice Says:

    We saw that movie a couple weeks back and I loved it. I can’t venture which character you’d be, but they were both just human. And the kids really were okay.

  2. Rachel Says:

    Part of being a 50+ mom is that I know that the kids will be okay so I’m not too spazzed out about all the “damage” we might be doing to the poor innocent.

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