Art

If you were raised in small town America, and were lucky to have a vibrant downtown area, the holidays were always a special time of the year when you could go to “Main Street” and stroll among the festive holiday decorations and peruse the small shops sprinkled along the street. In many ways, the French Quarter is much like “Small Town America” to the 4,000 or so residents who especially enjoy the neighborhood when the holiday decorations go up and the window displays begin to reflect the spirit of the season.

My best girlfriend and I have been celebrating our April birthdays every year by going "antiquing" on Royal Street. We shop 'til we drop, then plop down for some cocktails and shop some more! As we browse along, walking beneath balconies dripping with Spring flowers, the street's lively aura pulls us in. It showcases our local talents of Dixieland jazz, a puppeteer, a magician, a living statue, a busker strumming a beat-up guitar, and a silver mime"...we are always surprised and delighted by Royal Street happenings.

When I was young, my mother filled our house with music. We would sing all the time, neither of us with any kind of real success. I specifically remember singing "Rhinestone Cowboy" riding in our car when radios were still dial tuned and before seat belts were "fashionable" . As festival season approaches, no time in the French Quarter is more filled with the sounds of music. We come out of the cold weather into longer, warmer, festival-filled weekends that sweep us off our ears and celebrate the sounds that make our neighborhoods famous.

I have a really big problem with movies about hauntings. Well, not so much a big problem with the movies themselves as much as the people in them. You know the kind I mean: they sit around wondering what or whose voice is telling them to get out, rather than packing. Personally, I don't need a voice. A post-it on the fridge would work for me, I am just that easy. Then there's that one guy who takes the broken flashlight into the basement full of dismembered baby dolls. And inevitably the chick who just must shower, alone, naked, in the haunted house, at night.