My New Orleans Odyssey
Literature and cinema in the French Quarter
Let me tell you about it. It was a crazy idea to begin with—getting away from it all (the humdrum, the ennui, responsibilities) on a whim for four days. I had reluctance. Besides not wanting to spend the money, I hate leaving my comfort zone. And make no mistake, when I say “it all,” meaning my life: It is very comfortable. I don’t live in a palace or anything, but it’s cozy, and I have my cats and my dog and my mother, and my job at the library, besides a lot of stimulating, creative “extra” jobs, like this blog and a quaint neighborhood magazine. Things will get crazy again in the fall when I am back in school mode (for an MLIS—Master of Library and Information Science) but for the most part, things are really good. Suffice it to say, my odyssey (wandering voyage that it was) was not about escape. I fully intended to keep doing the creative things that I always do. I just needed a respite from the “have to” of it all. You know?
DAY ONE
I arrived at the hotel early. A magical place where everyone is kind, friendly, helpful. Attendants (are they still called bellhops?) greet you without any trace of weariness or hostility, and that alone is such a rare find since the pandemic began. Michael goes out of his way to get your bags to your room; and it’s confusing, because one of the wings is under construction, so you have to take a particular elevator shaft up (one of three) or you won’t find the room that has been assigned to you. Nolan greets you with a fist bump and does not forget your name. You would talk more if there wasn’t so much to see. The hotel is old, exquisite, ornate! There are glass cases everywhere, filled with artifacts that relate to the literary giants who stayed here long ago—William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway. The Hotel Monteleone sprang to life in the Gilded Age, a lion of a hotel, no doubt. It’s been roaring ever since, owned and operated by the same family—four men, of Sicilian roots, whose portraits loom over the lobby. (The Monteleone family has a suite on site, practically a house, on the roof, looming over the heated pool with a balcony, and apparently you can stay there when they are not in residence. It’s two-grand a night, but sure, you can stay there!)
I step out on Royal Street, turn right, and walk one block down. I’m intent on the bookstore I noticed while driving in. Crescent City Books. I’ve never set foot in a bookstore like that before, not even in Greenwich Village, or movies, or Google Street Views in Paris and London. (Well, there were these two bookstores in Burbank, CA that I adored as a teenager, one very like this one, but less organized, and the other filled with cinema books and screenplays because it is Burbank after all. Both of those bookstores closed permanently some time ago! Forlorn world! What is there today? Who knows, probably something very depressing like a Baby Gap!)1 But back to Crescent City Books: It’s clean and bright and small, in fact, but there’s a kingdom in there! The rows and rows of books, cared for and loved by the sight of things (it’s so clean in there) and the rows go so high you need ladders. First editions! Rarest tomes! I find a four-volume set that costs much more than I’m willing to spend ($375) but oh! The complete works of Oliver Goldsmith! I consider shelling out $60 for a two-volume set of Greater Britain by Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke. Three years ago, I published my edited version of another Dilke work. I felt the spirit of Helene Hanff! 84 Charing Cross Road, yes, Crescent City Books is exactly like that, except the staff do not address you as Madam.
I was starving by three o’clock so I had an early dinner. After circling blocks without intent and just loving the atmosphere of the French Quarter (up to Canal Street, around about back to Royal) I walked in the Curio and sat at the bar.
Cocktail: “Papa Old Fashion” (not as good as the Old Fashioned drinks at Pizza Byronz back home in Baton Rouge, where they always ask you what kind of whiskey you want, and they use a pestle and mortar to crush the cherry bitters that they import from somewhere in Italy) but it does the trick and I’m in no mood to find fault with the world for lack of perfection. Three stars!
Starter: spinach/artichoke dip and toasted ciabatta crisps (tasty, 3.5 stars)
Entrée: Blackened Redfish with crab salad (goes down well, well done, satisfying: 4.5 stars)
I went back to my room and watched Bugtussle and started Noise in the Middle. I wrote the Bugtussle review and exchanged emails with John Mese, who played “Crow” in the film. The cast is exactly three people: John; Derek Sitter, who also directed and wrote the film; and Jefferson Wisdom. Cast and crew really had their shit together from the way Mese described the filming of the entire 21-minute script in barely more than a day. “If we shot this many pages for TV or a [regular-length, say, two-hour] movie it would normally take three to five days minimum... But [Derek Sitter] had great people in every job... and we just got it done.”
DAY TWO
Breakfast in the hotel dining room. Food: Crab Cakes Benedict and asparagus. (Delicious, decadent, beautifully presented: Five Stars all the way!) Drink: Water and coffee. Sat by the window. Visited the exquisite furniture store across the street. Embarrassed myself slightly by misreading the price tag on the bottom of a monkey lamp—it was $600, not $25. Walked over Canal Street and got a Chai Latte at Starbucks, which nourished me for the walk to the Scottish Rite Temple. Took Carondelet all the way up, on the way to Van Gogh New Orleans: The Immersive Experience.
“What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?” (Vincent Van Gogh)
Tree Roots. His final painting, hours before he took his own life. “Vincent Van Gogh leaves the message: life goes on, it goes on without me, I stop here.”2
The tree connects everything; it is one of many insights from the tour. (I can’t take credit for the insight. It’s all in the presentations—documentary, write-ups on the walls, etc.) In Starry Night, they pointed out, the sky is distinct from the village of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, but the cypress tree inhabits both realms—heaven and earth. Its roots are earthly, but it is larger than everything else in the picture and it dominates the foreground and reaches up as high as it can go, penetrating the cloudy swirls and the textured stars. Chills. I’m hearing the song by Christina Perri in my mind: I’ve loved you for a thousand years. I’ll love you for a thousand more.3
Love. A major theme with Van Gogh. How much he loved his brother Theo! How his sisters loved him and devoted their lives to his legacy long after he was gone!
“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.” (Vincent Van Gogh)
The Immersive Experience is incredible. This was my second visit. My first visit, back in April, I wrote about that too.4 This time, I made a concerted effort to stay calm and present. That first visit, I battled annoyance; I was frustrated and antsy about the others. It was easier to be calm this go around because there were less people, for sure. I was able to relax and soak it all in. It put me in a good frame of mind, a generous frame of mind. I got my needs met and I acted unselfishly, unspoiled. I took less pictures, a lot less videos, than previously. In the main event, I watched the presentation from start to finish. (It will keep playing on repeat, and since the tour is entirely self-guided, you get up and leave when you want.) I did the VR experience as I did before. That’s $5 extra and it is worth every penny, twice! How a color-blind boy from Zundert used colors to enrich the landscape in the South of France—how he still makes us see it and appreciate the world around us!
I walked back along St. Charles. Had tacos and a daiquiri. Sat by the rooftop pool with my Albert Camus paperback. Met a woman. I don’t know how to describe her. She works here. I would tell you her name, but I don’t want to get her into trouble. She took me up to the banquet room that sits even above where the pool is, and she showed me the most fantastic view of the city and the river which this hotel has to offer. (She’s the one who told me about the Monteleone family’s on-site quarters.) It is good sometimes to lift one’s nose out of the book and actually talk to people! She led me into the gym too, just to show me another view. The gym actually has a two-sided view. Here, as we admired the river view, she pointed out exactly where her house is—on the opposite bank, but you can actually see it, that’s how expansive this view is. A 45-minute walk, she said, and she walks everyday, from there to here, and back—because she loves it. She loves the walk. And she loves this view. She takes it in several times a day and sees something new everyday.
Back in the room, I finished Noise in the Middle, which is a peculiar cross between a horror film and …. something else. Metaphysical? There are Occult themes, ancient ideas, and the sort of timeless wisdom that people, for some reason, sometimes term as “New Age.” Tom Konkle plays an occult/magic shop owner. John Mese, playing Richard, enters with his severely autistic daughter—Emmy, played by Faye Hostetter—who the shop owner takes an instant liking too, admiring her “blue aura.” There’s another part in the movie that struck me profoundly. Emmy’s doctor, played by Jim Holmes, introduces the concept of the “noise in the middle,” and it seems to me that the “noise in the middle” is basically the reality most of us are limited to—the world of things, outer forms, and ego. Autistic Emmy cannot reconcile the world of things with the eternal realm, of which she has a unique (and possibly undesired) perception. Echoes of The Sixth Sense? The house in the country that Richard takes Emmy to, thinking the fresh air might help them both, actually makes things worse—because it is haunted by the tormented orphans who lived there in the 19th century. Richard really pokes the bear by conjuring up his dead wife. She comes, but, as can happen when you open a portal between realms, so does another spirit—the tormenter of the children, who seizes the opportunity to take possession of a warm body. That’s when the movie goes full on scary-movie mode. Of course, there are hints beforehand, like when we see Mese’s reflection—not a true reflection, but more like a foreboding of the darkness in him, trapped in another realm and wanting to come through into this one.
DAY THREE
Had coffee in the room. My windows give me a direct view into two apartments, where I can see an astonishing amount of complete strangers’ daily and private activities. I feel guilty for it, but there is something irresistibly fascinating about the lady washing her dishes—the amount of time she spent on that one plate, my god, and when she finished cleaning it I felt a sense of victory, as if I were somehow engaged in it too. We did it, Lady Washing Her Dishes! We did it!
It was a good day to wear one of my two Van Gogh dresses, so I did.
Breakfast downstairs in the Criollo. Alex from Greece was my waiter. Delightful, friendly, courteous beyond the call of duty. Convincingly authentic, too, unlike Sartre’s waiter. I ordered the Criollo omelet (or is it omelette?) with the smoked bacon, lots of sumptuous mushrooms, green onions, tomatoes and cheddar cheese. It was HUGE!!!! I wanted to eat it all, and I nearly did, but when there was only a couple of bites left, I put down my fork. I couldn’t eat anymore. C’était impossible. Can you give more than five stars on a food review? I’ll give them a hundred.
I rewatched The Assistant, a film from 2020, starring Julia Garner and Matthew Macfadyen. Written, produced, and directed by Kitty Green. Why did I want to rewatch that film, of all the films I could have rewatched, or why didn’t I choose something new, or at least new to me? I knew it was a deep-waters kind of experience (the kind that needs revisiting because you notice something new each time) and I was just in the mood for that. I wanted to wallow in something deep and complex, with a disturbing ethical dilemma and tons of contradiction. That’s what you get with Bugtussle, and so it is with The Assistant. Five stars.
I went down to the Carousel Lounge for snacks. Oysters Rockefeller and white truffle fries, with ketchup. The oysters were ok; the fries were awesome. Ronald, the waiter, was magnificent. The service and the fries more than made up for what was lacking in the oysters. Almost five stars, but better than 4.5. For the drink, I had ice lemon water in a plastic cup, and I loved it. It’s just one of those days. Then I took a walk. I went as far as the Louisiana Supreme Court before turning around. On a whim I popped into Crescent City Books again. Fate. As my mouth watered and I fantasized about purchasing that four-volume Oliver Goldsmith set, I glanced off to the side and saw a beautiful leather-bound Walton’s Lives. I don’t know a single thing about collecting books, but I’m going out on a limb to guess that $125 is not a bad price for an 1834 edition. But that’s not even the best part. I gotta show you this:
As you’ll see if you click on the above, and swipe to the second picture, this tome was once in the library at long-defunct Jefferson College—in Convent, LA. My great-grandfather, Edgar Coco, kept a journal while he was enrolled at Jefferson College,5 in the 1920s. It was entirely about his football team, mostly newspaper clippings that he pasted on the pages. He put a few pictures in there, and some humorous school paper cutouts. I don’t how much time he spent in the library, but just the idea that this book was in a library where he spent anytime at all is enough to make me smile. That school ceased to exist a long time ago. In fact, it closed permanently not many years after Edgar was there. I never met him, but he left such a mark on the world (well, his world, at any rate) I can’t resist the urge to write about him every now and then. If time travel were possible, I’d go back to his times in a heartbeat, have a drink with him, listen to him play his harmonica, and maybe knock some Easter eggs.
Revisiting that wonderous bookstore brought Helene Hanff back to mind. 84 Charing Cross Road, book and movie, is always a gem worthy of revisitation! I love Helene’s humor. “I hope Madam doesn’t mean over there what it means over here,” she writes back to FPD!6 In one of her letters, she mentions Walton’s Lives. “You may add Walton’s Lives to the list of books you aren’t sending me. It’s against my principles to buy a book I haven’t read. It’s like buying a dress you haven't tried on. But you can’t even get Walton’s Lives in a library over here. You can look at it. They have it down at the 42nd Street branch. But not to take home! The lady said to me, shocked, eat it here. Just sit right down, in Room 315, and read the whole book without a cup of coffee, a cigarette, or air. Doesn’t matter. Q quoted enough of it, so I know I’ll like it. Anything he liked, I like. Except if it’s fiction. I never can get interested in things that didn’t happen to people who never lived. What do you do with yourself all day? Sit in the back of the store and read? Why don’t you try sending a book to somebody? —Miss Hanff, to you. [I’m Helene only to my friends.]”7
Tomorrow is check out. Should I conform to touristy tradition and have breakfast at Cafe du Monde, before my ten o’clock spa appointment? Or visit the WWII museum? Decisions, decisions. There is no “have to,” which was the point of the trip.
Day 3’s dinner was room service: Veggie burger, truffle fries, and an Old Fashioned. Delicious. Without reservation, five stars.
DAY FOUR
Unverified rumor has it that the Monteleone does beignets better than Cafe du Monde. Mind you, the rumor seems to be sourced in the hotel itself, so it might be a tad biased. Nevertheless, there was something about doing room service and beignets and coffee that I found very appealing. They were good. Definitely five stars, although most of that rating is based on the service. The service overall is just relaxed and easy, but not at all sloppy! The staff are attentive without being uptight. No one is grumpy. No one is a snob.
Parting delights: Spa Aria, and another veggie burger.
BACK HOME
It was a great feeling pulling into Baton Rouge. However much we dream of other places, there is truly no place like home. It’s the feeling of one’s own couch, one’s own bed, one’s own things. The odyssey is an exciting adventure, a wandering voyage, but it is only fun as an exception. Indeed, it is the exception. If the odyssey was everyday, it would not be an odyssey. It would be work. Exhausting! An odyssey is no place for a home. Variety is great, in doses, but thank god for comfort zones!
I’ll leave you with one more quote from Helene:
“Oh my, i do bless you for that Walton’s Lives. It’s incredible that a book published in 1840 can be in such perfect condition more than a hundred years later. Such beautiful, mellow rough-cut pages they are, I do feel for poor William T. Gordon who wrote his name in it in 1841, what a crummy lot of descendants he must have—to sell it to you casually for nothing. Boy, I’d like to have run barefoot through THEIR library before they sold it.
fascinating book to read, did you know John Donne eloped with the boss’s highborn daughter and landed in the Tower for it and starved and starved and THEN got religion. my word.”8
Quote from You’ve Got Mail (1998):
“People are always telling you that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all... has happened. My store is closing this week. I own a store, did I ever tell you that? It's a lovely store, and in a week it will be something really depressing, like a Baby Gap. Soon, it'll just be a memory. In fact, someone, some foolish person, will probably think it's a tribute to this city, the way it keeps changing on you, the way you can never count on it, or something. I know because that's the sort of thing I'm always saying. But the truth is... I'm heartbroken. I feel as if a part of me has died, and my mother has died all over again, and no one can ever make it right.” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0128853)
Quote from Wouter Van der Veen, scientific director of the Van Gogh Institute
Song by Christina Perri: https://g.co/kgs/nWDtN1.
Rovira, Ashley. “Vincent Van Gogh’s Vision Comes to Life.” Medium.com. 14 May 2022. https://medium.com/@heavycrownpress/van-goghs-vision-comes-to-life-757f783465b0.
Uncle Frank was confused about this. “Pop Coco” only spent a couple of terms at Jefferson College; the school closed forever shortly after he left. He did finish his studies at Spring Hill College in Alabama. That school is indeed still kicking. Apparently, another grandson of Edgar’s (cousin Dominique) went to school there.
Hanff, Helene. 84 Charing Cross Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1970. Reprint edition. p.3.
ibid., p.44.
ibid., p.47.