Notes From New Orleans

It’s a holiday weekend, with a lot of opportunities to party — hopefully this three- (or four-, or five-) day vacation won’t go from being a long weekend to a lost weekend… So here are some things to keep you on your feet:

FRIDAY, 5/24

My, how we love our characters in New Orleans. Which is a good thing. 

Locals still talk about Ruthie the Duck Girl, even though she died in 2008. In my neighborhood of Tremé, we have a tall man with a scraggly beard who pushes a grocery cart around, having random conversations with a street corner. Or an empty can. 

We celebrate these characters. We tenderly laugh with them. But we don’t always see that, underneath the eccentricity that makes for a funny story, is often a mental illness that is anything but funny.

This weekend, Bayou St. John gets one more hit before it’s slower summer/fall/winter season with the B-o-o-g-a-l-o-o. Go to that, but go to these things, too:

FRIDAY, 5/17

Hear that? The birds chirping, the construction on Esplanade, yep — New Orleans is back to normal. Jazz Fest came and went, and now it’s up to us to keep having fun. Shouldn’t be that hard:

Sixty eight years ago this week — May 8, 1945 to be exact — the Second World War ended in Europe with the signing of the official documents in Berlin. But, for one group of British military women, it would be more than 30 years before they were allowed to talk about their secret role in that devastating conflict.

Sharon Litwin had the chance to speak with one of them for this week's Notes from New Orleans; she filed this report from the back patio of a charming, soft-spoken resident of Covington, Louisiana.

You only have to spend about 10 seconds in New Orleans to know that ours is a city that relishes being over the top. And we do love her for it. Most of the time.

But not when it comes to bugs. Seriously. Must New Orleans bugs be so, well, New Orleans? Larger than life? With a voracious appetite? And more than a little crazy?

Inarguably, festival season in New Orleans is in full swing. But while most of the attention is going to multi-million dollar projects with international fans, there are still other festivals happening under the radar.

On this week's Notes from New Orleans, Sharon Litwin speaks to a Marigny artist about the festival she's put together at two separate venues. One's family friendly, while the other is a bit taboo. 

The people of Bayou St. John tell of merriment and traffic as the festival descends on their neighborhood. 

In shady Bayou St. John, the neighbors really know each other.  The same crew assembles each morning at the local coffee house to read the paper and debate its assertions; another crowd convenes at the various watering holes each evening.

“It’s one of the great things about this neighborhood,” says Fortin St. resident Jonas Bishop. “The fact that I know everyone on my block… It’s definitely a community-centric area that you don’t find a lot of places.”

Delanie Manuel, server at Liuzza’s by the Track and Jonas’ neighbor, agrees. “I thought I’d be a Quarter Rat forever,” she admits. “But no, I love it here.”