Unlike any other city in the United States, New Orleans is a refuge from the visual, moral and social aggressiveness of America’s best friends: “textbook middle class” standards & corporate consumption.
New Orleans is poor, wild, hot, haunted, free, proud; nicknamed the third world of the US, it houses the most extreme people, the freaks, the hard-core liberals, the music junkies, and generally all those who chose the road less traveled. The Beat generation was here, shooting in the garden district. Any local will tell you the city is haunted, and not just by the ghosts of Faulkner, Tennessee Williams or Anne Rice.
You can drive in decrepit neighborhoods where people still live as in 1950 and end in the best bar you could imagine, better than a nightmare experience by David Lynch, the music, the light, the pool table, the whole thing will blow your mind. Every street corner is a visual experience.
I lived in New Orleans from 1998 to 2000 and it remains one of my most moving memories. This is my first trip back.
(art by Banksy in New Orleans)
well said, I might add the food as a side trip to the soul is quite amazing too!
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