the return of the no-neck monsters October 31, 2006
I shot some video today for the class project, hanging my camera out the window while driving down Carrollton and other streets in Uptown, Broadmoor and Hollygrove. It’s to show the post-flood New Orleans, after our family of taxpayers returns to the city. I got a good mixture of fully-restored houses, restoration-in-progress houses, and a block with FEMA trailer after FEMA trailer. I have some old video that I shot the first time I came back to town, right before Hurricane Rita, that I can use to show the immediate aftermath. I also have some very depressing video that I shot in Lakeview just this past August. Parts of it look like the water went just down last week, and it still does to this day, incidently. These videos aren’t very professional-looking, and I’m driving the Exploder while filming, but they all look alike. Let’s just pretend it’s the avant-garde, low-budget, hand-held Sundance independent film look.
I decided to stay home tonight, reputation be damned. I’m feeling much better than last week, but why push it? I’m always thinking I should get out and meet people, but, let’s face it - has anyone ever met a man or woman who was truly sponge-worthy at a drunken New Orleans Hallowe’en party? I had fun giving out “chockit canny” to all the little kids in my neighborhood, which I haven’t done for several years. One little 17-month-old was dressed in the cutest little Dumbo the Elephant costume. He even had a little mouse in his hat. My new neighbors across the street had a kids’ Hallowe’en party, and I could hear their little excited chattering voices coming from the lawn. I gave out treats to lots of witches, fairies, kitty cats and devils, then I opened the door to find a little girl wearing what can only be described as a street-walker costume. Oh, well. Happy Hallowe’en!
Shannon had a wine dinner in Lafayette tonight and she needed a costume, so I washed out the witch costume I wore to Charlie’s party on Saturday and sent her off with the dress and the hat. I warned her that the slit goes all the way up to there, and showed her the picture of me in it, but she thought it would be OK. I guess one has to do what one has to do to sell wine. Heh Heh.
Later, I served as costume consultant to Katherine and her friends before they went to two parties and then downtown. I dug through my magic closet to find costume pieces and accessories and I applied false eyelashes. They looked so cute that I had to have photos, and now that I have photos, I have to put them on my blog!
Last year at this time, no one was home in New Orleans to trick or to treat. Well, some adults were here, but the town was completely empty of kids. You would have thought the Pied Piper had been through here and taken them all away, even when I got back in mid-December. Ernie has a very evocative post about this, and I think he’ll find, as I did, that the kids are back this year, and what a relief.
I spent Hallowe’en in Houston last year, where I skipped a now-legendary party thrown for all the law students by Curtis Harrington, one of Katherine’s friends and not at all the kind of law student I was ranting about the other day. I had even bought a costume at Frankel’s, an enormous costume warehouse where they pick you up in golf carts and drive you around. When it came down to it, though, I didn’t want to leave the freaky Overlook Hotel apartment building where we lived unless I could go to the French Quarter, so I stayed home.
I went to Rite Aid today to get some treats, and the lady in line in front of me was very excited to see how many kids would come to her house on this first Hallowe’en after they all got run out of town. I hadn’t really thought about it as a big deal until she said that. I saw kids everywhere after that, and when I got home I read Ernie’s post. How many cities have been completely emptied of children like that since we last had an epidemic of Plague? Maybe London during the Blitz? Baghdad is probably like that now. You really have to experience it to understand how it felt. It’s not like giving a party and no one shows up; it’s like there is no one to give a party for at all.
I have always been pretty focused on my own children and not all that interested other people’s kids. Now, I’m completely over the top about Jackson, and still don’t take that much interest in other people’s kids. I was talking to a young mother a few weeks ago, and she made me laugh because she said the same thing. Tonight, though, I have to say that I appreciate these parents who have brought their young children back to this city. I never gave it a thought before, but it was weird, lonely and creepy while the children were all in exile.
Welcome back, little no-neck monsters. And Happy Hallowe’en.
- Posted in : main, new orleans
- Author : dangerblond
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?