Autumn is an improper drink, disappointing at best but mostly just insufferable. My poor attempt at a Sazerac festers on the patio table to my right. Though the weather is just warm enough to drink outside, the sun no longer reaches my face. It hovers shy of my toes now and wavers. I should make […]
Read MoreOut of so many places in the world, seen and unseen, my heart has settled without reservation in New Orleans. It sits in a broken state of perfection, collecting stories within the faded walls and crumbling streets, fluid with all the grace of southern charm and corrupt with timeless fascination. Each visit reveals new perspective […]
Read MoreThat we were walking along a two-lane highway with a five-foot wooden skeleton and a water bottle full of bourbon really should have been our first indication that we had, perhaps, over indulged. The five of us – six, if you count the skeleton – had reached a decadent apex of sorts, the net result […]
Read MoreNashville smells like pecans and bourbon. The bourbon is obvious; poured, spilled and consumed as ceaselessly as the music plays in a near 24-hour rotation. The pecans less so. Their sweet scent is like embers in the air, discernible but ghostly. It’s a fitting match for Music City where the sounds emanating from the honky […]
Read MoreBob raps his knuckles twice on the bar after serving a round of drinks. The sound echoes briefly through the Coq d’Or, a subterranean cocktail lounge in the Drake Hotel. Its grand distinction, aside from Bob, who is, perhaps, as essential to the bar as its dark wood and cherry leather, is the claim of […]
Read MoreHe stocked his store with earnest. So much so that it was more living room than store, sparsely but personally full of items he’d collected, found, or made. Many stores in New Orleans are like that. They’re owned by a single proprietor, occasionally a group of friends, who will take a lease on a closet […]
Read MoreI stash things in books. It’s an odd habit that’s been with me for decades. Recently I discovered a lovely envelope tucked between the pages of I Capture the Castle, an endearing novel published in the 40s but reminiscent of the 19th century. The writing is ripe with flawlessly compulsive lyricism: Characters pine and scheme […]
Read MoreSt. Louis Cemetery No. 1 stands on the outskirts of the French Quarter. There is no discernible order to this collection of the dead, only haphazard tombs that crumble together, spilled bricks and epitaphs, grass thrusting through walkways that lead nowhere. In just one square block, it is an eternal home to thousands. Bodies aren’t […]
Read MorePaxton carries a bent photograph of her in his wallet that he will produce with no provocation. Sylvia. He loves her tremendously and righteously and will, over drinks that he buys for strangers, quote the lyrics of songs that are applicable to their doomed love. This is how Paxton spends his time, banking off a […]
Read MoreMy guy and I will dance the two-step in our driveway. He’s better at it than I am, which isn’t so surprising seeing as how I still haven’t figured out how to count rhythm in country music. My “slow, slow, quick, quick” varies depending on the amount of bourbon I’ve consumed: Occasionally it is moderately […]
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