The Citygoer

Modern New Orleans is a city unlike any other, with communities that are seemingly perfect capsules of time and up-and-coming downtown areas like the business district. All are rich in history and highlight the unique neighborhoods and people that call this city home. In my three weeks exploring New Orleans, I can confidently say that the literary journey we bookpackers have taken has been unlike any other adventure I have had.

The experience of feeling like you are in Disneyland, with the fantastical architecture of the French Quarter and its spooky tales, to feeling like you are in a movie with the romantic buildings of the Garden District, is unlike anything else. The theaters that have been preserved over time, with conservative exteriors and wild midnight showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, are just one example of the city's eccentric nature. The layers of history, in the eyes of enslaved people and women, create a picture of strength and resilience. Stories from Maria and Nancy, our teachers at our Cajun cooking class, and their journeys during and after Hurricane Katrina, show just how stubborn and unbending the people of New Orleans are. Places like the Backstreet Museum are reminders that culture and love do not disappear, but are fueled by disaster. The beautiful, gracious city we only had the privilege of visiting has and continues to be the home of celebration, multicultural identity, hearty food, and art.

The characters, real people, and fictional worlds we got to visit, Ignatius Reilly, Edna Pontelier, Louis de Pointe du Lac, Sarah Broom, Buddy Boldin, and Binx Bolling, are the greatest reflection of the city. Representing real people and ideas, perceptions of slavery, womenhood, and the constant class and power struggle of the South. The opportunity to explore them in their natural habitat, walking where they walked, seeing what they saw, and even experiencing their world was such a special experience. I can firmly say that nothing will ever compare to the emotional and physical connection I feel to those characters, those pieces of writing, and this city.

Books like The Moviegoer have left permanent imprints on my being and how I see the world. The post-war world in New Orleans is a unique period of history for the city, where we see veterans returning to an industrialized place that has seemingly moved on. The combination of the Old World South and the up-and-coming business of the 50s is what makes New Orleans the perfect place to research characters like Binx Bolling, and how his ideas and perspective reflect the values of the culture of New Orleans.

“In New Orleans I have noticed that people are happiest when they are going to funerals, making money, taking care of the dead, or putting on masks at Mardi Gras so nobody knows who they are”

— Binx Bolling, The Moviegoer (Chapter 1)

The Moviergoer encapsulates the post-war period of New Orleans, romanticizing it and passing over the racist and problematic depictions of African Americans and women, which is a pivotal aspect of Binx’s character. His treatment of women, and perspective towards African Americans, and generally people of color, is astonishing. Particularly, his descriptions of Mercer, the butler of Binx’s Aunt Emily, are filled with suspicion. Binx feels uneasy and unsure of Mercer and can’t decide if he would describe him as kind and devoted or as knowing and calculating. Binx’s depiction of Mercer is a reflection of how white society in the South perceives black individuals as unreliable and untrustworthy. This narrative stems from systemic issues that we have as a nation; it lies within our politics, our cultures, and our class structure. The United States is built on ‘untrustworthy’ men and ‘unstable’ women like Kate, Binx’s step-cousin and love interest. We as a society rely upon those who are mistreated, oppressed, and ultimately villainized. This story is personal to so many, and many who have been put into a box like Mercer, deemed unworthy and strange by people like Binx. This is the result of our longstanding systems, and it is seen in almost every aspect of American life today.

New Orleans, a progressive city in the southern part of the United States, reflects this tension and ongoing struggle. As it welcomes so many, it also lies within a culture of the ‘undying’ South. Experiences like visiting the ‘Civil War Museum,’ which really is the museum of the Confederacy, make these stories a reality. The slave pens and auction buildings just across the street from a church, and the multi-million-dollar mansions just miles from the neighborhoods devastated by Katrina, are the truth of the city.

In its beauty, there is devastation, physical and cultural. Through personal stories from Sarah Broom and fictional characters like Ignatius Reilly, we see the great diversity of the city and how the devastation permanently alters individual lives. This special experience of bookpacking is the epitome of how to understand this devastation and beauty. To see how characters like Binx Bolling live in privilege, yet suffer on the ultimate human journey.

Binx’s flaws are the cicities'laws, his misogynistic view of women, his bigoted view of people of color. This lives not in the underbelly of the city but at the forefront of its deliberate actions. Which neighborhoods to save in Katrina, which parts of the city are well-funded, all of these facts are based on the current struggles that Binx represents. New Orleans searches for an identity that is not built on the backs of enslaved people, nor on the backs of women who suffer silently in their roles. It searches for the harmony of people, of all backgrounds, connecting them with music and food. This hope that the unyielding people of New Orleans have is what makes it the most special book-packing location.

An experience like this, shared with others, is so special. To spend it with students of all areas of study, entirely different backgrounds, and strong opinions, made this journey what it was. With the help of our passionate and informative professor, we together explored these challenges and made sense of what New Orleans was to us, an onion, blue, jazzy city, filled with Creole women and vampires.

Sun Sets on New Orleans

This is the last piece of writing I will submit in college. Possibly ever, if I decide against pursuing more degrees. Sixteen years, millions of words written, and my journey ends just how it began: me staring at a blank page. I’m not sure what to write for this final blog. How exactly do I begin to synthesize the experience I’ve had the last month in New Orleans? How do I come to terms with the fact that this incredible experience is ending? That college is ending? That the days of following a clear path are over?

Photos from my graduation!

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I don’t know where to start.

In case you somehow couldn’t tell, I haven’t outlined a single one of these blogs. I’ve gone into each with a vague idea of what I want to talk about, but from there I’ve just let my thoughts lead me. I thought this one would be the same. In fact, I thought it would be the easiest to write because it’s just going to be me summing up my experiences over the past month. It seems as though I was wrong, but I’m going to try to do my best.

While The Moviegoer mentions it specifically, almost all the books we read for this class contained some element of ‘searching.’ Every character, from Edna all the way to Ignatius, was looking for something, either internally or externally. We’ve discussed in class many times what it is about New Orleans that brings up all these philosophical and existential questions, how the collision of cultures mixed with the Deep South ‘lost cause’ myth converge to create a city that is still searching for its own identity.

Audubon Park

I came to New Orleans searching for something too, though I didn’t know it at the time. I’ve loved to read since I was three years old. In fact, the book People We Meet on Vacation is what originally sparked my desire to go to New Orleans. It felt very romantic to me, very inspiring. Because beyond reading, I have always harbored a calling to be a writer one day. As early as I started reading, I also began filling notebook upon notebook with writing. My brain felt like it was exploding with ideas. Writing to me seemed as natural as breathing, and imagining stories in my head became my primary source of entertainment in a no-TV home.

That calling to write has never gone away, but, as many childhood dreams, it’s been stamped down by the crushing realities of adult life. Writing is difficult. It’s scary. The words in my mind never come out the same way on paper, and even if they do, can I really handle baring my soul to someone else like that? Both my inner critic and my fear of people reading my work have tainted the process of writing for me. I put so much pressure on myself that all that creativity I once had gets extinguished.

Writing is also just, objectively, not the most financially sound career decision. I have never desired this whole ‘starving artist’ thing. There is nothing enjoyable, I have learned from experience, in not knowing how you’re going to pay your rent this month or eat anything other than instant ramen and sunflower seeds for the foreseeable future. I crave financial stability. So as much as I would have loved to major in literature or history or classics, I chose to study economics. That isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy what I do. I have quite an analytical streak that takes well to studying patterns and predicting trends. It’s only that for every bit of practicality I have, it is matched equally in creativity. I don’t have the chance to nurture both parts of myself, and so my imagination has withered from lack of care.

Essentially, that was just my long-winded way of saying that I’ve been feeling a little… uninspired recently. Between that, a breakup of my long-term relationship, graduation, there has been a yawning crater of absence in my life. I felt drawn to New Orleans because of the sense of romance and individuality in this city. There seemed to be so many stories, so much rich history. To quote Andrew, this city is quite fecund. It teems with abundance in every direction, from the different cultural influences to the extravagance of Mardi Gras to the French quarter houses resplendent with wrought-iron leaf, bright colors, and lush bougainvillea. There is something a little bit magical about this city. To go back to my first blog post, New Orleans feels like nowhere else I have ever been. Being here sparks my curiosity, not comparison. I haven’t ranked it against the other cities I’ve been to in my lifetime. It doesn’t feel necessary — all my energy is spent learning the history and imagining the stories that could have taken place here over the centuries. It feels like New Orleans is a mystery, and if I pop into the right bar at just the right time or stumble upon the right novel in a bookstore then I will unlock the key to understanding more about this place.

A collection of photos that I hope encapsulates the vibe of this city better than I could explain it in words:

So. Did this trip singlehandedly reignite my passion for writing? Did I find what I was searching for? I don’t know. I don’t think it’s quite a fair ask of one city, to totally change your life in a month. I think I’ve spent the last month so inundated with experiences, history, perspectives, people, food, and novels that it will take some time to fully sort through and reflect upon everything in full. What I will say is that in this city so teeming with life, I felt as though I was able to collect some of that energy for myself. Everyone and everything here is alive. That’s the best way of describing New Orleans. Alive. Through this experience, through seeing and doing and learning and thinking and laughing and crying and talking and eating and drinking and sweating in the heat and running in the rain,

I’ve been able to feel.

I’ve been able to connect with the piece of myself from which my creativity and my humanity stem. I’ve been able to remind myself that the world moves on even when it feels like it’s ending. I’ve been able to watch the sun set over the Mississippi River, marveling in the beauty of my surroundings, at how so many paths for so many people could have led them right here.

Anyways, there is much more I could say on this topic, but I fear it devolving into a sappy and nonsensical ramble which is not the point here. TLDR: New Orleans was really cool and I’m thankful for this experience. Let’s just leave it at that.

FOOD

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FOOD !

This experience wouldn’t have been what it was without all the people that made it so fun. Missing you guys already, enjoy these photos (though you might like some more than others tehe)

Moving Forward

This may sound naïve, but I genuinely thought I had everything figured out for my life. I am attending a prestigious university, majoring in a field that will lead to a guaranteed doctorate, strong job prospects, and financial stability. I have a loving family, a close group of friends, and a support system. I have opportunities, connections, and a clear plan for the future. From the outside, and even to me, it seemed as though all the pieces were already in place. I had a solid plan, so I assumed I understood where my life was heading.

But one of the most valuable lessons I took away from the New Orleans trip was realizing that those two things are not the same.

Throughout the trip, I was exposed to new perspectives from both my classmates and my professor. Whether we were discussing a book or historical period in a seminar, talking over meals about our experiences, or reflecting after a long day of exploring the city, I found myself encouraged to think beyond my initial ideas. What surprised me most was how often a conversation would challenge an idea I had been confident in just moments before. I entered many discussions expecting to defend my perspective, but I often left reconsidering it. Rather than weakening my views, those moments forced me to think about them more carefully.

The discussion that stayed with me most centered on Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, specifically its ending and whether we thought it was ideal or not. When I first finished the novel, I was honestly disappointed. After following Binx Bolling through his existential search, his fascination with movies, and his constant questioning of everyday life, I expected some kind of dramatic revelation. Instead, Binx marries Kate, returns to his faith, and begins medical school. The ending felt anticlimactic, almost as though he had abandoned the very search that made the novel somewhat interesting.

During our group discussion, however, my perspective began to shift. As we talked through the ending together, I realized that my disappointment came from my own expectations rather than the novel itself. I assumed that because Binx spent so much of the story searching, the ending would provide a grand answer. I expected clarity or some profound discovery. Instead, Percy offers something quieter.

“The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.”

- Walker Percy, The Moviegoer

When I first read this line, I interpreted it as a justification for searching. It seemed to suggest that ordinary life was insufficient and that meaning existed somewhere beyond routine. After our discussion, I began to see the quote differently. By the end of the novel, Binx does not necessarily reject the search; rather, he learns that searching alone cannot sustain a meaningful life. Meaning is not simply discovered, but it is also created through commitment, relationships, and participation in the world around us. One of the most insightful moments came when Professor Andrew spoke about how Binx ultimately finds what gives his life value. Rather than continuing to drift from experience to experience, Binx chooses a direction. He commits himself to responsibilities and a future. What struck me was not the specifics of those choices, but the idea that a meaningful life does not always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes fulfillment emerges through ordinary actions rather than extraordinary revelations.

At the same time, I do not completely agree with Binx’s resolution. While I now appreciate the ending much more than I initially did, I am not convinced that the search ever truly ends. People continue to grow and change throughout their lives. New experiences reshape priorities, relationships evolve, and unexpected opportunities arise. The questions that matter at one stage of life may be entirely different at another. In that sense, I think searching is part of being human.

Before this trip, I often felt as though I had already mapped out my future. I knew what degree I wanted, what profession interested me, and what goals I hoped to accomplish. There was comfort in that certainty. Yet our discussions forced me to confront something surprisingly simple. I am only nineteen years old. For the first time, I began to recognize the difference between having a plan and having everything figured out. A plan is valuable because it provides direction, but it cannot predict every possibility. Life has a way of introducing unexpected challenges, opportunities, and changes that no amount of preparation can fully anticipate. The future I imagine today may not be the same future I eventually live, and that is not necessarily a failure. It is simply part of being alive.

New Orleans provided the perfect setting for these reflections. The city itself feels layered with history, culture, and countless personal stories. Walking through its streets, visiting historic sites, and discussing literature in a place so rich with character helped me to think beyond immediate goals and consider broader questions about identity, purpose, and fulfillment. The trip gave me space to pause and reflect in a way that everyday life often does not.

What I ultimately gained from the experience was not a definitive answer about my future. If anything, I left with more questions than I arrived with. Surprisingly, I now view that as a positive outcome. The purpose of education is not always to provide certainty. Sometimes it is to challenge assumptions, complicate easy answers, and encourage deeper reflection. As I prepare for the next stage of my life, I still have goals, ambitions, and plans. I still hope to pursue occupational therapy and build a future that reflects the values I care about. What has changed is my understanding of certainty. I arrived in New Orleans believing that having a direction meant I understood where my life was going. I left realizing that a direction is only a beginning. The future remains unwritten, and rather than fearing that uncertainty, I have started to appreciate it. After all, if life were completely mapped out at nineteen, there would be very little left to discover.

Music, Memory, and Mortality

I’m not sure what I expected from Preservation Hall. I suppose I thought that one of jazz music’s most iconic venues would be a bit… grander. But there it was, tucked into the French quarter across from a bar with hand-drawn signs advertising $4 tequila shots. The building was an unassuming dove grey, only revealing its history through age spots and faded graffiti.

Inside was just as understated. The venue was one room with rows of wooden benches and a small area in the back where we stood. The stage was reminiscent of the ‘Whammy Bar,’ a place in rural Vermont that would sometimes have live music (and also really great truffle fries). I felt immediately transported back to my childhood. When we were told to put our phones away for the performance, there was a part of me that internally panicked. Even though I’m an adult now, I will always on some level be the ADHD ten-year-old trying to sit through a two-hour classical music performance. The idea of being stuck in a room with just my thoughts, (mostly) instrumental music, and strangers made me feel almost trapped.

I needn’t have worried, however. From the moment the trumpet blew the first note, I was entranced. Almost spellbound. I watched the band play song after song, from a hilarious rendition of Sweet Emma Barrett’s ‘None of My Jelly Roll’ to rolling bluegrass tunes to slower, deeper melodies. I felt truly immersed in the music. People always talk about jazz being about emotions, like being able to hear the sadness in a trombone or the anxiety of a syncopated beat. I don’t think I entirely understood that idea until this performance, being able to fully focus on the sounds with no phones, no distractions, a lot of the time not even lyrics. I could hear a sweeping melancholy in some of the songs, or the blatant joy in other melodies. Throughout it all ran a sense of abruptness, spontaneity, as though these musicians didn’t take themselves too seriously. Learning afterwards that the performance wasn’t rehearsed but was instead mostly improvised was wild because of the quality, but almost made a strange sort of sense.

In fact, reading Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter about jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden felt almost like being at Preservation Hall all over again. Bolden’s music, though it’s been lauded as fundamental in the creation of modern jazz, was never recorded. His music only exists now through memory, through re-creation. Though we’ll never know how accurate Ondaatje’s portrayal of Bolden is, I do believe he was able to breathe life into the character the same way a skilled musician is able to breathe life into a piece of sheet music by sight. The story of the book is messy, told in bits and pieces. It’s nearly impossible to tell at some points when things switch from one timeline to the next, from Buddy’s narration to another character searching for him. This style is reminiscent of Bolden’s jazz music itself, which was often spontaneous, jumping around. “He was the best and the loudest and most loved jazzman of his time, but never professional in the brain,” Ondaatje writes (pg 14).

““Unconcerned with the crack of the lip he threw out and held immense notes, could reach a force on the first note that attacked the ear.” ”

— Michael Ondaatje

Bourbon St. at night — I can fully imagine dipping into one of these bars and finding Buddy Bolden playing for a rapt crowd.

Mural of Buddy Bolden’s band that Laura, Trey, and I came across while getting pizza.

Bolden was a genius, but in a way he was almost more impressive for his lack of genius, of planning and strategy. Reading the book gave me the distinct impression that within Bolden was jazz; as though the music came straight from his soul and one could not exist without the other. No wonder Bolden didn’t have to rehearse in order to play incredibly. He already was talented. He just had to be.

As I stood in that bare bones room of Preservation Hall, heels of my feet almost numb from standing so long, it was as though I could sense Buddy Bolden’s ghost within the walls. Preservation Hall was built after Bolden’s time, and yet I could almost picture him standing on stage playing his cornet, whether a century ago or today.

With all the spontaneity and improvisation I’ve discussed also comes a dark side. It’s risky to play in such a way. For every time you get something right, you also run the risk of getting it wrong. Such is the thesis of Buddy’s life — as much as he’s a musical genius, he’s also an abusive alcoholic going through a mental health crisis that consumes him until he is ultimately taken to a psychiatric hospital where he spends the rest of his life. You can say that the book’s structure (or lack thereof) is meant to represent jazz music, but you can just as easily make a case for it being the disorganization of Bolden’s mind. The book reads like a fever dream with memories flying at you, not separated by time or distance or even narrator. The story is beautiful, but ultimately haunting. It’s one that has stayed with me in my own memory, just as Buddy’s music has lived on through memory, much like Preservation Hall has been kept alive through recollection and word of mouth as there is no recording allowed. I feel as though I hadn’t fully been able to dive into jazz and its influence on New Orleans, and this book really put me in the thick of it. Every time I see a brass band or a street performer singing Ella Fitzgerald, I find myself thinking back to Buddy. I have no way of knowing what his life really felt like, what his music really sounded like, just as Michael Ondaatje didn’t when he wrote the book. But through memory, through imagination, his ghost is kept alive.

Family of Music

When I think of New Orleans, the top three things I think of are beignets, Bourbon Street, and most importantly, the magnificent, dance-worthy jazz music. But while growing up, I never thought of jazz as having cultural or historical significance. Honestly, it wasn't really anything to me. It just existed, but not as something I could define or even name at the time. It was more like a background noise that had always been there.

My dad in high school with his saxophone!

This was mainly because of my dad. He played saxophone in high school and majored in music in college before deciding to focus on a different career. Even after graduating, marrying my mom, working since he was a freshman in high school, and raising two daughters, jazz never left him. It shows up in everyday moments, like playing music around the house, casually mentioning songs he likes, and even in the way he reacts to jazz, as if he experiences it physically before ever trying to make sense of it. When I asked him to describe that feeling, he said it is almost instinctive, like it shifts his energy and pulls him into a different rhythm without him even realizing it.

Me peforming in a Christmas musical!

That's probably why I began participating in musical performances growing up. Music had always been present in my life, so getting involved myself and eventually trying to learn an instrument (didn't end well) felt like a natural progression rather than a deliberate decision. Although I never became particularly skilled at playing, those experiences changed the way I listened to music. I became more aware of how performers communicate emotion, how audiences respond to certain sounds, and how the same piece can feel completely different depending on who is performing it. Rather than focusing on technical skill, my experience with music made me appreciate its ability to create a shared emotional experience between performers and listeners.

Looking back, this also made me realize that culture is often absorbed long before it is consciously understood. Some things become familiar not because they are formally taught, but because they are constantly present. Jazz was one of those things for me. I never sat down to study its history or learn how its musical structures developed. Instead, it became associated with specific memories, places, and moments from everyday life. By the time I was old enough to think critically about jazz as a cultural tradition, it already felt familiar. My connection to it was shaped less by education and more by the environment in which I grew up.

My idea of proximity became more evident while walking around New Orleans. Jazz is not separated from the environment and people. It exists throughout the streets, crowds, and public spaces; anywhere I went, I heard some sort of instrument being played. I love how it is not confined to performance halls or concerts. It just appears throughout the city, whether it's brass instruments playing in the French Quarter, musicians gathering on sidewalks to play unrehearsed, or rhythms shifting as people move to the sound. For New Orleans, jazz is not something people go to watch but something they move through.

One of the best expressions of this that I had the opportunity to witness is the Second Line Parade. Tourists, like myself, may see it as a musical procession led by a brass band, but I have realized its structure is more participatory than it is performative. After my failed first attempt to see the parade due to heavy rain, I decided to research what the performance meant. I found that the “first line” refers to the main group of musicians and organized participants, while the “second line” is made up of anyone who joins in behind them, including locals, visitors, and community members who follow the music through the streets. What makes this extraordinary is that there is no strict boundary between performer and audience.

The Second Line treats music as something that happens through movement: clapping hands, swaying side to side, and nodding in rhythm as the procession moves forward. The sound itself shifts depending on the crowd, the walking pace, the energy of the moment, and even the weather that shapes how the street feels and responds. Although the tradition has very recognizable musical patterns and historical roots, no two parades are exactly alike. What does stay consistent, though, is the opportunity for people to become involved in it. This may be one of the reasons why the tradition continues to feel relevant across generations.

That idea of music existing through movement and participation became even more tangible during my visit to Preservation Hall. Nothing could have prepared me for that performance. It was in a small room, with no elaborate stage effects or technological enhancements that separated the audience from the performers. It was extremely interactive, and the musicians were close enough that the sounds felt immediate, not projected. What I loved the most was seeing how attentive and engaged everyone else was. They did not allow phones or cameras during the performance, so the focus remained entirely on the musicians.

After the performance was over, I began researching the history of Preservation Hall to learn more about why they started the foundation. When I read how it emerged in the mid-20th century, I realized that it was during a time when traditional New Orleans jazz was no longer the center of mainstream music culture. Once newer styles gained popularity, a lot of older musicians were pushed out of major venues and commercial recognition. Preservation Hall then became a place where those musicians could continue performing and share their musical tradition that could have faded from public view. The venue chose to create a space for artists whose contributions continued to be valuable even if they were not commercially dominant.

After researching the history behind the parade and venue, I began to understand Michael Ondaatje’s Coming Through Slaughter in an entirely different way. The novel follows an early New Orleans music performer, Buddy Bolden, but the way Ondaatje tells his story suggests something besides biography. What began to stand out to me was the book's structure and how it was written differently compared to the other books I have read on the trip. I remember discussing in a seminar how the novel does not follow traditional linear narratives, and instead is fragmented, shifting between perspectives and impressions. It reflects the uncertainty surrounding Bolden himself. The novel does not try to tell a complete or definitive story of his life. Instead, it implies that Bolden's life and experiences cannot be fully described by a single explanation. Even the fact that there are no recordings of Bolden's music becomes significant. Rather than treating that absence as a problem to solve, Ondaatje builds the novel around it, forcing readers to think about how historical figures are remembered when parts of their stories have been lost.

“This last night we tear into each other, as if to wound, as if to find the key to everything before morning.”

- Michael Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter

What stands out in this line is not just the emotion but the urgency. The characters seem aware that whatever understanding they are searching for may be temporary. That tension appears throughout the novel, where moments of clarity emerge briefly before slipping away again.

Looking back, I am surprised by how often similar questions appeared throughout this trip. Whether I was listening to my dad talk about music, following a Second Line through the streets, sitting inside Preservation Hall, or reading Coming Through Slaughter, I kept returning to the relationship between memory and experience. Each encounter approached that idea differently, yet all of them made me think about how culture continues to shape people long after its origins. Jazz survives because people continue finding new ways to engage with it, reinterpret it, and make it meaningful within their own lives. In that sense, what I inherited from my dad was not a specific collection of songs or facts about jazz history. It was a familiarity with a tradition that I only began to fully appreciate after experiencing New Orleans for myself. Jazz, as I came to understand it, is not something that is kept alive by protecting it from change. It is something that stays alive precisely because it cannot remain the same.

The City of New Orleans

The City of New Orleans

As I spend my time reflecting on my time here in New Orleans, I have come to some revelations. It's hard, really, to write more — I think I've covered a lot surrounding my sentiments of the city covering different topics and backgrounds. So I think I'll just take some time to appreciate the city for what it is. I guess I could talk a bit about the difference between Louis and Lestat, or I could talk about Binx. But ultimately, I think what I want to say is something those books already know, and that I've also caught up to.

There is a reason writers come here. Not just to set their stories here, but to actually be here, to sit in the humidity and let the humidity work through them. Tennessee Williams wrote A Streetcar Named Desire in the French Quarter. Truman Capote grew up in these streets. Anne Rice built an entire mythology out of the specific moral architecture of this place, the way licentiousness and grief share a face here – as shown through Lestat and Louis, which is something you feel the moment you walk outside at night and find the city fully, unapologetically alive in a way that makes you feel like the rest of America has been doing something wrong.

What strikes me is how extraordinary the city manages to be. How it takes such a mundane things and turns it into something interesting. Take this picture of Mallards waddling through Audubon Park for example. I could have sworn they were gossiping about us walking their space. Shotgun houses painted lime green and lavender in the Marigny, sitting shoulder to shoulder, hanging baskets of flowers over red doors, the whole block looking like someone chose joy very deliberately whilst being in a place where much of the time there’s none. Aesthetic restaurants — warm candlelit rooms with brass pitchers on white brick shelves. Greek food in a place where Greekness isn’t a first thought. I loved walking on the rail tracks cutting through flat afternoon heat with the city spreading in every direction, but just for a second, let me be a kid. Chinese-inspired red lanterns glowing from dark ceilings in the club. And of course the swamp light at the edge of still water where the reflection of thought through some hanging sunglasses and the sky's reflection become the same thing, especially in such a heavy place as the Whitney Plantation. None of these images feel separate from each other here. They accumulate into something that is harder to name than beauty, closer to truth, but imbued with immense horror in the same breath.

““America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.””

— Tennessee Williams

Underneath all of it, I will continue to remember the hands that built New Orleans. What I want to keep returning to though, is the immense peace I’ve felt while being here. Of course, nothing here is resolved, but the peace of a city that has survived this much and still insists on the table being set, the food being extraordinary, the music going while rain comes and goes contains an enormous positive weight. There is a sovereignty in the way people move through New Orleans, like they have learned something about the relationship between pleasure and survival that the rest of the world is unaware of. I felt it eating in that house on Lake Shore, I felt it standing in Preservation Hall with the sound moving through the room like water, I felt it in the small, quiet moments, listening to the waves and the cries of Edna on Grand Isle, and watching the bridge light up at night on the levee. I have felt that peace in every moment I’ve been here and I will cherish that feeling until the day I die.

I came here with books, for the books. But now, I leave here having walked through them. And with a profound understanding for why the books were written here in the first place. New Orleans is a city that’s been imposed upon those humans that were forced to make meaning out of the absolute circumstance of limitations. And sure, maybe I am reaping the benefits of those limitations. But having absorbed the history I am happy that I am finally able to understand what makes this city an amazing city. And the truth is, it really just is itself. The city of New Orleans.

The Blue Side of Jazz

My extreme fascination with music has taken over many parts of my life, listening to on average 200,000 minutes a year of music (thank you Spotify), which amounts to almost 139 days of music. A statistic I wasn’t aware of until I somehow accomplished it- maybe I need to go outside more. A large part of this obsession is based on familial priorities of music, as my dad owns an extensive record collection, which I have repeatedly told my brother I insist on taking when he passes. But beyond these records, I find that my background in piano and ballet has heavily impacted my tastes and has created a desire to involve music in almost every part of my life. I have curated soundtracks for any scenario, awarding myself the privilege of music while walking down the street, driving, sitting, and talking to others.

What's so horrible about this obsession is how much I prefer music to people! Music helps me travel from the comfort of my home, taking me to every inch of the world, exposing me to life and culture, language, and sound. It makes me feel something unlike any other form of media or art that is available, made by humans for humans. It almost feels as though every musician or contributor has taken some of the inner lining of their soul and woven it into each piece they make. Creating an infinite loom of layered emotion and feeling that goes beyond any other form of expression, even words.

“If the world was mine, I’d tell you what I’d do
I’d wrap the world in ribbons and then give it all to you”

— If the Stars were Mine, Melody Gardot

Thanks to my parents, my ‘musication’ (music education) has been diverse and extremely in-depth. I grew an appreciation for classic female jazz artists like Etta James, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday, as well as artists like Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and my personal favorites, Chet Baker and Miles Davis. With an appreciation for any sub-genre of rock, folk, classical, musical theatre, country, and just about anything with ‘real’ instruments. Because my dad firmly believes that someone cannot call themself an artist if they can’t at least play some kind of instrument.

Maybe I like Miles Davis because of him, and all the memories I have as a teen listening to jazz with my parents in our living room on dusty old vinyls my dad collected. In these special evenings, my parents taught me poker so I could best my peers in college, and I tried my mom's Grey Goose martini for the first time (which I hated). We would play cards until my fingers were red and raw from gripping my hand with anticipation, laughing with my parents while listening to their stories from work and hoping to distract them enough to win a game every once in a while.

Memories like these are perfectly encapsulated in music; a single moment in time can be etched onto the record of our life and forever memorialized in a song or voice. Even now, as I listen to "In a Sentimental Mood" by John Coltrane and Duke Ellington, I think back to Christmases with my brother and parents in Monterey Bay, California. The feeling of the cold, crisp, foggy air and the water dripping from the intertwining mess of Spanish Moss that hung on the tree outside the patio of our home. I remember my sweet childhood dogs, Gracie and Audrey. I remember when we brought Gracie home to that house, and she couldn’t eat anything besides pumpkin and rice. I remember how I would squish my little bottom at age 7 into a large Chinese-inspired pot at the front of our home, using my blanket as a cushion. I would grab my binoculars and ‘spy’ on our neighbors, and in the background there would always be jazz and country. I remember my brother breaking his whoopee cushion the same day he received it from Santa Claus. I remember him asking me which side of my blanket I wanted on top of me when he tucked me in to go to sleep. I always picked blue.

Even now, as I am listening to this music, I am tearing up thinking about these fond memories, my heart is aching, wishing and wanting to go back. Hoping to feel how our family felt in those perfect moments of absolute bliss. Music makes me forget my childhood innocence at this time; it paints a romantic picture of perfection that I'm sure my parents and brother would break in an instant with reality.

But the divine romantic aspects of these memories are a representation of what music does to the soul. Creating niceties that didn’t exist before, drowning you in a pool of what once was and how you wish to remember it. Sometimes forcing an artificial memory in place of the real ones.

However, it is impossible to say anything is artificial about the music scene in New Orleans. New Orleans is a city of culture and jazz; music billows out from every building, filling the streets with singers, buskers, bands, and bucket drummers. The French Quarter exists as a physical box keeping in all the gooey goodness of this music. You can’t walk through any part of the quarter without hearing a trumpet, a drum, or some kind of lick you can’t quite place.

Each instrument carries a tune of its own, and each band its own chorus. Leaving you feeling enraptured with the magic of the city, as one block of music ends, another picks up where it left off. Culminating in a never-ending party of laughter, dancing, drinks, and memories.

In my time walking these streets, I am reminded of Halloween when I was 11, living in Santa Barbara with my parents and brother. I would trade candy with other kids for my favorites, as I attempted to be as practical and diplomatic as possible. I always carried extra clothes with me to school ‘just in case,’ and visited my brother in his ‘yurt’ in our backyard. I remember the summer days spent in the pool, our backyard being filled with palm trees, olive trees, and fruit trees of every kind. The blackberry bush that would stain my fingers pink after picking and eating berries until my belly was full. I remember my brother's wedding reception and how I couldn’t believe he was leaving me, and how beautiful I thought our family was. I remember the Christmas I snuck a peek at the gifts and was scolded by my parents, rightfully so. I remember my brother teaching me how to skate on his long board, and I remember him asking me which side of my blanket I wanted on top of me when he tucked me in to go to sleep. I still picked blue.

The ecstatic beauty of music keeps these memories alive, living for me, replaying in my head every time I have ever felt homesick or missed my family. The music has followed me in every home I have ever lived in, in every place we stayed together, and every tragedy of each move was overplayed by the vinyls and love. And even in my now adult years, I still get emotional thinking of how much we have all changed and grown, how much I love our additions to our family, and I am just so grateful.

I imagine these feelings are universal, in some capacity, we all waltz back in time when we walk through the quarter, or romanticize our past when we see some great big lovely mansion in the Garden District. Because in these places, these real physical places, we hear music. And music does connect us, remind us of who we are, and it places us in our current reality. Every single person I have ever met can confidently name a tune that brings them back to a special moment, person, or time in their life where everything was rose-colored and perfect. And as I wander through this great big city of music, and I look at all of the other people around me, I hope they feel as touched as I do, and I know they do.

For a place as special as this, practically vibrating with the actual drums of the city, carries the key to unlocking these memories. Isn’t this why people come here? To listen to the music? To be reminded of all those little things that make you, you?

This unique experience is so alluring and addictive, drugging you with every lullaby and voice that melts even the coldest parts of ourselves. It is this feeling in this city of jazz that brings us back out every night, hoping to feel as we once did, and have the oh-so-therapeutic experience of missing, longing, and loving.

That is why so many come here, why I came here, to visit the music and hear it in the most outrageously named bars and clubs. Trekking to the ‘Spotted Cat’ and the ‘Snug Harbor,’ desperately hoping to walk down memory lane, and to do so with my fellow humans in a dark, lit room, swimming in smoke and tears. Watching those who seem blessed by God to artfully pluck their instruments or play the piano with such grace, I fear I am watching something alien at work. The fear is overridden by that universal experience, the hope of being reminded, of being given the time and space to process all that we have gone through, in a room together. I always picked blue.

The Archives of History

My mother graduated from Xavier University. She loved Xavier. Everytime we drive past Xavier University I feel this sense of pride in that THAT is where my mother had her education. Where she took on the world and conquered. It felt so surreal to even see where my mother flourished, it always felt like this foreign place. 

Xavier Uni

My family overall was actually rooted in New Orleans. I don’t know the exact origins but my family has largely been based and centralized in most of the South, especially Louisiana. Our literal history is here and to be completely honest with you, I have no clue. I am not cognizant of my history and to that, I don’t like that. And that's when I understand the importance of archiving. As we drive through streets of the 9th Ward and see the countless housing projects that have been abandoned and set adrift, I start to understand why the historical importance of this city matters so much. I start to see why memorials have been laid throughout, why there’s statues nearly on every corner. Knowing the countless houses but also historical buildings that were destroyed and dismantled from countless hurricanes. I get the severity of ensuring that Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Ida were relentlessly documented and recounted for through numerous documents, first hand testimonies, and heartbreaking debris. I completely understand the responsibility that this city feels that it carries to each and every citizen that has once inhabited it. And simultaneously, I understand the want to capture one’s ancestral and familial history through yearbooks, photo books, letters, cards, and so on. 

Meeting Family in NOLA

My Great Grandmother!! Mama Hill

As I meet some of my family - my great-grandmother, my auntie, her husband and a niece - I realize that there is so much history that is unsaid and has been untapped. Seeing Mama Hill (my great-grandmother) in person, I realized that I truly didn’t know much but even then I felt a responsibility to know. Yet so much time has passed and so many years have expired that I feel I don’t have much time left. And then I think what happens if I don’t explore that, if I don’t hear those stories. Do they just all disappear? Does it all just go down the drain? And then I think of the stories of every family, of every grandparent, of every ancestor and the history that pervades and exist all through time. It’s befuddles me to think about it all and sometimes I have to shield myself from my mind spiraling. Truly, this is the thought process that comes to mind everytime.

Anyways, I thought about this constantly as I read Coming Through Slaughter. Racing through pages of firsthand memories but then to find songs that were played, short little memories of those that knew Bolden best or briefly, reels that were played from interview tapes, timelines pulled from the histories of hospitals, words from Brock and Willy and memoirs too. A colorful description of his life that depicted the brilliant, the terrible, the chaotic and the tragic. I am not a fan of biographies nor am I a fan of autobiographies but I deeply respect what it took to flesh Buddy out and to give this fully realized depiction of what Buddy was as a human. To see firsthand how he clearly devolved and experienced his tragic downfall. But without the archival of history, what would we have known about Buddy?

And for this to be fragments of his life, fictionalized at that, the line is clearly blurred between what’s real and fictional? What much has been said through history that was simply conjured up from imagination and then spread as if the Bible? What has been said from one perspective only to be made the only perspective? Something that I know can be applied to war, to literature, to politics, et cetera. 

Buddy Bolden Mural

And so as I walked through the Central Business District, I found myself walking down a street and lo and behold, Celeste notices the popular mural of Buddy Bolden and friends much to the amazement of Laura and I. This gorgeous mural possesses these beautiful, darkly purple hues and gold lining. It’s a beautiful mural painted by Brandan Odums’. But something I thought interesting was something our Professor brought up. The fact that Brandan painted this mural with his friends in mind and actually recreated the mural (because it was destroyed due to a hurricane) with their faces in place of the other band members. And though it’s a small thing and actually quite harmless, I found it dreadful the thought that those band members may have just had their only contributions to history erased and cast aside. Albeit, I don’t think these are the only recollections of that ‘band’ but even then I don’t know their names nor where to even start besides Buddy. Just a morbid thought I had, this idea that despite all the archives in the world, you could still be erased from history in a flash. It terrifies me deeply. 

On the other hand, as I read Coming Through Slaughter, I couldn’t help but think about the layers of this city that exist and the layer that is slavery and white supremacy that exists on the very grounds that we lay our feet upon. And how you truly have to sift through archives upon archives and divulge in documents upon documents of that nature in order to really find something pertaining to the hideous events of that period. To see those documents from Solomon Northrop knowing the tragedy of his life, it crushed me. It wasn’t without our professors insistence, the documents that he searched through extensively that we would have even know about the slave ones that existed in the Central Business District and all throughout the French Market. 

Who would have known that a statue so prevalently known throughout New Orleans was destroyed and replaced at the corner of some train stop without literally searching painstakingly through endless documents. It’s the archival process that truly fascinates me because who keeps hold of it all. What is deemed important and who is deemed important enough. Who is worthy of being captured and archived so that their name truly becomes immortal through time. Who and what thought it necessary that Buddy Bolden's life be immortalized through this fictionalized account of the life of a jazz pioneer? Clearly, enough people. 

A Court of Throne's and Color

A Court of Throne's and Color

I'm not going to pretend to understand Mardi Gras, but I really enjoy the colors of it.

Maybe that's the most honest thing I can say walking through New Orleans. The colors don't ask for comprehension. Purple: Justice, Green: Faith, Gold: Power — they simply land on you like a verdict.

There's something about watching a parade move through a street that certifies those colors. Before the floats, before the brass and the beads catching light mid-air, a street is just a street. Although, I’d also argue that one should consider knowing the history of said street if it was built in New Orleans. It could be anywhere. Yet, it’s here. Then the parade passes through and the whole block becomes Somewhere. The street becomes Somewhere. The colors did that. The spectacle did that. The history of the colors did that. And after standing inside of it, I can’t unfeel it.

What does it mean that a city like New Orleans needs color? Why does it need Mardi Gras? I think my original qualm with my misunderstanding of it was that it didn’t make sense to have abstract colors and beads and float and music and food just for the sake of celebrating. It didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense that it scheduled its excess into a liturgical calendar, crammed all its desire into one Tuesday, then (most likely) woke up the next morning and let someone draw a cross of ash on its forehead? So I did some research: The word Carnival translates from the Latin carnelevamen ~ farewell to flesh ~ a last indulgence before forty days of fasting and penance. French and Spanish Catholics carried that tradition across the Atlantic, planted it in Louisiana's particular mud, and watched it grow into something the Church probably didn't anticipate. Kings and queens. Royal courts. Hierarchies celebrated in public, decorated in sequins, legitimate and absurd at once. 

The Rex Organization formally codified the colors in 1892: purple for justice, gold for power, green for faith. Justice and power named by the same organizations that, at that time, barred Black people, women, Jews, and Italians from membership entirely. The irony doesn't require commentary. It just sits there, in the color. 

I keep thinking about the pointed mask and where that silhouette has been in this country. The Catholic capirote dates to the Spanish Inquisition, the pointed cone becoming the preferred form because the tip was thought to direct the penitent's prayers upward — shame reaching skyward, someone who had sinned coming publicly to account for it. Then the shape travels. Gets absorbed into The Birth of a Nation. Gets mass-produced and worn by men who used it not to seek mercy but to terrorize people in these very streets. Commentators link the Klan's visual identity directly to the folk traditions of carnival, circus, and minstrelsy. The same cultural lineage. The same instinct toward costume and procession and the anonymity of the crowd, turned into something unforgivable. This is why as I walked through the Mardi Gras museum I had a strange sense of unease. Seeing the people of rural Louisiana celebrate on tractors with beer, colorful masks and pointy hats – though I doubt even they understood what they were celebrating. Because if they did, they would know, none of the colors were welcome or prompted to be shared with those who actually were.

Another example of this is the Mystick Krewe of Comus which remained closely tied to Confederate ideals after the Civil War, including ex-Confederates in their parades, and the second krewe was founded by a club working toward the same goals as the KKK. The royal court, in turn, was not a metaphor in their eyes. It was an actual power structure with a throne and a very specific list of people not invited. There was a Robert E. Lee statue here for decades, presiding over a traffic circle like he owned it. It's gone now (thank God), but just the ideologies that these “courts” were built on a semblance of misplaced pride makes me shiver.

I should specify though that what I’ve been feeling walking through the streets of New Orleans isn't anger exactly. It's the sensation of the layers, the mixation of cultures, and of course all of the colors my eyes have been inputting that didn’t seem to exist until I got here. The feeling standing on ground that has been everything at once, and seeing the ignorance peel through the city that still holds so much beauty.

The Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club was founded in 1909 precisely because the carnival parades were segregated (crazy I know). And Black New Orleans didn't wait to be included, despite the historical relevance of Mardi Gras being rooted in racist, albeit English ideals. It built its own court, its own royalty, its own spectacle within a tradition designed to shut it out. It reminds me of the founding of HBCU’s in the South and other Black organizations that have built and designed specifically because one group didn’t want to be inclusive. I’ve actually had the unfortunate encounter of someone telling that they HBCU’s should “no longer exist” because things are integrated now, and it “served it purpose.” This is why I am glad that The Mardi Gras Indians sew suits by hand that take an entire year to make, and that they built a culture that is entrenched in preservation of culture — and even acknowledging the help a separate group grave to Black people by paying homage to Indigenous Americans who sheltered and aided runaway enslaved Africans. Now we are walking through the colorful streets that once legally excluded them, purple, green, and gold beads and all. And the preservation of this tradition, including showcasing it in The Backstreet Museum makes it all the more colorful.

I imagine arriving back into the city just as the street cleaners were sweeping up after the last parade passed (Moviegoer, pg.218). All that color from the celebration placed on a curb. The city, exhaling. I can see someone stepping out of an Ash Wednesday service with a gray smear on their forehead, sitting in their car for a minute before driving anywhere having indulged and splurged in celebrations the day before. I can imagine them not really thinking about all the color they experienced. Not really looking out the window to consider that what they’d just celebrated may have simultaneously been ostracizing. But nonetheless, they still celebrated — and went to church the next day, still dizzy from the stimulation of yesterday's juicy colors. And weeks from now, they’ll go to work — forgetting about the parade — yet still embellishing and appreciating the colors, regardless of history, of New Orleans. The Robert E. Lee statue is gone. But the systemic inequalities are not. The parade continues. Purple for justice, gold for power, green for faith. What that means now, who it belongs to now, is not settled. But I find, with the colors and richness of New Orleans, I'm not in a rush for it to be.

This Malaise Thats Settled Over The City

Canal Street

I have a couple of thoughts about the Moviegoer, a novel written in 1961. A recurring thing I’ve noticed actually for these novels, set in a time long, long ago. Something I’ve actually had to get used to now, that objectifying of the black male to just that, the “Negro”. “Negro this” and “Negro that”. The Negro being minimized or reduced to just someones plaything. It’s obviously symptomatic of that time and era, clearly. But it catches me off guard when every protagonist written in this past century possesses this higher sense of self or standing in relation to the Black Man. This is not something plaguing novels set in New Orleans specifically, this is just emblematic of that time and place. I understand that. But hearing Mercer's sad tale of inhabiting this small space between usefulness and non-belonging. It's quite disturbing and it's like he possesses this dumb aloofness where we all silently pity him and point and laugh because he is this ‘other’ (courtesy of Andonis) and is beneath Binx, as if a sad circus animal. Rings true when I see something like…

“He liked to think that Negroes have a sixth sense and that his Negro had an extra good one.”

Moving on. How is it that every novel we have read has featured some aimless, existentialist, confused protagonist who wants to upend the societal expectations set upon them since birth but still end up becoming almost entirely resigned to their fate? If I had a nickel for every time it happened in the books we’ve read thus far, I’d have like 3 nickels I think. But this is the most existentialist and middle-aged crisis of them all. But it really intrigues me as to why New Orleans seems to be the safe haven for both the eccentric and depressed. So much so I even took a screenshot of something I read because it was just so morose and saddening to hear.

“For years now, I have had no friends. I spend my entire time working, making money, going to movies and seeking the company of women.”

There is no bright light in this statement. I sense no positivity or any hint of life and this goes on for a great majority of the novel. This leering and noting every woman's physical stature and whether or not they had a sizable caboose or not. I kid you not, he comments on so many women’s hips in this novel that I couldn’t help but feel as if I was reading through the eyes of the author himself. (I think I know what his bodily preferences were…..) But, my god, what a drab and boring way to view life and I couldn’t help but feel such immense pity for this Binx. Who has no sort of purpose or possesses any bout of inner happiness. He begins the novel exactly where he ends the novel. Sort of just….there. In the streets of Prytania, passing down Canal Street, going through Lake Pontchartrain, living in Gentilly and visiting Elysian Fields forever, it seems. But rather than the calming, drowsy nature of Grand Isle, this time there’s this droning, gray, everydayness to New Orleans or Elysian that will clearly drive you insane from utter monotony.

Which is utterly fascinating. Because the backdrop of New Orleans is actually quite the opposite to Binx’s morbid depiction of life and how the everydayness of routine seeps into one’s livelihood and wreaks havoc to all that comes near. And it's this that paves the way for the ever so close search of life? A search, “anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.” This search to avoid the mundaneness of his own life, but why in the city of New Orleans? Why does this continue to happen? Edna suffered a similar fate. Always tiptoeing the edge between livelihood and eternal peace or life on land and life beneath the water (suicide). What is it about this culturally dense, culturally abundant city that renders people confused about the purpose of life? You’d think that you’d never encounter a problem or find issue with life if you were strolling down the streets of Canal or living in the Garden District. But Binx taps into this concept that I actually found to be quite profound. That this ‘search’, being aware of it, allows for the possibility of the search to be successful, for you to ‘be onto something’. Whereas not being aware or onto anything at all means falling into despair. You are the everyday man, someone who is dead. You are so sunk into everydayness that the possibility or an idea of a search is simply preposterous and is never once conjured up in your brain to be something worthy of thinking about.

Pirates Alley

Case in point, this sort of interaction that Binx recounts about William Holden and this young fellow he runs into. But let me remind you, we are bookpacking. To be reading a passage and suddenly you're able to stick an image with a corresponding landmark or name. It’s a wonderful feeling. To read about Binx traveling up Esplanade, passing through Pirates Alley, towards Canal but then being able to visualize a map in your mind of where he may be, is second to none. I know the cobblestone they are stepping on, the awnings that lay overheard, the wrought iron railings that decorate the sky almost. I can hear the conversations that are being had in open passageways, the passersby on trolleys down Canal Street and otherwise. So imagine all of this while the interaction is underway. Hearing this young man size himself against Holden only to believe himself inept, undeserving and worthless. Only to have “....won title to his own existence…by refusing to be stampeded like the ladies from Hattiesburg.” I just thought it stunning that we all try so much to validate our existence be it through social media, one’s physical presence or in being perceived positively. It’s something we all tend to do subconsciously and it truly can’t be helped. But for it to be described so effortlessly, in that “....he is a citizen like Holden; two men of the world they are. All at once the world is open to him.” I freaking love that. It’s just so accurate. Something as simple as an interaction from someone we deem superior somehow validates us and makes us feel that we finally have a right to live? How enlivening but simultaneously saddening that is. To feel we NEED that validation from someone, ANYONE. I feel Edna needed this as well? To an extent, Louis too.

This malaise that Binx is so mortally afraid of ONLY to fully submit himself over to that same damn fate at the end of the novel having completely done away with his ‘search’? Much like Edna who herself gives up and willingly. I just don’t understand it.

Resilience

I’m damp from the rain, sweat sticking my hair to the back of my neck. It’s been a long day. I’m looking forward to going back to the hotel, showering, and rotting in my bed with a cup of tea — but we still have one stop left. Little did I know that this would end up being one of my favorite stops of the trip. We’re at the Backstreet Cultural Museum, an unassuming building that stands on the corner of two residential blocks. You wouldn’t suspect such a plain building of housing the most colorful, spectacular clothes you’ve ever seen. In fact, as I looked up at the parade outfits of the Mardi Gras Indians (as they’re primarily known, though our museum guide said they actually call themselves Black Masking Indians), I felt less like I was looking at clothing and more that I was witnessing some brilliant work of art. I do believe that clothing can be inherently artistic, but this was something entirely beyond. These outfits clearly weren’t created for function. The joy was in the process, in spending hours and hours meticulously crafting something new every single year. I’m getting ahead of myself, but I just found the entire thing so cool. Every year, the Mardi Gras Indians make a brand new suit for themselves, always homemade, always more intricate than the last. They wear these outfits in parades throughout the year – which I had the pleasure of actually seeing in person too. The entire thing just felt like such a celebration of culture and so fun and just cool, for lack of a better word.

I guess after learning about all of the trauma and horrors inflicted on Black Americans, it is so cool to see a museum dedicated not just to suffering, but to joy and resilience. Its founder, the late Sylvester “Hawk” Francis, dedicated so much in order to create this museum and maintain it, and after visiting I could see why. I guess New Orleans has just got me thinking about resilience a lot. It’s been happening since we first got here, driving into Grand Isle and seeing all those colorful houses on stilts like a cluster of oddly shaped tropical birds. The homes were, of course, built this way to withstand hurricanes and flooding. Some houses clearly had done a better job than others — there were several that had fallen into disrepair — but I liked to think about all the houses that must have been built and rebuilt. Instead of just giving up and going somewhere else, the locals on Grand Isle, and the general Southern Louisiana region, recognized they had something worth fighting for. They rebuilt. The houses now are stronger than the ones before.

All across New Orleans, I have seen this same resilience. The ten of us piled into a van earlier this week to go on a tour of the Lower Ninth Ward and New Orleans East to map out The Yellow House. On the way, Andrew pointed out the Caesar Superdome, where thousands of New Orleans residents had sheltered for days in abysmal conditions. We drove past swaths of greenery interspersed with shotgun-style homes, some new, some that definitely had been victims of hurricanes past. All that nature hadn’t always been there, our professor explained. It was as a result of hurricane damage that many homes had been demolished, owners unable to pay for repairs or rebuilding, leaving these lots empty for months, years, even decades. The lush greenery was the earth finally winning the battle that had been waged against it for years, but it’s not only nature that rebuilt itself. The people of these communities managed to survive through the devastation. Physical destruction is different than the destruction of memory. The communities that were destroyed were part of why Katrina was such a tragedy, but it also created a memory worth rebuilding. Those memories didn't leave, as The Yellow House makes clear, just because people had to cross state lines or leave their homes. Broom remarks that only her grandmother, an Alzheimers patient, is able to truly let go.

Is this the only condition, this unknowing, under which one should cross over state lines, leaving your familiarity behind? Is this the only way to properly leave home? - The Yellow House, pg 293

What I'm about to say might sound like a frivolous comparison. In fact, it definitely is. However, it’s been on my mind, so I’m going to compare it anyway. While this is nothing like losing my home, community, potentially even loved ones, I’ve been going through a breakup while on this trip. A pretty rough one – the kind that shakes your entire sense of self, your entire future, leaves you grieving. Memories become the only thing left. While it’s silly to compare the death of my relationship to the genuine devastation and horror caused by Hurricane Katrina, I will say that seeing the amount of resilience here has made me reflect. People who have been through horrible experiences and traumas have been able to rebuild. Not always easily, especially at first. Broom's entire family essentially moves in with her brother right after Katrina. After surviving the destruction, the family must be in discomfort while they figure out what to do next. However, there are small moments of joy that intersperse this tragedy in this time, such as when their neighbor Herman raced a track star for everyone's amusement.

We were all tickled by how seriously he had been, to believe he might actually win! His performance brought levity to a grave, sinking reality. For the time it took Justin to beat Herman, no one thought about the Water. - The Yellow House, pg 296

In both The Yellow House and what I saw with my own eyes, I was struck by people's adaptability. They have found a way to create community and joy, to celebrate and not only survive but thrive. In the grand scheme of things, no matter how impossible my own life seems at the moment, people have been through so much worse and gotten through it. The human spirit is so capable of resilience, of joy, as I witnessed in the Backstreet Cultural Museum, the Second Line parades, books like The Yellow House and the real communities they are part of. There is something so inherently beautiful about that, something comforting and almost a bit hopeful.

This probably (definitely) isn’t my best blog post. It’s a bit all over the place honestly. My thoughts are still fractured when it comes to this topic, and I have difficulty distilling all of the reflections and feelings I’ve had into actual words. I guess, long story short, New Orleans has shown me so much — it has shown me some of the worst of the worst of human cruelty, of oppression and destruction and heartbreak. But it has also shown me resilience. It has shown me how revolutionary joy is and how strong the human spirit can truly be. I wish I had some grander conclusion to arrive at here, but I don’t. For now, I'm just thinking.

One of the houses in the Lower Ninth Ward surrounded by this lush greenery.

A moment from the Second Line Parade we went to.

Literature, Travel, and…Minecraft?

When going on an academic trip to read and explore a city like New Orleans, the video game Minecraft is not what comes to mind as part of the experience. However, what started as a way to escape the heat and decompress became part of the trip for me. Before exploring the connection between bookpacking and Minecraft, I’ll explain how I play Minecraft. 

Minecraft is considered a sandbox video game, which means that, like a real sandbox, you can create anything you want with enough skill and imagination. Except, instead of sand castles, it’s castles made out of pixilated blocks. There are literally hundreds and possibly thousands of different ways to play Minecraft, so instead of trying to describe all the different ways to play, I’ll go over how I play. Despite my undying love for video games, I am pretty bad at them. To compensate for this, I play Minecraft on peaceful mode, which means there are no hostile mobs (which is short for mobile entity) that can threaten to kill you, causing you to lose all the resources in your inventory. I do play survival mode every now and then, but I tend to stick to creative mode. In creative, you can’t die; you can fly as well as have access to unlimited resources to build and create with. Normally, I would create a new world and fly around until I found a cool-looking area to build a house or structure in. However, I recently decided that I wanted to practice my building skills since some of the buildings people have created show just how much is possible in a world made entirely of cubes. I watched a couple of YouTube videos and learned some tips on how to make more interesting or realistic builds. Currently, I am playing on what is called a Super Flat World, which generates a world that is completely flat and covered in grass. This makes building much easier because you aren’t fighting the natural terrain of the normal worlds, which can be tedious to clear out.

It’s on my Super Flat World named Cortona (I can’t remember why I named it that) that I probably created sometime back in 2019, but only returned to recently, when Bookpacking starts to come into the picture. I upgraded my phone after having my iPhone SE for almost 6 years to the new iPhone, and I was able to play Minecraft on my phone without it destroying my storage space. I rediscovered my love for Minecraft and building houses. This is why, during our trip to Grand Isle, I was so inspired by the architecture I was seeing that I made my own version of the houses in my world, Cortona. Once we arrived in New Orleans and walked around the French Quarter, and later the Seventh Ward, Treme, Lower Ninth, New Orleans East, and Marigny I felt the same excitement about building a shotgun-style house with all the beautiful colors and detailing. However, I didn’t want to create just one shotgun house; I planned to make five using all the different wood types in Minecraft to reflect the different colored houses all lined up next to each other. I got started on my research, taking pictures of different houses I saw on the street, looking up floor plans, and searching for interior images on the internet. I started laying out different foundations that still rang true to the saying of being able to shoot a shotgun through the house; however, in Minecraft, that would be a crossbow.

When we began reading The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom, I got the idea to make the yellow house in Minecraft using the descriptions from the book to help me better visualize the house. At first, this seemed simple, but as I kept reading and playing, I realized that there was going to be some creative liberties with my interpretation of the house. Because the yellow house has gone through several transformations over the years, originally being green, having a crown attached to the top, and constant work being started but never fully finished, the house never looked the same for too long. There is also the issue of what you put in a real house versus a Minecraft house. For example, it is normal for a Minecraft house to have an anvil, crafting tables, and enchantment tables, which can make your tools stronger, and other items that don’t belong in the average American home. Additionally, most Minecraft houses don’t have bathrooms, dining rooms, curtains, and other common household items unless they are there for aesthetic reasons. At first, I was going to build the house like a Minecraft house; however, while reading The Yellow House, all the descriptions of the interior of the house, I realized that I would compromise and do a combination of what is said in the book and what is common in a Minecraft house. 

Exterior of the yellow house and the shotgun house inspried by local architecture.

The yellow house lot today, with the white house on the left side.

There was one thing I couldn’t achieve in Minecraft when recreating the yellow house, and that was the wear and tear it had been through. Now, if I were a more experienced builder and had more time, maybe it would have been possible to achieve what was described in the book. However, despite how hard I try, I’m still just ok at Minecraft (I’m getting much better at it!). After completing the exterior of the house, I realized that what I had built wasn’t the yellow house from the book, but instead what the yellow house could have been. A pristine, well-built house that felt uniform, connected, and strong, because there are no yellow blocks that naturally look like they are in disrepair. In a way, when the house was completed, I felt sad. It felt like I was seeing a version of what the house should have been, but instead, it was bulldozed after Katrina and is slowly being taken over by junk. The Minecraft yellow house is like a picture you put of a loved one after they passed, a picture of them in their prime. The building outlines of the shotgun houses that I still need to work on look a little like the concrete foundations left over in the empty plots because of Katrina. This wasn’t my intention, but it felt like maybe the yellow house could have survived like the white colored one that stands next to its plot today if it just had the resources to be repaired. I did not bulid the yellow house, I bulit what Ivory Mae thought the house would become.

“I always dreamt I would have this house that was so pretty. It was gonna have a nice front yard, a big backyard. Three bedrooms. A sewing room. I always pictured a front room that had a window with a little seat running across it...It wasn’t a big ole house, just a nice house”

— A quote from Ivory in The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

Interior of the Minecraft yellow house.

In a weird way, my escape from the heat and how I take breaks between reading has become just as much a part of this bookpacking experience as the travel and reading. Minecraft has added this fun yet impactful layer to an already layered trip. I currently have only the two shotgun houses fully built, and I hope to post all five finished before my last blog.

Interview With Life and Death

One of the most complex aspects of human mortality is struggling with one's perception of life and death. We all cope with it in different ways, through religion, science, faith, medicine, magic, or maybe a mixture of all of those paths. These themes become even more prevalent when faced with the supernatural; this was my experience reading Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice.

Interview with the Vampire is groundbreaking in its depiction of supernatural life, or should I say existence, by examining man through the eyes of Louis de Pointe du Lac. We see Louis struggle with understanding his own existence and face moral quandaries unique to someone who has gone through a transformative experience, such as turning into a vampire.

However, I argue that much of Louis’ story of struggle is relatable to many of us readers, as he faces the conflict of who he is, what is expected of him, and who he wants to be. These internal dilemmas plague most humans on our path of life.

Viewing New Orleans through these struggles has made the Bookpacking experience surreal and impactful. Although I say I do not believe in ghosts, vampires, or anything unnatural, I am, like most creatures, scared of what I do not know or understand.

I am always reminded of this fear when a loved one passes away or when I face a great challenge in my personal life. The constant dynamic of being so utterly involved in myself that I feel anxiety over the most minute details, but also trying to humble myself and live in the great words of Kansas;

““Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy, Dust in the wind, All we are is dust in the wind.””

— Dust In the Wind, Kansas

Louis faces these same struggles, these anxieties; however, I must admit that I never carry fear of killing another, as I have never thought to!

This coexistence of life and death is so authentic to the streets of the French Quarter, where Louis, Lestat, and Claudia live for many years together. The French Quarter has nightlife so loud and extravagant that even the undead can walk along the living knowing their outrageous looks and strange behaviors couldn't possibly be noticed.

These same behaviors still exist, this is an opinion shared by anyone who has met some of the visitors on Bourbon Street around 3 a.m. Some of them I would even say were drunk enough to be targets of real-life vampires!

These clashes bring many devious plot twists to Louis’ existence, where he turns a young girl into a vampire, Claudia, and begins a wildly inappropriate father-daughter relationship with her that seems almost incestuous. Forcing you to wonder if Anne Rice had some unresolved childhood conflicts of her own…

Louis’ relationship with Claudia became one of the most pivotal parts of the novel, creating a space for personal examination of ‘toxic,’ ‘unhealthy,’ or ‘codependent relationships’ in our own lives. Then, ultimately, bringing readers back to death when Claudia faces her untimely demise.

I grew up with agnostic parents, and eventually became an atheist and extremely opinionated about life and the existence of a god. But only because I feel I must be consistent and hold fast to my beliefs. The reality is I have no answers, none that aren’t at least proven by science. In the place of the unknown, I choose to believe there is nothing when we pass, and that our energy, yes, our literal energy, just recycles into the universe to become a pencil or a pine tree.

But exploring the supernatural world challenges these basic notions, and forces me to wonder if all those I have loved, from grandparents, friends, to even my childhood dogs, really do go to heaven? Or can they become zombies? Maybe they are reincarnated into new people or beings?

All of these questions have no definitive answer, but Louis' experience as a vampire, in a way, showcases a possibility of life, or existence, after death. Louis seems to find his ‘second life’ beautiful, exciting, and new. He doesn’t see it as the end, but maybe the ‘limbo’ aspects of his existence are what confuse him? In the supernatural world, the lines between life and death are completely blurred. I can no longer rely upon science to explain why vampires suck blood. Yes, many cultists and fans of Vampire Diaries or Twilight may have reasons, but no facts.

This unknown is what scares Louis and me. We face the world feeling helpless, grasping onto a semblance of self-identity. I, looking for truth and fact, he, hoping to keep his humanity and central beliefs. But maybe the only truth a person, or being, can find in their life and existence is that of their own. Not defined by natural or manmade laws, by social convention or personal anxieties, only by experience and the pursuit of growth.

Picturing Louis, Lestat, and Claudia's lives together brings to mind one dark picture, where coffins took the place of beds, and strategies to effectively drain people of their blood start growing in numbers, but actually seeing the location where this all took place completed the image.

On the inappropriately named ‘Ghost Tour’ my fellow bookpackers and I attended, it should have been called Vampire Tour if you ask me; we paused by the townhouse that Louis retained in the story. The oh-so-fitting red bricks, its location on the corner of the street, and its devilishly dark wrought iron railings were almost too perfect for a physical representation of Interview with the Vampire.

This experience, although slightly submerged in ‘hurricanes,’ created the connection between Louis and me, our shared struggles, blurring the lines between fiction and reality, as well as life and death. Where I began to challenge my perception of these lines, conflicts, and struggles, which thankfully I believe is the ultimate goal of Bookpacking.

Rhythm & Ruse

Rythym and Ruse

The rain falls — 8am then 2pm then 5pm. Unpredictable increments. Unpredictable screams. It’s similar to how Bolden felt in Coming Through Slaughter when the veil of emotions led him, unstrung through life. “There was no control except the mood of his power … he was tormented by order, what was outside it. He tore apart the plot — see his music was immediately on top of his own life. Echoing. As if, when he was playing he was lost and hunting for the right accidental notes.” (pg.37). When he played, Ondaatje describes his music as having no control beyond the mood of his own power. Notes passed before he even approached them, chasing something he could never quite name. Jazz, for Bolden, was not a release from the weight of living in the South; it was that weight, made audible. The music didn't save him; it mirrored him so perfectly that when the mirror shattered, he shattered with it.

What’s so interesting about Jazz is that the music chords rely heavily on four-note, 7th chords rather than standard triads. They use rich extensions (like 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths) for color and tension, and are typically organized into smooth, predictable progressions (like the \(ii-V-I\)). That is why it often feels ‘unresovled’ or ‘open,’ or might I say, soulful. When I stand in the rain in the French Market of New Orleans, I can somewhat understand Bolden’s mind. The whiplash of just sloshing through life and then having to become serious once the rain dries out is stressful. I can empathize with Bolden, and I love Ondaatje’s mesh style of prose and poetry that really allows us to swim through Bolden’s mind.

Nora’s Song

“Dragging his bone over town. Dragging his bone over town.

Dragging his bone over town. Dragging his

bone over town. Dragging his bone

over and over dragging his bone over town.

Then and then and then and then

dragging his bone over town

and then

dragging his bone home.”

I’ll admit, I don’t know what it’s like to be a musician. I don’t know what sweat and brow goes into going home with a nickel from a silver hat from the 1960’s. But regardless, as I listened to the band in Preservation Hall – I could feel the rain. I could feel the soul.

New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century was the only city in the world where jazz could have been born. It was a place where African rhythms, French Creole culture, the Protestant hymn, and the Catholic street parade all crashed into each other on the same block. Storyville — the legal red-light district that pulses through the novel like a second nervous system, pumped capital and money into music the way the Mississippi pumps silt into the Gulf. Bolden emerged from that pressure the way a note emerges from a horn, forced out by something larger than itself. As I walk down Iberville Street, near Canal St. where Bolden's final parade ended in blood and collapse, it reminds me of Ondaatje's description of him spinning at the Liberty-Iberville intersection, playing until the notes were “more often now, every five seconds,” (pg.129) until something in his body finally gave — “can't stop the air the red force coming up” (pg.131). It makes me feel like the city itself is a kind of instrument, tuned just slightly past what any one person can bear. Just like Preservation Hall, 45 minutes of “blues and the hymn sadder than the blues and then the blues sadder than the hymn.” (pg.81) just so I can forget slightly that the veil life holds is uncovered. And like Bolden, the music reminds a person of the rain outside, so much so that you might want to sink your head underneath some water.

“In the heat heart of the Brewitts’ bathtub his body exploded. The armor of dirt fell apart and the nerves and muscles loosened. He sank his head under the water for almost a minute bursting up showering water all over the room. Under the surface were the magnified sounds of his body against the enamel, drip, noise of the pipe. He came up and lay there not washing just letting the dirt and the sweat melt into the heat. Stood up and felt everything drain off him. “ (pg.58)

And of course, behind all the music is Nora. Bolden's wife — a woman who worked for three years as a prostitute before marrying Buddy, and who somehow survived him without bitterness. When Webb comes to her door asking about the disappearance, she gives him nothing he hasn't earned. And when Buddy finally returns two years later, after acting like a child to Webb, he gently but in a way that frightens her more than his rages ever did, meets him with devastating honesty: “Still love you Buddy … not like it was before because I don't know you anymore but I care about you, love you as if you weren't my husband” (pg.122). It seems to be part of the city for those who are artists to accept this way of living just as is.

“You may perhaps but it is not real. When I
played parades we would be going down Canal Street and at each
intersection people would hear just the fragment I happened to be
playing and it would fade as I went farther down Canal.”

— Coming Through Slaughter, pg.93-pg.94

Another example of this is what happens on page 92 when Bolden is hiding from his life, staying with pianist Jaelin Brewitt and his wife Robin. He is in love with Robin. She is in love with him. And Jaelin — more sensitive, more loving, more patient than Buddy by almost any measure — simply walks downstairs and sits at his piano while they do the Devil’s Tango. His music travels up through the floor to the bedroom where Buddy and Robin lie together. “His practice reached us upstairs,” Bolden reflects, “each note a finger on our flesh … The music was his dance in the auditorium of enemies. But I loved him downstairs as much as she loved the man downstairs.” (pg.92). And as I walk through the Marigny on a Tuesday night, music bleeding out of every doorway, it reminds me of that passage, the idea that jazz has always held grief and desire in the same hand. It makes me feel that sound, in this city, is never just sound. It is everything that cannot be said out loud.

And I think that overall, what I’m trying to say in this blog is that Buddy Bolden is just like any of us if we didn’t have something that grounded us. And although Bolden virtually had music to ground him, the four-note, 7th chords and incremental rain made it so that the ground itself kept shifting, and every resolution dissolved into the next unresolved tension, every moment of stillness was swallowed by the next squall, until there was no difference between the music and the man playing it. And this truth could be said about New Orleans itself, a city where music and body were commodified on the same block, which is why the musician, and the jazz itself probably shared the same emotion — led to the same lifestyle. Thirty piano players pulling in thousands weekly, brothels and jazz halls sharing the same advertisement in the same Blue Book, and where, as musician Danny Barker put it plainly, “if you wanted to go anywhere [in New Orleans] at all, you had better learn to play something.”

Having A Name

Visiting the Whitney Plantation left a strong impression on me, and it has been one of the most impactful experiences of the trip. I mainly learned about slavery from history classes, textbooks, and videos before my visit. While those sources are valuable, they often focus on historical timelines, statistics, and overall occurrences. The Whitney Plantation offered a new and different perspective, and it is the only plantation museum in the United States that is focused exclusively on the history of slavery. People value it because it actually highlights the experiences of the enslaved rather than those of the plantation owners, considering that throughout the property, visitors are able to confront the realities of slavery through personal stories, names, and preserved spaces. This focus on humans rather than statistics reminded me of the movie 12 Years a Slave, which tells the story of Solomon Northup, a free Black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film and the plantation setting both emphasize a powerful idea that history becomes more meaningful when it is told through the experiences of real people.

The part of the plantation I found most impactful was the Children's Memorial. At the end of the tour, I walked through it and saw hundreds of dates for children, some even without names, who died; it was heartbreaking. I immediately realized that many of those children had passed away before reaching the age of three. I started thinking about the specific children whose names, families, and lives had been cut far too short. I also saw that many children were born in the same years, suggesting that many mothers were growing families and giving birth while enduring the difficulties of oppression. It is easy to read about death rates in a textbook and move on, but it is much harder to pass hundreds of names without thinking about the lives they were associated with.

This idea also reminded me of a scene from 12 Years a Slave when Eliza was separated from her children, standing out as one of the most difficult scenes in the film. It was devastating to watch her desperate pleas to remain with her family because it highlighted the psychological cruelty of slavery in a way that numbers and statistics are unable to. The scene compels viewers to consider slavery as the devastation of relationships and families in addition to forced labor. While reflecting on the Children's Memorial, I thought about Eliza and the countless other parents who suffered similar tragedies. One of the reasons 12 Years a Slave is such a fantastic movie is that it concentrates on the personal experiences of the enslaved, allowing viewers to experience the loss of freedom, identity, and family from Solomon’s perspective. By doing so, the movie creates a degree of empathy that is challenging to obtain from historical facts alone.

“I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”

— Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave

It was also interesting walking through one of the preserved slave cabins. I appreciated how interactive this tour was compared to ones I have been on, since I was able to explore it instead of just audibly learning the information. Standing inside the cabin was entirely different than viewing it because it evoked so many emotions. The structure was small and simple, but it represented the lives of countless people who lived under conditions that are difficult to imagine today. Individuals who once lived in it, the conversations that took place, and what hopes they held for the future. Similar to the Children's Memorial, the cabin shifted my focus away from historical statistics and toward individual lives. It reminded me that history took place in real locations and involved real people.

While reflecting on the plantation and the movie, I started to think about America and its history. In high school, I don’t even remember learning about plantations and how they impacted the lives of so many individuals. When I did hear about those facts, it wasn’t taken seriously or described in full emotional detail. At the Whitney Plantation, I finally saw how separate the history of slavery was from the history of the country as a whole. It demonstrated that wealth, growth, and development of the United States were deeply connected to the labor of enslaved people. Also, it emphasized the hypocrisy of a nation founded on ideals of liberty and equality, while millions of people were denied those very freedoms. Walking through the plantation allowed me to think more critically about how societies remember their past and how historical injustices continue to influence the present. Rather than viewing slavery as something that happened centuries ago, I began to see it as a foundational part of American history whose effects can still be felt today on many families.

It is often easier to focus on accomplishments and successes than on painful chapters of the past, yet places like the Whitney Plantation demonstrate why remembrance matters. The Children's Memorial exists because those children deserve to be remembered, no matter how many years later. What could have been a historical truth became something very personal when looking at the memorial. Long after I have forgotten specific dates or facts from the tour, I know I will remember those names on the placard. More importantly, I will remember the lesson that history is not only about understanding what happened but also about recognizing the people who lived through it and ensuring that their experiences continue to be acknowledged. Whitney Plantation and 12 Years a Slave challenged me to engage with history in a more thoughtful way, and that is what made the experience so meaningful.

A Necessary Experience

What do I even say? After the last couple of days that we’ve had?

I’ve never felt such a volley of emotions, I haven’t felt this emotionally spent since the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 that just left me so completely emotionally and spiritually drained.

It’s been a long couple of days and I can tell because I can feel the weight of the subject matter that we’re confronting at the moment. But as a privileged African American boy from Las Vegas, this experience was long overdue. And largely necessary.

Mind you, I come from the decently sized hometown of Las Vegas where we were ranked dead last or nearly dead last in the entire country in terms of the quality of our curriculum…. Our curriculum was genuinely horrid so imagine in US History, how deep the textbook likely goes when it comes to the International Slave Trade or the Emancipation or the Civil Rights era. I’d probably have to say most of the education I received of the injustices of our people were from the many documentaries or shows my parents put on over the years. One core memory being the Central Park Five, that lies centerfold within my memory. I’ve had so many opportunities to educate myself and learn more and more, and it coincided often with Trump being elected or honestly anything immoral he’s done to erase African American history so integral to the beginnings and going ons of this nation.

So to come here, in New Orleans, where slavery was pronounced and so heavily relied upon for Indigo markets. It’s stunning. It’s devastating. We spent one day choosing to explore the history upon the grounds that we walked and to be honest with you, it was absolutely crushing. I didn’t yet cry at this point but there’s always this tension I feel when I’m at odds with myself. I want to put on a tough face when I hear the immoral deeds done against the enslaved people but I also want to emotionally express what I’m thinking. I consider myself to be quite the empath, quite the sympathetic soul. So it weighs on the mind almost immediately. Walking around the city so comfortably, at ease, without having to worry for my personal safety. I’m not at threat of being whipped or hung from a tree or being decapitated. I don’t fear for my life, fear myself to be lynched or brutalized at any given moment in time (unless of course, a police car drives near). I have the privilege of not having to concern myself with any of this because of the pain, the service, the years upon years of enslavement that my ancestors had to go through. And I am mindful of that every single day. Grateful is the word of the day every single day. But to walk through these alleyways and streets, it was so utterly surreal to know what lay beneath these foundations and the true history these highrises and restaurants and hotels had to this day. Walking past ‘Hotel Indigo’ for example….. To know that these were the stomping grounds for slave owners, that some of these buildings were slave pens and also where the enslaved would get auctioned off. There apparently was a church right by an auctioning site. It pissed me tf off. And left me crushed. Because, as a tourist if you are not seeking out information and the history that lies here. You wouldn’t ever have a clue that somewhere like the Warehouse District could be privy to so much inhumaneness. It's truly devastating.

Then we had the Whitney Plantation. Hearing that people (White people) would often seek out these plantations for their PHOTO OPS and weddings and events and yada yada yada yada bull. It’s disgusting yet to me, somehow completely on brand and something I’ve gone to long expect from that crowd. What I truly do respect from the new ownership over the plantation was the taking out of furniture from the white house to ensure that the building was stripped of its humanity. That you could not see these people as human or humane. Avoiding that entirely, I loved it. Your brain had to fill in the gaps and we’re already understanding that these were horrid people. I love it. Anyways, I actively chose not to take any photos of the building, of any of the stops until the memorial. I guess I just felt internally disturbed. I was adamant about that, I had no intention of taking photos of that house or anything surrounding it. There was no need for me personally. It was only until I took to the memorials that I pulled the phone out. Because, as Jae and I saw, there was a prayer that goes….

---

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake. I pray thee lord, my soul to take. And this I ask for Jesus’ sake. Amen.”

---

A prayer that I’ve repeated myself to exhaustion. A prayer that I recount every single night before I go to bed. A childhood prayer, one of the two prayers that I’ve consistently done every single day. And it was here on a plaque at a slave plantation. I was speechless….. And shocked. I didn’t know what to say. I guess, I never thought the origins of such a prayer and had never even considered that it could trace so far back. It made everything that much more real. And seeing these plaques with all these names of children that were enslaved, only to see names like ‘negro boy’ or ‘negress’ and so many other blank, general names or some with no names or labels at all. It was devastating. It was devastating.

‘Slave Revolt Memorial’

And then, of course the memorial for the 1811 German Coast Uprising led on by the heroic Charles Deslondes. And for some reason, it never registered in my mind that a slave uprising was ever a thing. I am pleasantly surprised that one ever did come to fruition and that they had the insurmountable courage and bravery to attempt something so risky. Never once heard of it in my life. Never a mention of Charles Deslondes, not at all and that is truly a disservice to his legacy. But my goodness, the memorial. I was shocked to see that the ‘Slave Revolt Memorial’ had several decapitated heads of the enslaved on these poles which was a crushing tribute to those that suffered that same fate and had their heads placed on sticks all along the Mississippi. Jesus. But visually seeing it in front of you, utterly devastating and something that truly gets etched in your brain forever. It will forever stay with me, I know that. But I had this thought of why it was so sheltered away when it's something so poignant and integral to the ties of this place. And it made me curious about the capacity that we all have for truthful stories like this. Have we become so shielded from the truth or the past that something like this, only scares us away and terrifies us? It’s sort of pathetic, if you will. Idk, I just sort of latched on to that thought. That the plantation had to reconfigure the walkways so that this memorial was easily missed because apparently it was too explicit or frightening for guests to recall and interact with. It’s like, what is that line of what's necessary and what's deemed excessive to people? Having to dumb it down or strip it of its morbid details just so it can be made consumable or risk scaring people away from facing the horrors that their own kind had committed?

Lastly, ‘12 Years of Slave’. A true biographical film about Solomon Northup and his story of being a freeman snatched away to become a slave for 12 years before finally obtaining his freedom once more. It’s a film I will only be seeing once in my lifetime. I have no intention of ever watching this ghastly film ever again. But I am grateful to have it seen at the appropriate time (if ever there is one). I felt every single emotion. I was exhausted. I was holding back tears. I was sobbing silently. I felt completely at the mercy of the film. It kept going. So much suffering. We had already gone through so much pain and misery before freaking Lupita even showed up. And that's when I knew we still had so much to GO. But it pissed me off. It left me feeling so full of rage. Drained me of my willpower and rendered the rest of my day blank and useless. I was in bed the rest of the afternoon and night. I’ve never once heard of his journey ever in my life. Never even knew of the name Solomon. And it pisses me off that there is so much I DON’T KNOW ABOUT. I feel this guilt because of this responsibility to be knowledgeable and knowing of my history, of my past and ancestry. It’s like, oh you don’t know of this tale or this piece of history, then you’re not Black enough. It’s just that I chose to avoid the film because of ‘trauma porn’ and didn’t want to subject myself to all of that misery and excessiveness. But again, what’s truly excessive if the entirety of the film is TRUE and ACCURATE? It renders the entire conversation pointless, honestly. It drained me. It truly drained me.

To finish off, I really want to note how icky it made me feel to see one of my favorite actors (not people, actor) put himself in this film as the ONE good guy, the white Savior of Solomon knowing damn well he produced this film and it was his production company. He knew damn well how that would look for his reputation and what that would do to his image. I thought it really curious and honestly, quite a stupid move on his part. Who told him to do that?!? And I am sure this was in the midst of his troubles with Angelina Jolie. Makes no damn sense. And it makes me mad that we have to resort to white people to save us, to be our saviors, to be the vessel to go through in order to tell our stories. It frustrates me to no end. I can’t tell you how maddening it was to see that Solomon got out not from his own hands, but at the mercy of another White man. Just maddening. But what can I say, that's just the way of the world.

Just not my world.

Angels Watch Me Through the Night

Angels Watch Me Through the night

4121 Wilson Ave, New Orleans, LA 70126

“I can’t stand it anymore,” are words I wish could just plaster themselves to walls and to dirt and be cultivated into a fruit that won’t perish. Unfortunately, my shouts and cries are only that — shouts and cries. And whatever pain and anguish I feel from the burden of my history will only disintegrate if I lay down, and choose to “not” stand it anymore. I stood in Congo Square and moved through the Whitney Plantation. I read Sarah M. Broom's The Yellow House and stood edge of the East, endured Solomon Northup's 12 Years a Slave in a city that contains both the beauty and the evidence of everything those books/movie contained. People have tried to forgo the evidence, but New Orleans doesn't let you ignore it. From fifteen thousand feet up, where the aerial photographs are taken, what remains of 4121 Wilson Avenue is, as Broom writes, "a minuscule point, a scab of green" (Prologue). An overgrown lot where a house full of people used to be, reduced from above to something that looks like nothing. From that height her brother Carl would not be seen, sitting five times a week on an ice chest where the living room floor used to be. The reduction. The animalization. The inability or unwillingness to stand on the ground and see what is actually there. Humans. Standing above the bodies that built New Orleans, you cannot be abstract and pretend the ground was washed over by white. The city will not allow it and the ground remembers too much.

I think there is something to be said about remembrance. About standing in the anguish of what my people experienced. Watching Patsey from 12 Years a Slave be struck over 100 times by the evil held in the hand that held the textured whip. My stomach churned at the sight — I wasn't disgusted, I was angered, and somehow overwhelmed with burden. It's almost as if my stomach and my lungs had become chained together and I was drowning in muddy water. And after the movie was over, this feeling held for an insurmountable number of days. Here’s the thing though, there’s only so much muddy water I can stomach before I realize there is no point in digesting it.

Of course Northup didn't want to endure the muddy water either as he said so plainly, "aloud and boldly," before the first blow ever landed from Burch when he first awoke a slave (Chapter III, pg. 44). "I prayed for mercy, but my prayer was only answered with imprecations and with stripes. I thought I must die beneath the lashes of the accursed brute. Even now the flesh crawls upon my bones, as I recall the scene" (Chapter III, pg. 45). When his tormentor's arm grew tired, he stopped and asked if Northup still insisted he was free. He did. The paddle broke. Then came the rope. And still Northup would not say he was a slave. "All his brutal blows could not force from my lips the foul lie that I was a slave" (Chapter III, pg. 45). And even in saying “I can’t stand it anymore, I am who I say I am.” his words still became white noise, a white lie. I guess what I’m trying to say is, it didn’t matter what was true — the truth of his skin’s existence was the only thing that mattered.

I almost feel apathetic. I didn't cry as much as the others when 12 Years a Slave finished because to do so, would be to not only relive the trauma, but in some ways, it felt like crying gave the white supremacists in the movie power. I must admit — given my history (my mother working in the justice system with falsely incarcerated people, racism that I've experienced in my lifetime not only from white people but from other groups who have the archetypal influence) it's extremely difficult to be any type of empathetic towards the ignorance of racism. I classify it as hate, point blank, and will not tolerate it.

And at the Whitney Plantation, I stood in front of the sculpture garden — dozens of cast iron heads mounted on steel poles, faces of the insurgents from the 1811 German Coast Uprising, arranged in rows in dark soil — the apathy remained. I knew that these faces were a memorial to something that actually happened: the heads of the executed severed and placed on poles atop the River Road levees for forty miles. Somehow though, I couldn’t bring myself to cry. Because what I kept thinking about was Broom’s grandmother being born on Ormond Plantation on that River Road, into a world where this had already happened and been quietly absorbed into the landscape — "the facts of the world before me inform, give shape and context to my own life," she writes, "my beginning precedes me. Absences allow us one power over them: they do not speak a word. We say of them what we want. Still, they hover, pointing fingers at our backs" (Movement I, Prologue). Standing in front of those faces on poles, I felt that hovering. And then separately, the shame of it — which Broom describes not as grief but as "a warring within, a revolt against oneself. It can bury you standing if you let it" (Movement II, Chapter I). I think that shame, or realization rather just made me feel that crying would just be accepting those pointing fingers. The worst part — what makes me most apathetic, is that one of the reasons why Broom was able to publish her book, and the only reason Northup was able to escape, was because the white man was there. A question we then must ask ourselves is: Why does this (white man asserts a leg up)structure still exist?

I stood in front of the stories nurtured by the Federal Writers’ Project, one of which read the prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray thee Lord, my soul to take. And this I ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.” To fathom that a prayer I said throughout my childhood most likely was passed down from my slave ancestors is incomprehensible. You say those words as a child without knowing they were first said in darkness, by people who genuinely could not be sure they would see morning. And funnily enough – it now makes sense why my grandmother changed the last two lines to, “Angels watch me through the night, until I wake in morning light.” Changing the context, changes the contemporary reality we so desperately want to exist.

Ultimately though, despite the pain, despite the anguish, after this week, I've gained a new sense of pride as a Black person. Not the kind that needs to be performed or explained. The kind that comes from understanding the full length of what I come from — the people who marched fifty armed toward New Orleans knowing they would probably die, who held their names in their mouths even while being beaten, who prayed the prayer I prayed as a child in the darkness of cabins in Louisiana soil, who sewed beads for a year for two appearances, who cut the grass, who took the paper menu. I come from people who have been making beauty and meaning and resistance out of conditions designed to produce none. To stand in New Orleans and finally see that clearly, from the ground, not from fifteen thousand feet up, not through the tourism brochure, not through the mythology — is something I will continue to remember. And there is evidence of this sentiment: being able to eat with Rich Black Caribbeans of Lake Shore in the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen, embracing a vision from Elvin Ross who is reimagining the tragedy of Jazzland which didn’t permit reconstruction for those (mostly Black people) living in the area. Seeing this, I know that the world is my oyster, and I’m taking advantage of it — heavily entitled, and with every reason to be. Unashamed, despite any odds that are pinned against me by the racism that still persists in America.

““Now I lay me, down to sleep, I pray the Lord my Soul to Keep. Angels watch me through the night, until I wake in morning light.””

— An Unknown Slave

The Line

Masks from the Voodoo Museum

This blog post was supposed to be about Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire. That was my intention, at least. I planned to talk about the gothic elements of the city, how the book interweaves New Orleans folklore and truth into something new and distinct. I planned to talk about what parts I thought were accurate versus what was overdone, or worse, exoticizing. I wanted to talk about our visit to the New Orleans Voodoo Museum and the ghost tour we went on. And I might still write that blog post eventually. However, this is not that blog. Every time I went to write about Interview With a Vampire, my mind ended up somewhere else. To the true dark side of this city, not the supernatural, not the folklore, but the history of violence and cruelty.

The main character of Interview With a Vampire, Louis, is a wealthy plantation owner in his mortal life. Throughout the first section of the novel, Rice paints a picture of the plantation's scenery:

“Luxurious and primitive... the vision of the swamp rising beyond her, the moss-hung cypresses floating against the sky. And there were the sounds of the swamp, a chorus of creatures, the cry of the birds. I think we loved it.”

— Interview With a Vampire, pg 6

Louis mentions the people he enslaved on his property as a mere afterthought. They are relevant only in their ‘exoticism,’ in what they offer Louis, and to their impact on his life. They are never discussed in their own right. Any nuance, any centering of their experience is completely erased.

A few days after finishing Interview With a Vampire, the group walked around the Central Business District. That’s not the interesting part, we walk around the CBD every time we step out of the hotel. This time though we weren’t trying to see the 2026 version of the neighborhood but rather the Central Business District as it would have been in the Antebellum period. Andrew led us around the area, stopping every block or so to point out the site of what had once been a slave pen, where enslaved people were held in awful conditions to await their ‘sale,’ now home to a hotel or apartments or a pizza chain. It felt so strange to reconcile the two – was I really standing in front of a scene of such horror? There were almost no signs mentioning slavery, so from first glance it’s hard to believe. It’s a sobering experience to learn about cruelty that happened right under your feet. ‘Why aren’t there more signs?’ I kept wondering to myself. ‘Why are people able to just go about their daily lives without knowing this history?’

I guess the answer is that they don’t want to. It’s easier to go to the grocery store when you’re not thinking about whether or not someone was killed or tortured across the street. Even while this period in history was occurring people turned a blind eye. There was a church across the street from multiple of these slave pens, a church led by a minister named Theodore Clapp, who preached Unitarian Universalist ideals while simultaneously defending slavery. Wealthy white people of the era could hop in for a church service and then go see a show at the Varieties Theatre across the street. Did they know what was going on a street away? Did they simply not care?

After our tour, we returned to our workspace to screen the movie Twelve Years A Slave. I had never seen the movie before, though I had some vague knowledge about it beforehand. The film was based on a true story and received critical acclaim, but I had also heard it discussed in relation to the term ‘trauma porn.’ I wasn’t sure what to expect – would this film be exploitative? Would the violence be gratuitous? Would this depiction serve a purpose, or would it just retraumatize anyone whose ancestors experienced this?

The movie was… intense to say the least. Honestly, I don’t even know how to begin to talk about it except to say it didn't flinch in its portrayal of slavery and racism. The film pulled no punches. There were multiple scenes I had to turn away from, like one depicting Patsy’s sexual assault and the other showing Solomon being forced to whip Patsy. The entire time the camera directly faces Patsy, showing blood spraying from her back as she is beaten, her screams piercing the silent room where we were watching. It’s a sign of my privilege that I was able to turn away like that. This movie wasn’t depicting anything that hadn’t happened. This was reality for thousands of people. They didn’t get to turn away when things got too upsetting.

I think it would have been easy to write this film off as trauma porn or a white-savior movie if not for the real life it was based upon. Solomon Northup, the film’s protagonist, was a real person. He was a free Black man who was kidnapped, trafficked, and sold into slavery, eventually becoming free again but losing over a decade of his life trapped. His writings of his time enslaved were followed almost to the letter in the film adaptation. It’s difficult to critique a narrative when it’s so grounded in fact. While the film was hard to watch, I think it was necessary to truly convey something as horrible as chattel slavery.

That being said, I understand why people can see this film and find it gratuitously violent. I’m not by any means an expert on this, nor should I try to be as a white woman, but I have heard the phrase ‘trauma porn’ be used a lot, especially in reference to onscreen depictions of Black experience in America. A lot of the stories we hear are ones centered around pain and suffering, from slavery to the KKK to Jim Crow. I don’t mean to underplay the importance of those stories. They need to be told. But there are other stories there that don’t appear as often — stories of survival, of resilience, of joy, love, and community. People love media in large part for the escapism. Why is it that it’s so often only white characters who get to lead a romance or get transported into a fantasy land?

I’m not sure how well I explained that. Again, I can’t exactly speak to this experience, but this is just where my mind took me after watching the film. There was such a huge disparity between these two experiences I just had — walking through the Central Business District, where it seemed like slavery had been completely forgotten, and Twelve Years a Slave, which might as well have hit you with a sledgehammer. Was there an in between? Where was the line between ignoring history and exploiting it?

The next day we went to the Whitney Plantation where I think they struck that balance. Our tour guide Ashton told us all about the daily lives of the enslaved people on the plantation, from their work to their homes to the specific food they would grow to supplement their inadequate rations. We stood on the balcony of the ‘Big House,’ looking out at lines of oak trees that could have been straight out of Twelve Years a Slave while Ashton told us that the trees hadn’t yet been planted when the enslaved people lived there. Some of what we learned was horrible, like cutting an enslaved person’s hamstring so they wouldn’t run away, or killing their whole family if they did. We learned about the slave uprising of 1811, the bravery and strategy of the participants, as well as the horror of their heads being stuck on pikes after they were caught. However, some things were mundane too. We saw the vegetables enslaved people would often grow, yucca and yams and okra, went into the church on the property, and heard about the process of refining sugarcane into sugar. It didn’t feel like we were being shown tragedy for the sake of tragedy. Rather, I felt like I had an insight into the actual lives and experiences of the enslaved people who lived on the Whitney Plantation. It felt like their story rather than a story about their pain. It wasn’t performative, it wasn’t exploitative, it wasn’t glossed over; it was just honest.

I’m still not sure where the line is. How much pain is too much pain? When is something too graphic to show, and when does it need to be acknowledged? I wish I knew how to fully answer those questions, but I don’t. It’s not for me to decide.

Learning How To Read Like Visual Learner

I remember some time during elementary school, one of my friends said that she didn’t like movie adaptations of books because they never pick actors that look like the characters she pictured in her head. This, at the time, confused me. When I read, all that is happening in my head when reading is just my inner monologue speaking the words in my head. I have to make a conscious effort to picture what is being described in a book, and most of the time, it looks more like what I see in my life than what’s actually being described in the text. When I’m listening to an audiobook, I can visualize the story a little, but it is mostly vague images that lack details, or I can picture certain characters in detail, but the rest of the mental image is blurry or missing. 

Years later, I would learn that people experience visuals and inner monologues on a spectrum. Where I stand on the spectrum is that I have a strong inner monologue and a weak visual mind. This means that words come to me naturally, while images take effort to create in my mind. 

The Mississippi, Which Would Have Been Full of Steamboats Throughout Louis’ Life

However, there is one way I can better picture things in my head while reading. That is, I have seen that person or place in my life. This means that if I watch a movie adaptation of a book, when I read the book, I will picture the actors and sets that were used in the movie instead of what’s actually described, with some variations. 

In the case of Anne Rice’s Interview With The Vampire, bookpacking made the story much more engaging and made sense. Rice has long, lush, and vivid descriptions of the world she is building in this story. In fact, one of the best parts of this book is her description of New Orleans over the years and through the lens of this Vampire, Louis, who views the world differently than everyone else. To be able to take in these descriptions would normally be very mentally taxing. Also, I would not have the time to fully picture everything described with the packed schedule that this bookpacking trip has. 

“The great facade of the cathedral rose in a dark mass opposite the square, but the doors were open and I could see a soft, flickering light within...The gold candlesticks shimmered on the altar; a rich white chrysanthemum bent suddenly on its stem, droplets glistening on the crowded petals, a sour fragrance rising from a score of vases, from altars and side altars, from statues of Virgins and Christs and saints.”

— Interview With The Vampire by Anne Rice

Being able to see and know the places being mentioned in the book added a whole new dimension to my reading experience that I rarely get to have. Funnily enough, I was a little glad that I wasn’t too far into reading Interview With The Vampire when arriving in New Orleans, because it allowed me to see the city, especially the French Quarter, in person sooner rather than later in terms of where I was in the book. When Louis mentions Jackson Square, the cathedral, the Mississippi River, the gas lamps, the flowers, and the colonial-style homes and apartments, I can not only picture them in my head while reading, but I’m envisioning a place that I was in, just a different time. This may not seem like the biggest deal, since the majority of the population are visual learners, but for an auditory learner like myself, it feels like Disneyland. I’m walking into a world that is based on stories, history, and myth, except instead of Aurora’s Castle, it’s a historical building on Royal Street. 

Picture From the Cathedral Described in the Quote

Furthermore, Interview With The Vampire is the book, I believe, that benefits the most from bookpacking. This is because Interview With The Vampire is not the greatest book ever written, and it does suffer from certain issues and flaws. Some examples are how long it can drag on at times, and the interview format, making it so that 95% (this is a guess and not a real statistic, but if it turns out that I’m right, I would not be surprised) of the text is written in quotes, causing unnecessary punctuation. Still, what Interview With The Vampire, and to a greater extent, Anne Rice does really well is the description of places, especially New Orleans. Although it can run a bit long, I admire her for her beautiful ability to describe New Orleans in the past and over the years while still being authentic. Due to how rewarding it is to follow Louis through History and the changing, yet still familiar, places in New Orleans, it makes for a real treat and one of the best books for bookpacking in particular.

This made me want to go back to all the books I read and enjoyed in the past and mark down the places where they are set and bookpack with them. This bookpacking experience made me realize just how much of the book I can be missing out on (and why I get so excited when a book has pictures). I am not afraid to say that I do not believe I would have liked Interview With The Vampire as much as I did if I weren’t reading it after exploring New Orleans. Because long descriptions of places or characters can often feel like a mental chore for me, bookpacking has turned it into a fun Easter Egg hunt of all the places or things I’ve visited or seen.

I do feel that, at times, the auditory learning community is unintentionally ignored in literature because describing places and people and how they look can open the door for beautiful and rich writing. However, getting that little extra help from bookpacking in the space made me feel more included in the Interview With The Vampire club. Although it is not the only reason (or main reason, for that matter), the description of New Orleans through the years is a major factor as to what made this book so successful. Because it does not matter how good or bad you might think the book is, it is impossible to deny the cultural impact it had and how it changed Vampires in the public mind for good. Being in the city where it happens makes not only the book much more enjoyable and interesting, but also the experience of the city itself. For me, that is what bookpacking is about.

Stories in Architecture

This is my first time visiting New Orleans, and the first glimpse we had of the Business District near the hotel made me realize how much architecture can impact a city's vibe and culture. Buildings in California, especially in Los Angeles, feel newer, more modern, and beautiful in an entirely distinctive way. However, New Orleans feels entirely different, with the city being full of historic buildings that seem to hold incredible stories within them. As I wandered around the French Quarter and Garden District, I became attentive to every detail, including the wrought-iron balconies, the weathered-painted pastel walls, the monumental shuttered windows, and the vines that climbed over the old brick walls.

I loved learning about the Creole architectural style since it is not something I see every day. One of the most interesting aspects of it is that, although many people refer to it as “French Colonial,” it actually originated in New Orleans. This style is a blend of French, Spanish, and Caribbean, but also adapts to the city’s hot and rainy weather. I noticed this while exploring the various homes and buildings and seeing how they are designed in ways that feel elegant and practical. The shaded balconies, steep roofs, courtyards, and raised foundations help create airflow to prevent heat, and it also gives the city its popular, recognizable appearance. I think one of the best things about the architecture in New Orleans is the artistic nature, and also the environment and history surrounding it.

Even though my major does not correlate with architecture, I have always enjoyed learning about home designs. One of my favorite pastimes is playing this game, where I can create home layouts from scratch and design exteriors and interiors. I prefer to look at house designs online and recreate the styles to make them look more authentic. Before the trip, I had already researched and admired New Orleans-style homes because of how detailed and stylish they looked, but actually seeing them in person was such an immersive experience. The buildings felt alive compared to what pictures can capture, and many homes had soft wall colors paired with darker details to create a dramatic yet stunning appearance. Many of the roofs were also steep and sloped, while others were flatter with decorative edges. One of the more obvious details I admire is the narrow balconies stacked above one another, giving the houses a vertical look that feels intricate and full of character.

I also realized how Anne Rice’s novel, Interview with the Vampire, does an amazing job describing the city and its architecture. She portrays New Orleans as a dark, romantic atmosphere that is slightly decayed, and being able to see the city in person made those descriptions feel very accurate. Throughout the story, the city is described with vivid detail that brings the buildings to life and reflects the emotions and darkness that surround the vampires. Reading the novel while wandering through New Orleans allowed me to truly appreciate how carefully Rice uses architecture to shape the mood of the story.

“We passed whitewashed walls and great courtyard gates that revealed distant lamplit courtyard paradises like our own, only each seemed to hold such promise, such sensual mystery.“

- Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire

Interview with the Vampire intricately talks about the infamous wrought-iron balconies that hang over the streets of the French Quarter, and while walking those streets myself, I understood how the ironwork transforms the city’s atmosphere. Through casting shadows on the sidewalks, the balconies give the streets a dramatic, confined effect. Ironwork and soft lighting, especially at night, give the French Quarter a sense of mystery that is compatible with the tone of Rice's book. I also noticed many secret courtyards concealed behind buildings and gates. From the outside, some streets may appear busy and crowded, but inside the gates are peaceful areas with plants and fountains. These courtyards are often described by Rice as secluded havens, and seeing them for myself increased awareness of their important part in the setting of the novel.

Another detail the book mentions that stands out is how New Orleans embraces decay instead of hiding it. In other cities, various older buildings are renovated to appear brand new, but New Orleans appears to preserve the aging buildings as part of its beauty. The cracked walls, chipped paint, faded colors, and weathered brick contribute to the city’s unique identity. Rice specifically describes the city as elegant, but slowly crumbling under the years and humidity. The story felt more sincere after seeing this in person because the city genuinely embodies that harmony between beauty and decay. Instead of seeming abandoned, the structures have a sense of history, as if each layer of damage contributes to the city's historical narrative.

The nature intertwined with the architecture was another stunning example of New Orleans’ simplicity. The large oak trees would stretch across the streets, vines would climb up the sides of the fences, and the Spanish moss would hang dramatically from the trees’ branches. The greenery softens the city while also giving it an older and secretive vibe.

The Garden District is an example of exquisite nature, and it also feels entirely different from the French Quarter. While the Quarter feels more narrow and shadowed, the Garden District appears grand and open. The homes are like mansions, with white columns, wide porches, and taller windows, many reflecting Green Revival architecture, which Rice references in her novel. Wandering through the neighborhoods and seeing these houses helped me understand how architecture can communicate a person’s power, wealth, and history. 

The walking tours I experienced around New Orleans helped me learn more about architecture’s influence on the emotional feelings of a place. Before visiting, I appreciated the construction of the home from a design perspective since I enjoyed recreating and decorating homes through games. However, this trip showed me how frameworks can shape a city’s atmosphere, history, and identity. The buildings in New Orleans reflect the city’s culture and climate, and reading Interview with the Vampire while experiencing this. Anne Rice was using the city to create emotion, tension, and personality through describing the buildings within the novel.

Bookpacking in New Orleans allows me to experience literature in a wonderfully different way because I was able to physically walk through the same streets described in the novel. Seeing the balconies, courtyards, mansions, aging facades, and even the exact house Rice uses for her characters made the book feel more immersive. The setting and the book were far more memorable since I truly experienced the environment rather than just picturing it through words on a page.