New Orleans

I sat down to write about my first black church worship service experience (three hours!! so much yelling!!), then I thought oh, I should write about my trip to Memphis yesterday. But then I realized I still haven't written about LAST weekend, when a bunch of us went to New Orleans. So...backtracking and away we go.

We had a three-day weekend for the Fourth of July, so me and four other girls drove down to New Orleans last weekend. I hadn't been there since Mock Trial Nationals in high school, and recall that experience mostly as working furiously in our hotel rooms and one brief trip to an underground mall to buy beignets. (I was sure to get some beignets on this trip too.)

Can't say I've been anyplace at all like this city before. Parts of it were beautiful. Gorgeous houses with those high balconies and floor-to-ceiling windows, sphagnum moss on trees, beautiful cemeteries, quaint-looking streets, and so forth. There was free live music at just about every bar we walked by the first afternoon, artists selling their work on the street, brass bands wandering through outdoor cafes. It's definitely a southern city, with hot, heavy air that keeps things moving slow.
And then it got dark...and we made our way to Bourbon Street. Wowee. I used to look back on my college days, those crazy nights in Rome or Prague or Vienna, and think man...that was out of control! We knew how to party! Oh no. Those nights were dolly tea parties compared to this. There are no open container laws in New Orleans so everyone can wander around with their drinks. I saw more overflowing liquor, and overflowing breasts, than I have ever seen crammed in one place in my life. The five of us were pretty much the only white people in any bar we went into, and our cute little dresses and flip flops stuck out like burquas in a crowd full of neon hot pants and red mesh tube tops and leopard print corsets and platform stilettos.

We had a great time dancing and drinking silly-colored drinks, but good lord I don't know how anyone does that more than once. As much fun as it was, I left the city feeling a little dirty. First of all, because it WAS dirty. They bring out the mounted police at night, and they don't seem to think it necessary to equip the horses with those handy little tail bags. So it smelled like horse shit and beer and sewage; I stepped over some of the foulest street puddles I have ever seen. But even when you didn't smell something gross, you had to look at it. I've never seen straight up porn plastered in public places quite like they've got it Bourbon Street. Strip clubs advertised "Barely Legal Girls!", their storefronts covered in posters showing the advertised product. Because that's what those girls are made into. It just made me sad, I guess. It's not empowering when your sexuality becomes the only thing anyone values about you.

And it wasn't just Bourbon Street. We walked into a seemingly inordinate number of souvenir shops, and more than one of them was selling mardi gras beads strung with giant plastic penises. Or giant plastic penises being embraced by tiny women. Or giant plastic penises being embraced by tiny women that you could fill with water like a squirt gun. On a necklace. First of all, a freaky dismembered penis made out of plastic and hanging on a string of beads is weird enough. But they were everywhere! I don't know, my feminist side just kept getting riled up I guess. The commodification of sex isn't good for anyone, but I think is especially damaging to women, since we are the ones typically made into the objects for sale.

But....all that aside. We saw the most amazing fireworks show on the 4th. They shot them off two barges on the Mississippi, and they were hands down the coolest fireworks I've ever seen. There was a brass band marching around the whole time, and when the fireworks were done they moved onto a bandstand, followed by a whole crowd of people who danced and danced for the next hour. I don't think I've been part of a more joyous crowd of people. Man, I love America.