Tennessee Williams, Ignatius J. Reilly, Springtime, and All That Jazz

" . . . they will heap up to themselves teachers tickling their ear, and they will turn away their ear from truth, and will be turned aside to fables." ~ Second Timothy, 4:3-4

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Spring and Jazz

Weather, that gripping saga of television, radio and barroom, can blow away funerals and festivals. It can flood routes home and curl breezes into a cold tongue licking at your heels as you walk The River, envying those sailors bound for the Sea.

" 'Free on The River' is the best slogan, location and price," observed L. A. Norma, as we steamed up the levee streaming her Camel Cigarette smoke behind. We were bound for the French Quarter Festival and Norma harbored a deep interest in its slogan. She even wrote to the event organizers and the newspaper suggesting "Free on The River" as their official name. She concluded her letter with, "either that, or 'Freedom Quarter Festival.' " Then she signed her neighbor's name.

Her neighbor, a Texan who loves Landslide, comes to Town on weekends to get drunk and irritate the bajeebies out of L. A. Norma. She told him, through louvered shutters (she refuses to look at his face again), "Landslide's an oilman, all right, a snake oilman!"

When the newspaper phoned to check authenticity, the neighbor told them, of course, he didn't write that letter, but he had an idea for a better name, "Freedom Festival, with Lucky Dogs, freedom fries, and effigy burnings." The paper ran neither letter nor slogan.

Rockin' Jake's harmonica tickled our ears and bid us nearer. "Merde!" said Norma. There were no slogan-bearing banners in sight, only price lists. We bought a watery beer and a dish called "Caribbean fish and vegetables over white rice." It was so fresh and sweet it could please Caribbean hostesses and their culinary Gods. We ate it sitting on a Jackie Clarkson Bench, looking flat at the wall of blue vendor tents in front of The River.

"The tents are bluer'n the water," Norma told our newfound Memphis friends, K. O. and O. K., as we stood in line for more.

We took our second helpings to the rail at the water's edge and ate them watching an orange and black freighter pass on its way to, "Faraway places . . . strange sounding names . . . faraway over the Sea . . ." The sweet sounds of Dr. Michael White's clarinet floated in the air.

"At least no more statues, no tents, no nothing can be put up this close to the water," Norma observed. She puffed on her Camel and laughed, "except cruise ships!" We all laughed and lifted diet beer cups towards the Hilton Hotel, upriver, where two cruise ships sat pierside. The tourists and Muses danced before us on land, water and air. They picked at our heart strings and fluffed up our pockets. "Come on," Norma said, "let's get a real beer at Tujague's."

Tennessee and Ignatius

At the Tennessee Williams Festival, we breakfasted with Scott, a Lucky Dog street vendor, who looked like the statue of Ignatius J. Reilly standing under-the-clock on Canal Street. Now a hotel, this spot was once Holmes Department Store, where Ignatius met his Mother, on the opening pages of John Kennedy Toole's A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES -- the book that made Lucky Dogs famous.

Scott had not read CONFEDERACY when first securing his position at the bottom of the New Orleans food chain. Thus he was startled when approached by tourists and locals observing he looked like, or maybe even was, Ignatius J. Reilly. Looking like Ignatius has made Scott famous and wealthier. The resemblance is what brought him to Muriel's Jackson Square Restaurant this day.

"In February, they're flying me to California to film a segment for Donald Trump's TV show," Scott told us. "I'm a stock trader, too," he explained. Satyricon of Petronius, thy breakfast entertainment awaits.

No one lopped off a limb for our amusement, but we did run out of coffee. Almost as stinging. Our host was quick to point out that our continental breakfast was given free by the restaurant's owners, in honor of their waiter, Aaron Young, winning the Tennessee William's Festival's "Stella Hollering Contest" the year before. We live in our own Universe in New Orleans, where worthless Carnival beads have graduated values (who doesn't know what "keepers" are), and a dead playwright's anti-hero can come to life over your salmon with pepper jelly sauce. A new pot of coffee arrived to a round of applause.

"See, it's our foibles put out there as if we all live that way everyday," a street-dressed Nun said of Toole's novel. We crossed Jackson Square for a Pope John Paul Memorial Mass. Inside the Cathedral, the new million-dollar organ soared. Outside, Tarot-card readers and jazz musicians sang their own vision of where we are headed.

Mo' Jazz

Near the Ernie K. Doe Mother in Law Lounge, a tall light-skinned man wearing African robes and an avuncular smile led a band of similarly dressed boys playing tall bongo drums under the shade of Interstate-10. This freeway, a painful stretch of Sixties' urban renewal, ripped out the oak-canopied heart of Claiborne Avenue. I stopped and listened. Old white man on a bike admiring black culture that not even the concrete canopy of Interstate-10 could squash. Old Man on his way out to the Fairgrounds -- now named Churchill Downs.

It rained earlier, one of those weather events that can do in Jazz Fest, or breathe odd sweetness into it. We hoped for the latter, for that sweetness appreciated by young of body and heart.

It was not too muddy, if you stayed on the paths. And it was dazzlingly bright and cool. Youth, never missing an opportunity, shed clothing in the fresh air like drummers shed ethics. Two half naked college boys were perched on wood posts like pelicans. They jumped to their feet at the first notes from an approaching brass band, and high-fived each other. One of them looked my way, lunged forward with arm upstretched, fingers opened, and yelled, "Hey, Jerry Garcia, give me five!" We slapped hands and the band passed on.

Next day we came back for Aaron Neville in the Gospel Tent. We hoped he would do his awesome a cappella rendering of Bob Dylan's "With God on Our Side," a great peace song, to which Neville has added a Vietnam verse. There wasn't a dry eye in the tent. Aaron Neville "owns" that song, as musicians say.

The last show of the last day was the Neville Brothers at the Acura Music Stage. Crowd too large for any tent, cool setting sun, and music that revived the great spirit that once was Jazz Fest. Quint Davis, president of Festival Productions, introduced the Nevilles and said how happy he was to see us back. Davis mentioned that his own return had been in question -- something everyone on stage knew -- and how glad he was to be back. So far, we are glad, too.

One last note: The New Orleans Museum of Art has launched a stunning exhibition of the great New Orleans sculptor John T. Scott. If you see nothing else this year, see Circle Dance, The Art of John T. Scott, May 7 through July 10, 2005