Reprinted from Les Amis de Marigny, New Orleans

Great weather in New Orleans, the crushing heat has finally given way to blue Fall. God blesses the Seasons, though, in His wisdom, He only gives us a few days of the better ones.

Almighty, bless us with months-and-months of such fine weather and we will chase the Money Changers from the Casino. As it stands, few come to New Orleans for the climate so our fathers who art in City Hall and Baton Rouge feel we need the Casino.

I have nothing against gambling (though I don't do it), but personally prefer tourists like the Faulkner fans who recently splashed down for "Words & Music 2000," their highbrow literary festival held during Summer's waning blast -- book readers are a hardy lot.

One delightful evening I sipped wine atop Squalor Heights with Faulkner panelist Josh Russell and discussed his New Orleans fever novel YELLOW JACK (recently reissued in Norton paperback). Set in the time of yellow fever and glass plate photography, Russell writes poetically of a New Orleans filled with death and grim reliquaries -- a time not unlike this fine blue day.

Which reminds me, the Theodore Lilienthal photographs exhibited at NOMA and Tulane during Faulkner's fest look better than last time I saw them. (That's a joke, Norma.) The City commissioned them in 1867 for the Paris Exposition and they have never before been shown in New Orleans.

Lilienthal received $2,000, a tidy sum in the time of Napoleon III, who came to own them after the Exposition closed. Don't you wonder if he peered into those large glass plate contact prints pondering the wisdom of the Louisiana Purchase? Some show Faubourg Marigny scenes, including River piers of yesterlore and a rooftop shot looking out from Saint Claude Avenue that you may also view at www.LEJ.org Today the photographs belong to the Napoleon Museum at Arenenberg, Switzerland.

Nights grow cool -- well, New Orleans cool -- after gasoline sunsets flicker reddish brown, and with a constant backdrop of at least two storms out at Sea. (Wouldn't a cold hurricane be simply too much?)

Re-elected Faubourg Marigny Board members Gretchen Bomboy, and Steve Halpern had their homes honored by the Preservation Resource Center, along with Faubourgundians John Luckett & Roy Robertson, Michael Sartisky, and Danny Toups at a ceremony in the Saint Elizabeth Orphanage digs of spook author Ann Rice. Orchids to them all and to the other elected Marigny Board members David Berman, Jean Browne, Carol Carroll, George Cossitt, Gary deLeaumont, Tom Loesch, Carl Meyer, Wally McLaren, Cleo Pelleteri, and Grace Yunker. Thank you all.

Faubourg Marigny's comfortable location makes it both a pleasant neighborhood -- in no small part thanks to those mentioned above -- and easy walking distance to the pit of all we hold foreign, abhorrent, and yummy. I'm speaking, of course, of the nearby-faraway French Quarter. Faulkner's festival had us trotting up there for erudition and dining in some of those yummier eateries.

Restaurant Antoine was site of a packed Words & Music / University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture luncheon panel. How can you beat Southern words and Antoine's? I never did hear any music, but I gather it was around. Actually, I couldn't hear the panel either. But, hey, one out of three is not bad if the one is Antoine's.

On one of the hotter days, I met nine dear old friends off a cruise ship, for lunch at Arnaud's. it was a terrific meal including chilled Vichyssoise that any "pomme" would have happily died to join.

Just across rue Bourbon from Arnaud's is Big Swamp City's grand Royal Sonesta Hotel. If you have not had their Friday seafood buffet you are missing a treat greater than keeping the $20 it cost.

Of note, the Royal Sonesta's main bar is again showcasing talented Ronnie Kole, who plays his piano with the best of them and to the best, including his Wife Gardner. Once a year they open their Bayou Liberty mansion to the dregs of New Orleans' press corps for a Sonesta catered supper and Ronnie Kole concert, making the poor maestro a player not only to the best but for the worst of us, too.

In other food news, Faubourg Marigny's own award winning Café Marigny hosted a food-critic Tom Fitzmorris "Eat Club Dinner." It was a $50 a pop bargain given the six courses of perfection served, and it was my Birthday night out. Life is good in these golden days of Fall.

Take a walk, have a coffee, watch the ships passing. You are in New Orleans, without any luggage lost.

Parting photo shot: On the weekends of October 13 - 15 and 20 - 22, PBS station WYES -12 is airing its nine hundred thousandth "Art Collection Twelve" auction, where any alert reader with a thin wallet can pick up one of Yours Truly's photographs for a song. Maybe two songs.

One more thing: Did you hear about local teen heartthrob Britney Spears snubbing Faubourg Marigny Latin music master Freddy Omar?

He was playing his regular late night gig at Saint Charles Avenue's Red Room. This particular late night happened to be the Saturday after Spears sold-out Superdome concert. In sweeps the corporate creation with likewise boyfriend 'N SYNC band member Justin Timberlake and fifty-some-odd promoters, family and general hangers-on. Shortly after arriving Spears complained to Red Room manager Chris Haupt about the music the posh club was offering. She asked if Omar would change his style. How rude! Fittingly, he packed up his tango and left the stage.

The Muse kisses musicians with grace and talent. Bankers kiss the ones with corporate packaging and no manners -- and Buddy Boldin laughs at us all from his Potter's Field grave.

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