Page 23 - Dreamscapes Magazine | Fall/Winter 2024

Church bells, signalling the hour, provide melodic motifs. I stop, gaze around, and breathe deeply. New Orleans has begun to feed my soul.
ROOM WITH A VUE
The following morning we ascend 34 storeys in the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans to check out the Vue. One of NOLA’s new downtown attractions, our noses glued to the window, we stare at the river dribbling below with birds-eye views of the cathedral, its white steeples gleaming and the Garden District close by.
At the Vue, we try out the interactive displays and watch state- of-the-art animation of NOLA’s history and culture from an audio lesson in local music to a beginner’s guide to Mardi Gras, the city’s most famous annual festival.
ART IN THE PARK
Next stop is City Park, a few kilometres from downtown. It is an emerald oasis of trails, wetlands and forests.
Here we encounter a five-hectare Sculpture Garden amid a set- ting of magnolia trees and live oak draped in Spanish moss. We meander past gardens, crossing tiny bridges guarding lazy lagoons, admiring masterpieces from Rodin to Henry Moore— more than 90 sculptures in total.
Beside the gardens, we pass between the towering Corinthian columns guarding the New Orleans Museum of Art to explore the collection gleaned from 50,000 masterpieces.
Back in the French Quarter, we browse the eclectic collection of Royal Street galleries from family-owned Sutton Galleries to local artist Ally Burguieres’ whimsical work at Gallery Burguieres.
But visual art is hardly the only hallmark of New Orleans culture.
The city hosts three opera companies, frequent Broadway shows and the Louisiana Symphony Orchestra, performing a hundred live concerts a year.
And New Orleans’ cultural pedigree hardly ends there.
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE
One morning we board a streetcar named St. Charles. Streetcars no longer wend their way to a district called Desire, but I still feel like we’ve tapped into an incomparable literary culture.
Tennessee Williams lived in the French Quarter when he penned that iconic play. William Faulkner wrote his first novel here. Mark Twain visited frequently.
Today’s exploration features the historic Garden District, a lush green swath of residences and unique venues that inspired the late Gothic writer Anne Rice, doyenne of Vampire Chronicles. It’s the most famous stop on the St. Charles route.
After leaving the streetcar we head to Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. where Spanish moss dangles from skeletal branches. Spooky above-ground tombs remind me of a horror movie. That’s no mere coincidence.
We later stroll past antebellum mansions with gaslights guarding gated entrances and inviting wraparound porches decked in patio chairs. On First Street, we stop by a sprawling two-storey mansion sporting a white porch and peach-painted wings. Yes, Anne Rice wrote Mayfair Witches here.
Forget A Streetcar Named Desire.
THE BIRTHPLACE OF JAZZ
It’s New Orleans’ reputation as the birthplace of jazz that drew us to Louis Armstrong Park. At the centre of this hallowed ground is Congo Square where enslaved Africans and free people of colour once gathered for earthy jam sessions.
Now, clad in traditional white clothing, dancers twirl to the beat of drums and wailing saxophones.
It is no ordinary jam session. For 200 years, every Sunday after- noon this hub was once bound only by slaves who could meet and play their music.
My musical encounters crescendoed at Preservation Hall, a New Orleans jazz institution since 1961. In a converted French Quarter art gallery, some of the city’s foremost traditional jazz artists perform in an intimate living-room-like setting.
A clarinetist launches into a chorus of “Bourbon Street.” Eyes locked onto my wife, it dawns on me that New Orleans does feed the soul. DS
FALL/WINTER 2024 DREAMSCAPES 23
PHOTOS: SHARON MATTHEWS-STEVENS | JUSTEN WILLIAMS | TODD COLEMAN