When I was at a hipster coffee shop in the Bywater for breakfast today with Mrs. King, there was a photographic print hanging over the mantle of a bricked up fireplace. It was a Dada masterpiece.
Paging Man Ray. Man Ray, white courtesy telephone, please.
There are no pay phones in New Orleans, not even at the train station.
At this hipster coffee shop, I looked at the community bulletin board, where people put up fliers. Most of the time there is nothing worth me noting. I am not the typical target demographic for this kind of outreach. Today was different. I was in the right place at the right time for a change.
I am thinking about getting a job over the summer. My profession, such as it is, is slow during the summer. Plus, I could use some exercise.
It is Jazz Fest. It is one of the few times of the year that pedicabs venture into my neighborhood, though I live only a mile from the French Quarter, a 20-minute picturesque stroll.
Have you ever tried snuff?
Do you even know what I am talking about?
I am not talking about the films. I am talking about finely ground tobacco. Think Scarlet Pimpernel.
I know this dandy who takes snuff. I am not talking about me. I am talking about another dressed-up joker who is a collection of quirks and eccentricities. There is only one Whalehead King. This guy is somebody different, but strangely similar. I do not particularly cotton to him.
This story is going to be so fascinating. I cannot wait to tell you.
This guy’s name is Mookie, a fun-house mirror version of your humble narrator. Python Lady does not cotton to the Mookster either.
“Would you like to take some snuff?” Mookie asked me.
I declined. I dislike sneezing.
Mookie has a canister of tobacco snuff that he carries around with him.
“I get it at the Walmart on Gentilly Boulevard,” Mookie told me.
“I was there earlier today,” I said. I was not lying. I bought a book.
I could have written it when I was younger. I am so old now that I have forgotten more than I remember. I live in New Orleans. I have learned to only remember what is important.
A man never forgets his first girl.
Have you ever been to Pennsylvania?
Mookie has never been to Pennsylvania. He only dates single mothers. He tells me he finds them more needy.
Mookie is a collection of superfluous affectations. Even I think so and I am usually considered Exhibit A.
I am self aware. I live here.
Mookie is taking this snuff with a Chinese ear spoon.
This story is going to go on for a long time.
He dips the Chinese ear spoon into the snuff can and holds it under his nose, and, then he snorts it. It is not exactly pretty to watch.
The snuff is finely ground tobacco. No cocaine is involved. We are not on Lower Decatur Street.
Mookie told me that he got this Chinese ear spoon in New Orleans’ Chinatown. Mookie is full of malarky. He cannot fool me. There is no Chinatown in New Orleans.
There used to be a Chinatown in New Orleans. Richard Campanella, who does good work, he documented two blocks of Chinamen where Tulane Hospital is now, on Tulane Avenue. It had opium dens and everything. That neighborhood is long gone. It ain’t dere no more, as they say.
The only remand of Chinese culture, aside from Five Happiness, is Q. Lee, my dry cleaner, and the dry cleaner of choice of the NOPD.
Mookie is not Asian, far from it. “Tell me, Mook, where did you get the ear spoon?” I prodded.
If you go out to New Orleans East, to Village de l’Est, where all the signs are either in Vietnamese or Spanish, if you want a Q-tip, you go to the Spanish store. If you want an ear spoon, you go to the Vietnamese store.
Asians are genetically predisposed to produce dry cerumen which is why you will rarely find Q-tips in an Asian grocery. I am not making this up.
Mookie admitted that he got his ear spoon out in the East. His barber is out in the East, in Village de l’Est. His barber is Vietnamese. Vietnamese barbers also clean your ears with spoons and tweezers and all sorts of specialized tools of their trade.
My barber doesn’t do any of that. She is in the French Quarter.
Today was another beautiful New Orleans day.
Packed full of useful/interesting info.