"Halfstep, Mississippi uptown toodeloo Hello, baby, I'm gone, goodbye" - Grateful Dead

So long, New Orleans!

"Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo" 

On the day when I was born Daddy sat down and cried.

I had the mark just as plain as day; which could not be denied.

They say that Cain caught Abel rollin' loaded dice;

Ace of Spades behind his ear and him not thinkin' twice.

Halfstep, Mississippi uptown toodeloo Hello, baby, I'm gone, goodbye

Half a cup of Rock and Rye. Farewell to you old Southern skies

I'm on my way, on my way.

If all you got to live for is what you left behind,

Get yourself a powder charge and seal that silver mine.

Lost my boots in transit, baby, pile of smokin' leather.

I nailed a retread to my feet and prayed for better weather.

Halfstep, Mississippi uptown toodeloo Hello, baby, I'm gone, goodbye

Half a cup of Rock and Rye. Farewell to you old Southern skies

I'm on my way, on my way.

They say that when your ship comes in, the first man takes the sails;

What's the point of callin' shots; this cue ain't straight in line.

Cue ball's made of styrofoam and no one's got the time.

Halfstep, Mississippi uptown toodeloo Hello, baby, I'm gone, goodbye

Half a cup of Rock and Rye. Farewell to you old Southern skies

I'm on my way, on my way.

Across the Rio Grandeeo, Across the lazy river

"Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo" by the Grateful Dead (Garcia/Hunter)

New Orleans ... a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature, to whose charm the young must respond. - Faulkner #QotD

NEW ORLEANS. A courtesan, not old and yet no longer young, who shuns the sunlight that the illusion of her former glory be preserved. The mirrors in her house are dim and the frames are tarnished; all her house is dim and beautiful with age. She reclines gracefully upon a dull brocaded chaise-longue, there is the scent of incense about her, and her draperies are arranged in formal folds. She lives in an atmosphere of a bygone and more gracious age. And those whom she receives are few in number, and they come to her through an eternal twilight. She does not talk much herself, yet she seems to dominate the conversation, versation, which is low-toned but never dull, artificial but not brilliant. And those who are not of the elect must stand forever without her portals. New Orleans . . . a courtesan whose hold is strong upon the mature, to whose charm the young must respond. And all who leave her, seeking the virgin's un-brown, brown, ungold hair and her blanched and icy breast where no lover has died, return to her when she smiles across her languid fan.... New Orleans. 

William Faulkner. "New Orleans," New Orleans Sketches

Now, you lay off our New Orleans bohemian life - Faulkner #QotD

Fairchild laughed. “Now, you lay off our New Orleans bohemian life; stay away from us if you don’t like it. I like it, myself: there is a kind of charming futility about it, like—” “Like a country club where they play croquet instead of golf,” the other supplied for him. “Well, yes,” Fairchild agreed. “Something like that.”

 William Faulkner, Mosquitoes (1927)

I looked at the faces of old men sitting patiently on iron benches - Faulkner #QotD

The iron benches of Jackson Square were empty this morning ... but the old men are there in spirit.

"I looked at the faces of old men sitting patiently on iron benches as we slowly paced-men who had learned that living is not only not passionate or joyous, but is not even especially sorrowful."

"Out of Nazareth", William Faulkner, New Orleans Sketches (circa 1925)

Looking through the tall pickets into Jackson square was like looking into an aquarium - Faulkner #QotD

There was a moon, low in the sky and worn, thumbed partly away like an old coin, and he went on. Above banana and palm the cathedral spires soared without perspective on the hot sky. Looking through the tall pickets into Jackson square was like looking into an aquarium—a moist and motionless absinthe—cloudy green of all shades from ink black to a thin and rigid feathering of silver on pomegranate and mimosa—like coral in a tideless sea, amid which globular lights hung dull and unstraying as jellyfish, incandescent yet without seeming to emanate light; and in the center of it Andrew’s baroque plunging stasis nimbused about with thin gleams as though he too were recently wetted.

William Faulkner, Mosquitoes (1927)

Outside the window New Orleans, the vieux carré, brooded in a faintly tarnished languor like an aging yet still beautiful courtesan - Faulkner #QotD

Outside the window New Orleans, the vieux carré, brooded in a faintly tarnished languor like an aging yet still beautiful courtesan in a smokefilled room, avid yet weary too of ardent ways. Above the city summer was hushed warmly into the bowled weary passion of the sky.

William Faulkner, Mosquitoes (1927)

Pontalba and cathedral were cut from black paper and pasted flat on a green sky - Faulkner #QotD

The violet dusk held in soft suspension lights slow as bell-strokes, Jackson square was now a green and quiet lake in which abode lights round as jellyfish, feathering with silver mimosa and pomegranate and hibiscus beneath which lantana and cannas bled and bled. Pontalba and cathedral were cut from black paper and pasted flat on a green sky; above them taller palms were fixed in black and soundless explosions. The street was empty, but from Royal street there came the hum of a trolley that rose to a staggering clatter, passed on and away leaving an interval filled with the gracious sound of inflated rubber on asphalt, like a tearing of endless silk.

William Faulkner, Mosquitoes (1927)

IMLS staff group photo at close of #IMLSFocus day one, start up again today at 1000hr

Good morning New Orleans and Saint Louis Catherdral

Sojourners in New Orleans who take their afternoon drive down Esplanade street will notice ... two or three large, old houses - Cable #QotD

Sojourners in New Orleans who take their afternoon drive down Esplanade street will notice, across on the right, between it and that sorry streak once fondly known as Champs Élysées, two or three large, old houses, rising above the general surroundings and displaying architectural features which identify them with an irrevocable past--a past when the faithful and true Creole could, without fear of contradiction, express his religious belief that the antipathy he felt for the Américain invader was an inborn horror laid lengthwise in his ante-natal bones by a discriminating and appreciative Providence. There is, for instance, or was until lately, one house which some hundred and fifteen years ago was the suburban residence of the old sea-captain governor, Kerlerec. It stands up among the oranges as silent and gray as a pelican, and, so far as we know, has never had one cypress plank added or subtracted since its master was called to France and thrown into the Bastile. Another has two dormer windows looking out westward, and, when the setting sun strikes the panes, reminds one of a man with spectacles standing up in an audience, searching for a friend who is not there and will never come back. These houses are the last remaining--if, indeed, they were not pulled down yesterday--of a group that once marked from afar the direction of the old highway between the city's walls and the suburb St. Jean. Here clustered the earlier aristocracy of the colony; all that pretty crew of counts, chevaliers, marquises, colonels, dons, etc., who loved their kings, and especially their kings' moneys, with an abandon which affected the accuracy of nearly all their accounts.

The Grandissimes (1899)by George Washington Cable

"Us & Them | Me & You" my presentation for the #IMLSFocus meeting inc. @TranscribeSI @BioDivlibrary @FieldBookProj

Here's my talk for the IMLS Focus meeting:

Us and Them | Me and You | from swerve of shore to bend of bay: Take Down the Fences … Here Comes the Crowd. Martin R. Kalfatovic. IMLS Focus: Inspiration and Innovation in Libraries and museums 2015. New Orleans. 16 November 2015

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Us and Them | Me and You | from swerve of shore to bend of bay: Take Down the Fences … Here Comes the Crowd from Martin Kalfatovic

Above banana and palm the cathedral spires soared without perspective on the hot sky. - Faulkner #QotD

There was a moon, low in the sky and worn, thumbed partly away like an old coin, and he went on. Above banana and palm the cathedral spires soared without perspective on the hot sky. Looking through the tall pickets into Jackson square was like looking into an aquarium—a moist and motionless absinthe—cloudy green of all shades from ink black to a thin and rigid feathering of silver on pomegranate and mimosa—like coral in a tideless sea, amid which globular lights hung dull and unstraying as jellyfish, incandescent yet without seeming to emanate light; and in the center of it Andrew’s baroque plunging stasis nimbused about with thin gleams as though he too were recently wetted.

William Faulkner, Mosquitoes (1927)

"Last 25, next 25" @DanCohen keynote at @imlsfocus meeting

Kit Matthews, @Imlsdirector kicking off #IMLSFocus

... why a building as old and ugly could have any value; and second, if it were valuable, why they let it become so shabby - Faulkner #QotD

THE CABILDO, a squat Don who wears his hat in the king's presence, not for the sake of his own integer vitae, but because some cannot, gloomed in sinister derision of an ancient joke; within the portals Iowa wondered aloud first, why a building as old and ugly could have any value; and second, if it were valuable, why they let it become so shabby.

"Damon and Pythias Unlimited", William Faulkner, New Orleans Sketches (circa 1925)

Sparrows were upon Andrew Jackson's head as, childishly conceived, he bestrode his curly horse in terrific arrested motion. - Faulker #QotD

BENEATH the immaculate shapes of lamps we passed, between ancient softly greenish gates, and here was Jackson park. Sparrows were upon Andrew Jackson's head as, childishly conceived, he bestrode his curly horse in terrific arrested motion. Beneath his remote stare people gaped and a voice was saying: "Greatest piece of statuary in the world: made entirely of bronze, weighing two and a half tons, and balanced on its hind feet."

"Out of Nazareth", William Faulkner, New Orleans Sketches (circa 1925)

Bon matin, New Orleans

Cafe Beignet

Emeyeessesseyeessesseyepeepeeeye

That spells Mississippi

Downtime at Cafe Du Monde

Royal House Oyster Bar