"There's almost nothing quite so good this time of night in New Orleans: they split a crispy, French, and flaky loaf of breat in two and pave the inside with beef or pork or ham, salt, pepper, and some kind of pungent relish -- or if oyster season's on, with six or eight big oysters, fried flaky brown, the way they know how to do it there -- I don't know how they do it, but they call the thing a Poor Boy Sandwich, and the price of it is just ten cents, a dime. I guess they got the name from this, because that's the only thing poor about it. Why don't you and Pat go down and bring us back about a half-dozen? -- we'll sit here in the garden, I'll take beef for mine. --I have remembered nights like these when people plugged a watermelon with champagne -- you cut a plug out, and poured iced champagne in -- and you would sit there in the garden, eating watermelon on a night like this: how bright and still it is tonight, the moon makes brightness through the magnolia leaves, there is so much of death, of life, of stillness and of fragrance here around us; on nights like these, the river hooks around you like an elbow, and you always know it is above the town."
-Thomas Wolfe, "A Prologue to America." (Vogue, Feb 1, 1938)
Did you know that there is currently a jazz festival underway in New Orleans? The New Orleans airport code is MSY, which will save you time if you find the prospect of attending a jazz festival more appealing than remaining at your desk. If you cannot attend, you can follow along from home thanks to the good offices of WWOZ. If listening to jazz festivals on your computer improves the quality of your life, let the good folks at WWOZ know.
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