I guess I hadn’t paid much attention to it after I had copied it. Reading it now, it strikes me that they sure knew how to write an obit back then. I knew very little about him, as I had concentrated my research only on my direct line of ancestors on my father’s side.  But I learned a few things, and hope someone writes as well about me when the time comes.

The deceased at the time of his death was 65 years and 8 months old, and had been a resident of the city of New Orleans for over half a century. Born in the city of Paris, France, the deceased came to the Crescent City when quite a youth and soon entered the cotton business.
…

In all his business associations, the deceased was proven to be a man of the strictest commercial integrity, and as his experiences were grounded on close personal relations at home and abroad, it is not surprising that his work was always marked by gratifying  conclusions.

He was living at 1726 Carondolet at the time. Looking at the Google street view, that address is now a parking lot at the downtown riverside corner of Polymnia, surrounded by empty lots and abandoned buildings, your basic Central City shithole of an area.

That’s too bad; for he must have had a fine home. The obit notes:

The deceased’s home existence was particularly delightful. Himself a man of high artistic tastes, the deceased surrounded himself with all those elements that render domestic living additionally charming. Mr. _____ came from a distinguished ancestry, one of his uncles being a gallant soldier, a colonel in the French army, who died on the field of battle, and another an artist of note, whose works have frequently adorned the walls of the Louvre.

Some of the above information is incorrect. His father (my great-great-great grandfather), not his uncle—although there may have been an uncle in the military as well, there were many siblings—was a colonel in the French Army. He died not on the field of battle, but in Piraeus, Greece, of typhus en route to the Crimea in 1855.  There was an uncle, Amedee _____ who was an artist. Whether his work hung in the Louvre or not I don’t know, it’s quite possible. We do know some of his work is in the collection at Versailles, though, and we own a portrait he painted of who we believe to be either my great-great or great-great-great grandfather, in complete military regalia.

Which brings us to the title of today’s post. As if all of this very complimentery prose was not enough, the obituary writer added:

The deceased was personally a gentleman of the most charming character. He had all of the savoir faire of the old school about him, and was highly thought of socially.

Which leads me to a difficult conclusion. I’m going to have to write my own obituary, and adopt a lot of my great-great grand uncle Paul’s. Either that, or write something along the lines of Royal Tenenbaum’s fictional eptitaph:

Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Remains Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship.

Any suggestions?

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL OPENING RECEPTION TO BE HELD AT THE NEWLY RESTORED ROOSEVELT HOTEL
TOAST OF THE EVENING TO OCCUR AT THE ORIGINAL SAZERAC BAR

NEW ORLEANS, LA—December 1, 2008 – Tales of the Cocktail, a cocktail and culinary festival celebrating the history and culture of dining and the cocktail in New Orleans, has chosen The Roosevelt New Orleans as the site of the July 8, 2009, opening-night reception for its seventh anniversary event.

Tales of the Cocktail runs through July 12, 2009.

The historic downtown New Orleans property, a Waldorf=Astoria Collection property shuttered since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, opened in 1893 as the Grunewald. In 1923, it was rebranded The Roosevelt in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt and retained its distinctive moniker until the hotel changed hands in 1965 and was renamed The Fairmont. The grand hotel will reopen in late spring 2009, reborn as a Waldorf=Astoria Collection® hotel.

The summer’s most spirited event, Tales of the Cocktail explores the history and contemporary life of the cocktail at various locations in the New Orleans French Quarter. The event welcomes celebrities, mixologists, chefs, authors and cocktail experts as presenters and special guests from around the globe for seminars, dinners and galas.  Top spirits names such as Dale DeGroff, Tony Abou-Ganim, Robert Hess and Kevin Brauch once again will take part in educating industry and consumers alike about the cocktail.

In more than a century of operation, The Roosevelt served as the backdrop for many historic events and often made history in its own right. Key among plans to restore the property to its previous grandeur and appeal will be the reopening of the hotel’s famed Blue Room and legendary Sazerac Bar. In the golden era of supper clubs from the 1930s to the 1960s, the Blue Room played host to some of the best-known names in entertainment and big bands – including Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Sonny and Cher – as well as to elaborate floor shows. The Sazerac Bar, a Roosevelt landmark for decades, again will serve its signature Sazerac cocktail and Ramos Gin Fizz – both invented in New Orleans and made popular worldwide by The Roosevelt – among other delights.

“Hosting our opening night in conjunction with the newly restored Roosevelt is an honor,” said Tales of the Cocktail founder Ann Tuennerman. “Tales of the Cocktail celebrates the history of the cocktail, and what better way to introduce visitors to our city than with the city’s official cocktail, The Sazerac, at the original Sazerac Bar,”

The New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds to benefit hospitality industry members, produces Tales of the Cocktail annually. Its mission is to preserve the rich history of the restaurants and bars of New Orleans and the unique culture of dining and drinking famous to the city, while educating locals, visitors and the hospitality industry about this culinary heritage.

Tales of the Cocktail, a culinary and cocktail festival, allows the connoisseur or amateur to fully experience (taste, see and learn about) cocktail culture in New Orleans and around the world. The event’s annual components are Spirited Dinners, a Seminar Series, Cocktail Hour, Cocktail Luncheons, walking tours of the French Quarter, and classic and contemporary cocktail parties — all presented by the country’s hottest chefs, authors, bartenders and cocktail experts.

For more information on Tales of the Cocktail, visit the Web site at www.TalesoftheCocktail.com and register to receive email updates, or call 504-948-0511.

The artist I met is named Bernard Mattox. He paints, but most of his career he’s been a sculptor, working in ceramics. Here’s a shot of his studio, where he’s working on his latest painting.

He recommended I go to the Mint to see an installation by an artist who is from Covington, but works in Los Angeles now.

I already planned to go across the lake Saturday for a big meetup with Nolanotes and some other twitter people. It went really well. Leigh brought up Prospect.1 during lunch, and pointed out the maps they had distributed. Here is the map online, it’s a pretty big .pdf, but it has all the information for what’s installed citywide.

So we set out to the Mint. Bunch of artists there, the guy from Covington, Stephen G. Rhodes, had an interesting installation. Here’s the Times-Picayune’s review of it. It’s difficult to describe, pretty large scale, overwhelming almost. You’re inside of it, it’s like the aftermath of a large post-election party in a room full of video screens. Disney’s Hall of Presidents, ghost portraits, torn furniture, popped balloons, it’s wild. There were a lot of coins on the floor, loose change. I decided to take out some pockect change and throw it on the floor, too.

The art is spread out citywide. We followed the map from the Mint to the Lower Ninth, and hunted down two of the installations put in near where the levee broke there.

This one’s called Window and Ladder – Too Late for Help. It’s by Argentine artist Leandro Erlich.

That area’s still pretty barren. There was a refrigerator all busted up and moldy on the street in front of it. Whether it’s been there since August 29, 2005, or not, I don’t know. It could have been, but I somehow doubt, put there on purpose.

It’s the area where Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is building green homes for residents to return to the area. They’re different than what was in the area before, that’s for sure, but affordable and renewable, incorporating features like solar panels.

Here’s one that was across from another Prospect.1 installation.

The area is still pretty darn bleak, and full of odd sights. This could well have been considered an art installation anywhere else in the world. In New Orleans, it was just a motorcycle on a slab.

Will Smith’s streetcar is located at the Prytania Theatre. It features Stella and Stanley from Streetcar Named Desire. He added sponsors John and Gayle Gish to it as well. Will was at Tales selling his Mardi Gras krewe giclees. He also had a new line of burlesque girl paintings on hand for sale.

Also posted at StreetcarArt.com.

But first things first. Today’s kick-off event was Toast to Tales of the Cocktail in the Riverview Room of the Hotel Montleone. NOLA blogger Loki of Humid City and the Krewe of Chartreuse offered up the first ceremonial toast of the day, which was dedicated to the Sazerac cocktail’s enshrinement as New Orleans’ official cocktail.

Ann Teunnerman, founder of the New Orleans culinary and cocktail event, spoke this afternoon and went over some of the highlights of the five-day celebration. When Ann announced Tale’s revival of the Green Hour and return of absinthe to America, the crowd went wild.

I have been assigned to write a story about absinthe and New Orleans, so my attendance at the various Tales of the Cocktail events will be centered around those featuring the spirit. There are many, many other events taking place: seminars, symposia, luncheons, dinners, tours and tastings. Here is the listing and ticket information.

Today’s event was tasting of absinthes offered by Lucid, Marteau and La Fee.

That’s the money shot of the day: absinthe being prepared the old-fashioned way with an ice water drip from a fountain.

The Absinthe Museum of America, opening this Saturday, is located at 823 Royal Street and hosted today’s event. Many absinthe artifacts—absinthia to the collector—will be on display, including this still, the fountain and glasses below, and many spoons, old bottles and artwork.

Ted Breaux, a New Orleans native and a driving force behind absinthe’s return to America was on hand. He is the also the creator of Lucid and several other varieties at Jade Liqueurs, overseeing its production at the Combier distillery in France’s Loire valley.

Marteau is made by Gwydion Stone, founder of the Wormwood Society, which is dedicated to bringing absinthe back to its rightful place in cocktail culture.

A number of bloggers/twitterers were there this afternoon. Loki, John Martin of Off-Focus, Leisa, Mr. Gunn and Robert Peyton of Appetites braved the afternoon heat to attend. Here’s a photo of John, Mr. Gunn and Loki, I’m sorry I had to leave for dinner with my folks and didn’t get more people in the picture.

More from Tales later this week. There is another absinthe event Friday at the Montleone’s Carousel Bar. I’ll attend that and make another report.

So we basically played Mario Kart for the Wii all day. His grandparents bought him a telescope, and last night we went out to try to find the moon. The moon, alas, was not to rise until after midnight, so we looked at random stars.

The highlight of the trip was this giant frog painted on the I-10 overpass at Rayne, home of the Frog Festival, where we stopped for lunch on the way home.

It was raining pretty hard when I got off the Causeway. I thought that, over the sound of the rain and my windshield wipers, I could hear “Oh, the suckage!” being screamed from Nola’s way. But, surprise, the pop-up tent and covered porch were keeping everyone dry and happy, with not one lament from Nola’s mouth at all. Sun, who I had heard was sick, was being pushed happily by her daddy on her new swing, all the Nola/CS friend peeps digging away at mudbugs, beer, potatoes artichokes, etc.

I left to go hunt streetcars; post at StreetCarArt.com coming soon. Then off to NOMA for the Rodrigue exhibit. If you haven’t been to the New Orleans Museum of Art recently, you need to get down there. The Rodrique exhibit is over June 8, but there is still plenty to see. One thing is a newly-acquired collection of 30-some odd pieces, including a painting by Fairfield Porter, probably my favorite non-impressionist painter.

After looking at the Rodrigues (and there is more to him than just the Blue Dog, and, by the way, I was not a fan of the Blue Dog, but have a new understanding and respect for it now) I headed up to the 3rd floor. I’m glad I did. Besides myself and the security guard, the only other person up there was John Bullard, NOMA’s director. I’d met him before, during the Femme Femme Femme exhibition. He’s a very convivial guy, a necessary trait when most of your job consists of raising funds. I told him I thought it was a great idea to keep the museum open all night, he said it’s been something museums in Dallas and other cities had been experimenting with to some success. They’re talking about doing it once a month, maybe on the last Wednesday of the month, to stay open to midnight. It’s a good idea; hotel, restaurant and hospital workers who otherwise wouldn’t get to see it come in then. It was a busy day for NOMA, too. He said they already had 2000 visitors on Saturday, and expected more Sunday.

After congratulating John on the exhibit, I mosied on down to the 2nd floor (the 3rd, by the way, is home to a small but impressive collection of Asian, African, South American and Native American indigenous art) where I was met full on with a sight inspiring the title of this piece–an exhibit of art from the Historic New Orleans Collection and NOMA called New Orleans: A Sense of Place.

Paintings, books, pieces of decorative art, including silverware from New Orleans smiths, all unmistakably NOLA creations. There are paintings of buildings and the city from the 1800′s and contemporary views, like a stunning, huge, painting of the Quarter, the docks and the Marigny as viewed from the top of the Jax Brewery–unfortunately I didn’t have anything to write with or I’d be telling you who the artist was.

In the middle of the room is a collection of books, old New Orleans classics from the Collection. Books by Lyle Saxon, Grace King, Kate Chopin, Lafcadio Hearn and George Washington Cable are on display. But at the top of the display is Ignatius Reilly peering out from the first-edition cover over the room, scimitar raised high, hunting cap on head, cockatoo perched on shoulder. Wow.

I went back downstairs where the crowd was growing. George Rodrigue and his family were hanging out, and as I walked out the door I ran into the person who started my day, Adam Acquistapace, absinthe dealer. I need to go buy a bottle for myself soon.

You see, there was also a public art project in San Francisco, called Hearts in San Francisco. It’s been over since 2005, when most of the hearts were removed from around town and placed with their owners. There are a couple left, like the one above in Union Square. It was just today, going through the pictures, that I actually read the plaque.

Yep, that’s Tony Bennett’s, Mr. “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,”‘ heart that he painted and presented to the city to kick off the project.

There’s more on “A Streetcar Named Inspire” at StreetcarArt.com. The first streetcars are being placed, including Dennis Procopio’s “Hands Across the Water” at 909 Poydras.

Thousands of French came to New Orleans after the 1803 revolution in Haiti. Thousands more came in 1809, increasing the population of the city by almost one third in one year. My ancestor was a lawyer, and became a judge in the city. He speculated in real estate, overextending his credit after building some beautiful French Quarter buildings, which his creditors took over in the 1840s.

My sister has been living on Royal Street since Katrina tore up her condo building on the lake; the first of our family to call the Quarter home since the 1860s. She’s in a house built in 1832, across from the Lalaurie house Nick Cage now owns. My ancestor built a fine mansion 4 doors down Royal, and another large building on Governor Nicholls right off of Royal. The house my sister’s in would have been familiar to him, until he lost everything and moved to lesser quarters on Bayou Road.

Anyway, that’s some of the history that makes the Quarter special to me, and the FQF my favorite fest of all.

I started the day by meeting Nola and CS at the Napoleon House, where Nola could drink Pimm’s Cups all day long.

Under the watchful eye of the little dictator, I downed an 11:30 a.m. shot of Jameson in Ashley Morris’ honor; even though I never met the guy I’ve learned much about him in the past week. Sharing his fondness for the Saints and Jameson, I’m sure we would have gotten along quite well.

More of the Napoleon House, where the bartender could not sling the Pimm’s Cups fast enought. The place screams New Orleans atmosphere.

We went down the street towards Jackson Square, where we ran into a friend of CS and Nola who had just gotten the neatest tattoo.

This is a girl, not a New Orleans native, who stayed through Katrina and survived in the wild west days of the city during the flood and aftermath. I can’t wait to spend more time talking with her about her adventures.

And then the fest. I’ll spare you all the details of food and drink. All right, during the course of a long day, it was Tujaque’s brisket, a Mrs. Wheat’s meat pie, Antoine’s crawfish bisque, Bywater BBQ burger, and Tujaque’s brisket again (thanks to Nola, who was ready for thirds). And Ben & Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. No food porn, too awkward to take good shots. Here are some random fest scenes.

Normally I get along with artsy types. The guy who had this on display at Jackson Square was kind of a douche. I’m taking the picture, he starts ranting about I should give him a donation for the nice picture. I tell him I’ll put him on the web and give a link to his site. When he says I should still pay him, I conclude he’s kind of a douche. Maybe he was having a bad day, I don’t know. But it got worse, fast. As he concluded his last try at extracting some cash from me, the wind kicked up, blowing all his stuff off the fence and causing him to scurry after it all. But because I keep my word, here’s the plug and link for Sam Infiniti Hurwitch, who can be seen at zemondo.com.

No, not that one.

This one: Pete & Nola’s Lucky Blog Award, recipients to be determined by as yet undetermined criteria.

Now, I’m not big on blog bling at all. But I am one for a pun, and always up for a Photoshop challenge. So the concept of the Lucky Blog came up in recent discussions of the books Confederacy of Dunces and Managing Ignatius. Modified from the photo that was the subject of and featured in the recent post Hunting Ignatius.

Also in an abbreviated version for sidebar insertion:

Nola’s going to do a post soon with the first winners. Bet y’all can’t wait.

While moseying along Columbia Street down to Brunner Gallery, I ran into Sandra Scalise Juneau, a food writer and and expert on Italian/Sicilian Creole culture. She’s been featured on a couple of Channel 12′s documentaries and Chef John Folse’s program as an authority on New Orleans’ Sicilian community’s St. Joseph’s day altar tradition. Nola and I will be posting about the altars in the near future. Hopefully Sandra will let us use some of her vintage altar photos from the 50s and 60s.

At Brunner, I talked to Linda Dautreuil, artist and the gallery’s curator, about their featured exhibit, works by Vicki Grant. She is a sculpture/mixed media artist who retired from a career as an architect and decided, as Linda said, “To get into the mud.” We also talked about Brunner’s now representing legendary northshore artist George Dunbar.

A favorite of mine, Arless Day, also had works on display at Brunner. Arless is a collage artist who builds scenes from elements he finds in books and magazines, his own photos and elements he paints into the scene. Dreamy and evocative, his works, often rooms created wholly from cut-photos of fireplaces, couches, chairs, plants and books are frozen in time, and make the viewer feel that something is about to happen in them. Arless also creates collages depicting sprawling Italianate villas and landscapes often featuring boats.

Next stop: Fort Isabel gallery, home to a bunch of great artists. Painters Suzanne King and Carol Hallock, glass artist Wes Koon, potter Kelly Landrum-Hammell, artists Carol Lapari, Martin Needom, Johnny Stout and Beryl Carbon are all member/owners. Carol Hallock has submitted a streetcar design I’ll be getting up on the site soon.

Kelly Landrum-Hammell is the proprietor of Three Dog Pottery in Carriere, Mississippi. She makes raku pottery, but also specializes in her own brand of horsehair and feather pottery. She throws white clay pieces, and when the kiln reaches 1500 scorching degrees, she removes the piece and applies horsehair and/or feathers the hot piece, leaving unique carbon patterns on the finished ceramic. Though not Kelly’s, this site has some good examples of what can be accomplished with this technique.

Down the street I went into Spectrum Gallery next to the Columbia Street Taproom who were featuring Garland Robinette and Robert Cook. Garland was there showing his portraiture work done in oil; he’s got a unique style that you wouldn’t guess came from this New Orleans television and radio icon.

While there I ran into Annie Strack, an artist and art writer best known for her nautical-themed watercolors and “boat portraits;” she is an official authorized artist for the U.S. Coast Guard, with paintings featured in the permanent collection of its fine-arts outreach program. Annie participated in the ForeKids Fleur de Lys public art project, but, unfortunately, she said she is not one of the streetcar artists this year. She did introduce me to another artist, Mary, who submitted a streetcar design. She’s going to email me with it for posting soon.

The final stop of the evening was Atelier, an interior design and antique house that is home to artists Marcia Homes and Jim Seitz. Jim’s pleasing impressionistic landscapes are a far cry from the precise medical and engineering illustrations he did for years before embarking on a new creative phase in life.

Sometimes being exiled on the Northshore isn’t too bad after all.