Letter from New Orleans

Hey y’all,

I had a speaking gig in New Orleans, so I’m writing this letter from a hotel room in the French Quarter. Here are 10 things I thought were worth sharing this week:

1. I made a zine about the two things that motivate me: death & deadlines.
   
   

2. “One of the most important lessons that New Orleans offers: Go with what is. Use what happens.” After evacuating for Hurricane Katrina, Tom Piazza wrote Why New Orleans Matters in six weeks and published the book only three months after the storm. I love the way he writes about jazz funerals. To dance and celebrate in the wake of a death “is a way of containing opposites that are a part of life in a way that allows the individual, and the community, to function with style and grace, even wit, under the most adverse circumstances.”
   
   

3. “Pointless, sporadic, and free.” That’s how Rob Walker describes his Letters from New Orleans, a collection of emails he sent to friends after moving to the city. The book was published a few months before Hurricane Katrina, so, while every book is a kind of time capsule, this one is even more so. I had fun reading a “deep cut” from a friend whose writing I read every week. (If you haven’t already, you should subscribe to his newsletter The Art of Noticing.)
   
   

4. “Katrina was the canary in the coalmine for nearly every issue we face now,” my friend, photographer, and New Orleans native Clayton Cubitt once tweeted. “People would do well to learn from our suffering *and* coping mechanism pleasures.” Here are the photos he took in the aftermath of the storm. (The highlight of my trip was walking all the way from the French Quarter to the Bywater and having dinner and drinks with Rob and Clayton at Bacchanal.)
   
   

5. RIP photographer, cook, and writer Pableaux Johnson, who died earlier this year doing what he loved: photographing a second line parade in New Orleans. His friend recently shared his recipe for cornbread.
   
   

6. Playlist: We threw a crawfish party at our house last weekend before my trip, so I made a mix with a bunch of New Orleans funk and soul, most of it built around some wonderful Soul Jazz compilations like Saturday Night Fish Fry. (I really need to read up more on The Meters, Allen Toussaint, and Sea-Saint Studio.)
   
   

7. Documentary: I wish I’d seen this clip of how to eat a crawfish from Les Blank’s documentary 1978 film about New Orleans Always For Pleasure before our party. (Shout-out to Le Bleu here in Austin, who does ‘em Viet-Cajun style.)
   
   

8. Radio: you bet I listened to a lot of WWOZ when I was in town. A treasure trove!
   
   

9. Next time I’m here, I want to visit Music Box Village. Later this month, one of my Austinite heroes, Thor Harris, is playing the venue with Water Damage.
   
   

10. “‘What is the nature of the search?‘ you ask. Really it is very simple; at least for a fellow like me. So simple that it is easily overlooked. The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life.” I plan on making a big dent in Walker Percy’s New Orleans novel The Moviegoer on the flight home.
    

Thanks for reading. This hand-rolled, ad-free, AI-free, anti-algorithm publication is made possible thanks to the love and support of readers like you. If you want to help keep it going, buy my books, hire me to speak at your event, or, best of all, become a paid subscriber:

xoxo,

Austin

P.S. Please enjoy this animation that my son Jules made. (He just turned 10 years old on Tuesday!) I am working up the illustrations for my next book about how much he and his older brother inspired me when they were little, but the truth is, they’re still inspiring me, every day. I love traveling, but I love being home with them even more.