Fest 2007

Small but intrepid, I would describe the annual crowd this year. Though everything seemed differently shaped. The way a the lines and porportions that make up a street or a corner of a neighborhood in an urban setting shift once you really know them. Which I suppose I’m on my way to doing.

But take the weather. (Take it far away and bring me back some pleasant coastal breezes!) I had already, for example, sweated through a July and August in New Orleans, so May seemed easy. I wore jeans one day with nary a care for the heat. Marking time through change, as we residents do, well, I had only been gone a month, maybe 6 weeks. Everything seemed blessedly and terribly the same. Though I know that Willa Mae’s is open now, and that Dooky Chase has served its first meal. Still, what my eyes scanned for out the car windows were my own landmarks: my post office, my house, my bayou (like it could ever be mine; ours, I should say). My England, my neighborhood bar, my Liuzza’s. Etcetera.

So anyway, small and intrepid. Kind of like this guy:

Sell’s oldest son, the veteran in our multigenerational army of music lovers. This year we were favored by three generations of Sells: Jim and Ellen, Andrew and Neelam and Katie and Christian, and the littleuns. Fabulous. They ate their share of crawfish, that’s for sure.