21
... Intermission: We Get Back to Some Sin in Its Offing ...
Everything's left unfinished in New Orleans, and the French Quarter Campaign against Algiers was no different. Though there were, as always, plenty of things to take its place, as the smoke cleared back into the crack and heroin smoke characteristic of the Crescent City.
You've no doubt observed the allusions to Virgil, Ovid, William Faulkner, and Kurt Vonnegut in the Present Work. You have doubtless gone even further, to recognize the parodies and similarities between Town Full of Hoors and As I Lay Dying, Cat's Cradle, and Winesburg, Ohio, by former New Orleanean and Faulkner mentor Sherwood Anderson.
Well, Good for You, Rigoletto. Write that Master's Thesis. Nobody's gonna stop your sorry ass. Get a degree and Start Teaching and Squawking Shit. God knows you wouldn't be the First.
And so, after this, 10 days to go. What can happen? A LOT, but not to locals like, say, Benjamin Irizarry who have been Weighed and found Wanting in the Balance. And who cares, pal? Don't take yourself so goddamn serious. God knows I don't.
But now for a Moment of Silence for all those Dead Algerians! And for a brief Intermission. Pour yourself a drink. Or better, have somebody else pour you a drink. I'll do both, and just sit back here on my little Balcony reflecting on all those New Orleaneans who are now Dead, though Hell for New Orleaneans is simply New Orleans without the grenadine.
And there'll be a Hot Time in the Old Town
Tonight.
But here's the time to bring some people out for bows. My Dixieland Jazz Band!
On drums, as always, Damon Sauve of Berkeley, a ballsy dude and a terrific friend. On Sax, Courtney Reardon, who's been better than Coltrane thus far. On the trumpet, well, there are two of you, one on the Dedication Page and one in Chapter 16. And 17. And 18, 19, and 20.
On Bass, the City of New Orleans, where I, your Author, live. And on Trombone, Vicky Marshall-Blair, and may you Always be Happy.
The conducter of this band cannot be named due to the process described in Chapter 13, but Tony, Thank You. And tonight, on vocals,
Good Evening New Orleans! San Francisco, glad to have you with us. Y'all be good up there in Raleigh, now! Hello to all the students at Xavier University, hello to those in Gainesville, Florida. Whoever you are in the UK, keep coming back! It Works if you Work it. And to all of you in Boston, I love your ass, and we're glad to have you aboard.
Because there's a Ride ahead of us, yet. And I'm fin' to take you on it. But ah! As the Bard had his Man say,
Consider it not so deeply.
'Cause this is the Town where your own Mask takes you over.
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