NOLA: city of interlopers

last week, c and i finally got to new orleans after a grueling 24-hr drive that included an overnight stay at the athens, tennessee Amada (note: *not* Ramada. the owner had put construction paper, cardboard, or wite-out over all the R's in an apparent effort to avoid having to pay franchise fees.)

the first place we went after unloading the car and getting the fur people settled was the "wave goodbye," the annual tulane u eat-outside-while-standing-up festival thingy thrown for graduating seniors, their parents, and oh yah, staff. it's name comes from the soothingly named tulane mascot, the green wave. you have to have a ticket to the wave goodbye, and it looks like a giant outdoor wedding. big round tables, mingling, best foot forward, etc. charmaine neville was the musical guest this year (i think it's always a neville). the catered food is kitchy new orleans-y food, presumably to give the visiting families a taste of local cuisine, like the presence of a neville is supposed to give them a taste of local culture. so there was pulled pork sandwiches, crawfish pies, shrimp bbq cheesecake, etc. etc. and of course lines for this delicious stuff that i, personally, could not eat fast enough. no booze--but all the coke products you care to drink.

i've never seen such concentrated upper-middle classitude in my life. well, concentrated and huge. depth and breadth. overwhelmingly, the outfits were all tasteful and fashionable but not trendy or brightly colored. (with a few exceptions, of course. every wedding needs its guest that stands out and makes everyone else feel slightly embarrassed.) everyone had very good manners. the non-white people seemd powerful. the younger siblings seemed resentful. the parents seemed dutiful and excited.

we left in favor of more fermented refreshment. on our way out, we were following a crowd of graduates and their families, and once we were outside the gates of the wave goodbye and its bright lights, we were in the new orleans dark except for the big globe streetlamps that stand outside the main tulane gates welcoming people. and these big globe streetlamps were surrounded, enclouded, engulfed, totally covered in termites (which, btw, fly, which i did not know). disgusting winged creatures that were landing on the giant sunglasses pushed up on the heads of the young ladies, nestling in the folds of the matronly summer gear of the moms, hooking onto the lapels of the dads. disgusting, disgusting termites. and, significantly, not native to the area, but brought in via some container or palette, foreign fauna that nobody wants or likes. unwelcome degraders. i had termites in my clothes still at the pizza place we went to after, and i had to go to the ladies room to check the undies. as in: i had to check my underwear for termites.

disgusting as they are, those termites are doing their thing that they really didn't get to decide to do. not unlike the tulane parents. it would be easy to make comparisons between the parents and the termites, both guests to the city, and with termites gnawing away at the wood of the city and the upper class parents and their progeny gnawing away at the authentic local culture. but 1.) the termites are just gross, no one sees them as a crisis (yet?) and 2.) the parents aren't really doing that and in fact who doesn't love the nevilles and crawfish pie?

the comparison more lies in the fact that both are interested in reproducing themselves, and in maintaining an environment for their young in order that they, too may someday breed. perhaps young ashley met some good stock who just got accepted to law school. perhaps matt or bret or josh or brian met a young lady on her way to a promising advertising career. don't get me wrong, i don't really think termites have names, i just wanted to anthropomorphize a bit to convey my point. in any case, these human parents with their polite and enthusiastic smiles swarmed toward the free food and music to cheer on their offspring, in much the same way that the termites with their fluttery creepy bodies swarmed toward the brightest light around to likewise create conditions condusive to continuing their species. maybe we would do well to consider our likeness to the termites, as long as we keep them out of our underwear.