While in New Orleans this past weekend -- my first post-Katrina visit -- I made a beeline for Jackson Square.
In its heyday, Jackson Square played host to dozens of competing street readers. (My personal favorite, Professor Purple, lost everything in the hurricane and moved to St. Louis.) On Saturday -- a glorious day, with bright, clear skies and cool breezes -- there were only four of five readers lined up in the shadow of St. Louis Cathedral. Only one was giving a reading; the other four were sitting there, their well-worn deck weighed down by stones and crystals, watching the meager crowd passing by.
As is my custom, I lingered within earshot of the reading in progress, noting the deck in use (a copy of the Morgan-Greer, apparently dipped in tea to give it the look and feel of a far more ancient deck) and listening for the interpretations (based, in this case, far more on the reader's intuition or cold reading abilities than on assigned meanings ... which isn't always a bad thing). Apart from the occasional nod or shrug, the client offered little in the way of feedback; to be honest, she actually fidgeted, as though eager for her ten dollar, ten minute reading to end.
Things were a bit more lively along Bourbon Street, where I stopped in on Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo. The Tarot cards must be selling well there, as they've been moved up front, just to the right of the doorway. The selection of decks is good, but unsurprising, consisting mainly of decks from U.S Games, Lo Scarabeo, and A. G. Muller. They're in a glass case to protect them from sticky-fingered shoppers, but the friendly staff told me right away that sample copies of every deck in stock were available for my perusal.
Marie's got some competition, these days: several big, huge, glitzy, touristy Voodoo retail superstores packed with rubber snakes, faux voodoo dolls, and copies of the Waite-Smith deck lining their shelves. These stores may not be authentic, but they're everywhere, including Canal Street, where tourists too spooked by the real thing flock in droves to browse racks of voodoo charms mass-produced in China.
I tried in vain to visit the Bottom of the Cup Tearoom; no matter what time of day I stopped by, though, the doors were locked and the sign read "CLOSED!" On one visit, I did see someone behind the counter, but she was uninterested in activity at the door. I confess I was a bit relieved. On my last trip to the shop, the two women behind the counter tried several times to strong-arm me into buying a Tarot reading, and my very polite refusals were met with a mix of frostiness and hostility, even after I plunked down $75.00 for Tarot decks.
In short: more than a year after Katrina, the Quarter is open for business ... but crowds are thin, and the number of readers has been drastically reduced. If you visit, do make time for the Grey Line Katrina Tour -- a sober but eye-opening journey into the devastated portions of the city that few tourists ever see. It strikes a good balance between hope and harsh reality ... and can tell you more about the future of the Big Easy, I think, than the current crop of French Quarter Tarot readers can.
This is fascinating Mark.
I have only ever visited Boston and New England in the USA and New Orleans has always been a place that I would like to visit. (I'd quite like to visit Las Vegas and San Francisco as well!)
I'm currently reviewing Kathleen Charlotte's new book "Va-Va-Voodoo", so your report on the Voodoo shop is particularly interesting.
Posted by: Brian Stevenson | May 23, 2007 at 01:42 PM