“Flo said...
You're down there in voodooland, Max. The spirits are restless. Tommy Hitchcock's spirit is directing you over to St. Charles Ave, my contacts say your ultimate hat is settin just inside the doorway of Meyer The Hatter, hurry up, thank me later.”
I was a half-step ahead of you Flo. Rounding the corner, I wondered if Meyer was still in existence. The good news is that they are.
The bad news is that my coconut straw-holy grail Hitchcock will probably remain a figment at best. Meyer had great hats…panamas…porkpies with non-ghetto brims…scores of really nice toppers…but the Hitchcockian mongrelized gambler porkpietian thang that Flo knows I covet, ain’t in the Easy.
But these were. Just around the corner from Meyer. And I put ‘em on lay-a-way.
I head back to Old Town Alexandria in a few hours and I don’t think I've ever been as content as I am right now. I decamped New Orleans over fifteen years ago and this; my first return visit has been great. I was in London for almost triple the amount of time about fifteen months ago and I think I blogged one story about that visit. New Orleans, in all of its arrogantly shabby granularity has me loaded with a dozen stories—at least.
The highlights are too many to mention in one story. Musings culinary, literary, sounds, shapes and textures are knocking around my noggin; on deck for sharing with you. But for now, I’ll say that the absolute highlight was having dinner with the fella pictured above. How many people do you know, who at six years old, sported the perfect Brooks Brothers button down collar roll. Custom made for him of course, at the Brethren Mother Church on Madison Avenue. Any six year old kid who had his own charge privileges at Billingsley’s Stork Club, not surprisingly then, would swath in bespoke Brooks OCBDs. He’s a bit older now and has a lovely wife who is the quintessential Southern Steel Magnolia. We all supped at a gem of a place in Uptown…I’ll share a story about it later.
Onward. To dat airport.
ADG, II
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