Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Six: Feet on the Street: Rambles Around New Orleans

So, inspired by an upcoming trip to New Orleans, I decided I wanted to read some current travel-ish writing on the city, which I've visited briefly once before (and whose literature I took a superb undergrad class on).  Perusing my library's catalog, I found this title by Roy Blount Jr., whose name I recognized from listening to Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me, so I decided to check it out.  Feet on the Street certainly engages in the kind of fetishization of New Orleans that so much of the writing on that city I've read also employs--it seems rather inevitable, but it isn't unpleasant once you've resigned yourself to it.  This is certainly a rambling book, but that seems to capture the flavor of the city as Blount depicts it: laid-back, meandering (or at least the Mississippi River is, but how can one separate river from city in this case?), not driven by a point or a goal but by a certain joie de vivre.  Much time is spent discussing oysters, but this is an interesting (and short!) slice of life in New Orleans as one outsider has experienced it on his numerous visits there.  Also, it's made me want to re-read A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams and The Awakening by Kate Chopin...  If you like contemporary travel writing, or books about New Orleans, I'd suggest Feet on the Street.