My September 15 story in The New Orleans Advocate | The Times-Picayune (read it here) splits its word count between two French Quarter Museum Association institutions. Gallier House, 1132 Royal, has been dressed to demonstrate “Creole Death & Mourning” through November 11. The New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, 514 Chartres, is preparing to stage “Spirited Salon” events in October featuring a special exhibit tour, storytelling, and themed libations.
I may be pushing the season a little but the “Spirited Salon” will likely sell out, so my guidance in the paper is to book promptly if the spirits move you.
My podcast interview with Peter Dandridge of Gallier House is here:
Owen Ever and Grace Kennedy of the Pharmacy Museum discuss the “Spirited Salon” here:
There’s more on the “Creole Death & Mourning” tour here. Go here now to register for one of the “Spirited Salon” sessions.
Both museums promise an experience that’s grounded in the history of the spaces they occupy and the lives and afterlives of their former residents.
Said Dandridge: “What I always tell people when we’re training, I always try to reiterate that we don’t play fake it till you make it. That doesn’t work here because you never know who your audience is. I’ve had other docents and guides who have told me that they found out at the end of a tour that it was so-and-so and they looked it up and, you know, this person is like a published authority on this subject. They were just so happy they did not know that during the tour. So, yeah, we never know who our audience is going to be and so that’s (why we) try to be able to back up whatever it is that we’re saying.”
Images courtesy of the Hermann-Grima & Gallier Historic Houses and the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum.
Related to this column’s theme: Reservations are now open for the Friends of the Cabildo’s “Ghostly Gallivant,” an October 18 event recalling Gallatin Street, now called French Market Place. Pre-Storyville, Gallatin was the preferred local rue of vice. More here.
Also related, kind of: Save Our Cemeteries will host an evening lecture at 6 p.m. October 3 by JR Pepper. The title: “The Eternal Cities from the Big Easy to the Big Apple: An Exploration of Cemeteries of New Orleans and New York.” The location: Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home & Cemeteries. Tickets here.
Thanks as always for reading and maybe listening.
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