TRAVEL REVIEW AND PHOTOS

BY FRED H. BERGER

ew Orleans, the vampire

and voodoo Mecca of
America, home to such
Rice, Poppy Z. Brite, Trent
Rezner and Marilyn Manson; a
city with more hauntings and more
murders than any other in this
great and scary land of ours. It is a
place which reeks of moldering
decay, of the perverse, the surreal,
it’s sunken atmosphere sweet to the
senses of artists and adventurers in
eled by the likes of The Vampire
Lestat and Harold Angel, the
Faustian anti-hero of the film
Angel Heart. The unique and
poignant confluence of Cajun and
Caribbean cultures is at its magical
apex in the French Quarter, where
young male hustlers, palmists and
ers ply their ungodly trades in the
very shadow of Saint Louis
Cathedral. Dating back to 1718, this
elegant gothic edifice is the oldest
cathedral in America. It seems to
float, mute and mournful, like a
vision of the Madonna over the
and an entire city of lost souls.
The very falleness of New Orleans
in general, and the Quarter in par¬
ticular, is the source of its allure, its
enchantment, which shimmers in
the gas light of narrow cobblestone
streets, in the glowing windows of
whimsical antebellum and Napo-
addled street children and the per-
them. And on the Quarter’s fringe,
like some macabre refuse washed up
on its distant shore, is New Orleans’
oldest cemetery, Saint Louis #1, and
the equally gothic and ghostly abode
of the dead, “Angel,” the Big Easy’s
paramount nightspot for the chil¬ dedicated to Azrael, the Angel of
dren of the night. Although the old Death, in the finest tradition of styl¬ soiled ancTblood-stained sheets; it is
burial ground plays host to the occa- ish morbidity. One need look no fur-
sublime, f
danse macabre takes place at this ness lurks in the heart of this place
cavernous and lavishly decorated of spirits and menace, this forbid¬ Angel Club: 2441 Bayou Rd.
club, where those of the “death rock” den paradise on the banks of the (off Esplanade, 3 minutes from
persuasion gather for wine and song Mississippi. And like that great the French Quarter). (504)940-0666
all week long.
And in keeping with the ghastly ica’s heartland, this is where the Westgate: 5219 Magazine St.
and otherworldly is the Westgate long and winding trail of error ter¬
minates, in sordid alleyways, be- Provincial house). (504)899-3077
*ir
 I must hereby apologize to Poppy for attempting to vampire stories edited and introduced by our own Ms. Brite),
uncover her trick, but I too have learned of the pleasures and by Penguin, the UK-publisher of LOST SOULS, DRAW¬
ING BLOOD, and Poppy’s short story anthology SWAMP
fascinating anecdote, as related to me by the author, and to FOETUS, it seemed as if her fangs had been effectively
conceal the identity of her lover, now ex-lover (goth boys pulled, never again to pierce lovingly the collective neck of
being “too high maintenance” by her reckoning), this lus¬ her devoted readership.
cious lad shall henceforth be referred to by his drag name The agents of political correctness and of creeping con¬
Kitty. For as fate, and Poppy’s proclivities, would have it, servatism, those strange bedfellows who together soil the
the youth was the prettiest waitress at Lucky Cheng’s, a sheets behind the placid facade of mass culture, had appar¬
ently succeeded in silencing what is arguably the most gen-
generation, the one they euphemistically refer to in corpo-
came Simon & Schuster to save our heroine, our Saint of the
Pit, from the fate of the banned; EXQUISITE CORPSE
would have its publisher, and one exceeding in prestige all
those other faint-of-heart book peddlers who failed to rise to
the occasion. Like Luke Ransom, Poppy’s alter ego in
glimpse of the manuscript he was carrying, the first 40 to EXQUISITE CORPSE, she revels in the fact that her work
50 pages of EXQUISITE CORPSE, which to their provincial is either “revered or reviled,” herself having “no use for the
bourgeois minds looked unnervingly like the diary of a ser¬
ial murderer; never mind that the one who possessed it was such explosive material, whether it be Luke’s debut novel,
a frail wisp of a boy with just the sort of face that seemed to “Faith In Poison,” or Poppy’s latest literary bombshell?
have “abuse me” written all over it. Alas, his was the pouty Influenced by William S. Burroughs and Bauhaus
and irresistibly smooth, fine-boned visage of the “perfect (according to Luke, Peter Murphy had once hoped he’d die
victim.” And with his actual daily diary replete with astro¬ of AIDS in Paris), Poppy’s over-the-top style is a remarkable
logical entries, tarot readings and references to mushrooms synthesis of beauty and Evil, and hence a powerful emotive
and cannabis, the borderland bullies subjected the ‘little
pervert’ to a grueling 6-hour interrogation session which doxically in others, of stroking the very soul by way of the
ended with an official refusal to grant him entry into the flesh. Only a writer as possessed of such poetic eloquence as
U.S. It was only after several formal psychological evalua- this could ever hope to accomplish the mystic translation of
a litany of debauchery and mayhem into a psalm of adora¬
was permitted to cross the border. Rest- tion in praise of the naked body as communion wafer, of gap¬
sleep better at night knowing the Mounti< ing wounds as portals to divine revelation, body fluids as the
hallowed medium of love, gushing arteries as founts of
Such are the pitfalls of the prodigy, the secret knowledge, disease as precious gift Cyeah, sure it is’),
daemon lover carrying a message, the meanir AIDS as martyrdom, torture and defilement of the dead as
even he can fully comprehend, but which sacred ritual. Poppy describes Tran as “drop-dead beautiful,”
known in the fullness of time. and from this postulation, ar-
Home is where
the “Heartland!

REVIEW AND PHOTOS BY FRED SRGER

The Voluptuous Horror of
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