Dear Minneapolis,
A little birdie tells me you are planning to visit us before the clock runs out on the summer vacation season, and we eagerly await the opportunity to charm you.
As the gracious hosts we are, however, it only feels right to warn you: August is hot in New Orleans.
And when we say “hot,” we’re not talking about those upper 70s that pass for high temperatures in your neck of the woods this time of year.
Here, that’s turkey-frying weather. Our overnight lows in August have been known to equal your noontime highs.
Then there is the New Orleans humidity, which is, to describe it in a single word, aggressive. In two words: chafed thighs.
You think you are ready for it. You are not.
Mere words cannot accurately describe the way the combination of heat and humidity takes your breath away the moment you step off the plane and into the steam-filled jetway at Louis Armstrong International Airport.
For locals, that unique sensation is a welcome sign of home, like a meteorological bearhug. For visitors, however, it can be more like a pillow pressed over the face.
That was the experience of Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix, the priest-chronicler who, upon visiting the then-3-year-old city in 1721, crankily but accurately described it as “a hundred wretched hovels in a malarious, wet thicket of willows and dwarf palmettos, infested by serpents and alligators.”
I am sure he wrote those words with love.
Either way, they still ring largely true more than 300 years later. True, we boast a few more hovels today. We have also elevated many of those serpents to elected office. Still, the other points remains sound.
Fortunately, when it comes to dealing with the climate, we have a notable advantage over the good padre: time.
Over the past three centuries, we have developed strategies for dealing with the “Dune”-like conditions. We thought it only good manners to share them with you.
First and foremost, it is worth considering one of the more commonly used nicknames for the city, The Big Easy.
Locals tend to roll their eyes at that particular moniker. The blame there is owed to the 1986 movie of the same name, which in these parts is synonymous with lazy, tin-ear attempts at a South Louisiana dialect.
In truth, the origin of the term is murky. Regardless, today it is often used to describe the easy-does-it pace of life here, which – given the August heat – is a necessity if you want to stay conscious until dinner. (Which you do.)
In a New Orleans summer, we never run if we can walk, and we never walk if we can sit. Here, spectating is considered an aerobic activity, and dancing while seated is an entirely acceptable form of exercise.
The place demands you take it easy, and bigly.
So, when in New Orleans, do as the locals do. Slow down. Stop, even. Take it easy. Breathe. Mop your brow. Order a drink. Order another.
It is one thing to visit New Orleans, but the keys to experiencing it are most easily found in stasis.
If you look closely, you will see that the city was in many ways built to deal with the oppressive heat. Take the architecture – the high ceilings and the full-length windows and French doors. As attractive as they are, they are not there for mere ornamentation.
The high ceilings give the hot air an unoccupied place to go, and the windows are there to keep the air parading through. They might be primitive, but they still work wonders.
Then there are our postcard-ready balconies.
Much has been made about the simple pleasure of hanging out on a New Orleans stoop, and there are certainly communal pleasures to be found there. But the needle moves from merely pleasant to sublime if you have the opportunity to spend an afternoon on an upper-floor balcony lazing in the breezes coming in off the river or lake.
Should you have a steady stream of Sazeracs to go with it, you will think you had died and gone to Antoine’s.
If you are in search of true bliss, upon descending from your breezy Big Easy perch, you should seek out an authentic New Orleans snoball – wedding cake if you love life; spearmint if you must.
Follow the above advice and you might still be warm by Minneapolis standards, but you will be the epitome of New Orleans cool.
Insincerely yours, New Orleans
