What tourists may enjoy in New Orleans, Louisiana - video tour of highlights

This New Orleans video features the major highlights for a 3-5 day New Orleans tour: from Napoleon House, through Galatoire's to the Aquarium, from the New Orleans Museum of Art through the Column Hotel to the Barber Shop Men, Children's Museum etc. - and of course jazz at all measure.



The genre of the video film is like a tour video clip and and advertisement/ infomercial for foreverneworleans.com.

New Orleans Botanical Garden Video

Here's a quick peep into the Botanical Garden of New Orleans. The Botanical Garden was opened in 1936 as New Orleans' first public classical garden. It is "as a showcase of three notable talents: New Orleans Architect Richard Koch, Landscape architect William Wiedorn, and Artist Enrique Alferez"

The site contains the recently renovated Conservatory of the Two Sisters, several theme gardens containing aquatics, ornamental trees and shrubs, perennials, and the new New Orleans Historic Train Garden. The garden also encompasses the Pavilion of the Two Sisters, the Garden Study Center, and the rebuilt Lath House.

(source: New Orleans City Park.com)

I like the garden designs in New Orleans very much, especially in the Garden District and Uptown New Orleans where we usually bike and make our errands. The patios, front yards are simply beautiful, and more and more people are coming up with exquisite garden designs.

Needless to say, we also enjoy the various concerts the city pleases its visitors with. The Last Straws, a Dixie Land and Traditional Jazz band, played this March as part of the New Orleans Botanical Gardens Twilight Concert series. And many concerts are free!




I hope to see a plantation tour with the old-old oak trees folding their branches before returning to Budapest Hungary.

What Is Mardi Gras About?

'What Is Mardi Gras About?' is a fantastic video made by a fifth-grader teen called Kalypso. There are great pics of the Zulus, the floats, beads, dancers, the Muses, but most importantly, just after 6 months after hurricane Katrina made a huge destruction in the city, here comes a beautiful video narrative of what Fat Tuesday festivals, krewes, parties are all about - and what is New Orleans about, what was Katrina about.

The simple under-dramatized child tone makes the film very powerful. I loved it a lot. In fact, it is the very best post-Katrina (post-K) film I have seen so far. Thanks Kalypso! :)

Clint Maedgen: I Can't Give You Anything But Love

And another video in the French Quarter music series, this time Clint Maedgen sings "I Can't Give You Anything But Love,"(written originally by Jimmy McHugh in 1928) with Preservation Hall and Ben Jaffe.

It's the 2nd music video they made for Made in New Orleans: The Hurricane Sessions. This music video - made for Valentine's Day - was directed by Ron Rona & Clint Maedgen.

There are very nice shots of New Orleans French Quarter and typical New Orleans visions and images. I especially like the colors in this video. Anyway, it's a great video Valentine postcard. :)



And the lyrics (from Dorothy Fields):

I can't give you anything but love, baby.
That's the one thing I've plenty of, my baby.
Dream a while. Scheme a while.
And you will find,
Happiness, and I guess
all those things you've always pined for.

How I'd like to see you looking swell,
My little baby
Diamond bracelets Woolworth's never sell, my baby.
But till that lucky day you know darn well, my baby.
I can't give you anything but love.

I can't give you anything but love, baby.
That's the one thing I've plenty of, my baby.
Dream a while. Scheme a while.
And you will find,
Happiness, and I guess
all those things you've always pined for.


How I'd like to see you looking swell,
My little baby
Diamond bracelets Woolworth's never sell, my baby.
But till that lucky day you know darn well, my baby.
I can't give you anything
I can't give you anything
I can't give you anything but love.

and the bells ring...

Complicated Life in the French Quarter by Preservation Hall

This 2005 video clip of the song Complicated Life is set in the French Quarter (lower Decatur Street). It is very heart warming. The song was written by Ray Davies of the Kinks, here performed by New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band, and acted and sung out by Clint Maedgen coming complete with the New Orleans Bingo! Show.

Hey, one thing is sure, it will make you feel at ease. :) The don't worry - be happy effect kicks in.




Sing along with Clint - here's the lyrics of Complicated Life:

Ladi dah di dahdah, ladi dah di dah dah,
Ladi dah di dahdah, ladi dah di dah dah.

Well I woke this morning with a pain in my neck,
A pain in my heart and a pain in my chest,
I went to the doctor and the good doctor said,
You gotta slow down your life or you're gonna be dead,
Cut out the struggle and strife,
It only complicates your life.

Well I cut down women, I cut out booze,
I stopped ironing my shirts, cleaning my shoes,
I stopped going to work, stopped reading the news,
I sit and twiddle my thumbs cos I got nothing to do,
Minimal exercise,
To help uncomplicate my life.


Gotta stand and face it life is so complicated,
Ladi dah di dahdah, ladi dah di dah dah,
You gotta get away from the complicated life, son,
Life is overrated, life is complicated,
You must alleviate this complicated life.

Like old Mother Hubbard
I got nothin' in the cupboard,
I got no dinner and I got no supper,
Holes in my shoes, I got holes in my socks,
I can't go to work cos I can't get a job,
The bills are rising sky high,
It's such a complicated life,
Take it away.

Gotta stand and face it,
Life is so complicated.
Ladi dah di dahdah, ladi dah di dah dah
Gotta get away from the complicated life, son,
Life is overrated, life is complicated,
Must alleviate this complicated life.

Gotta get away from the complicated life, son,
Gotta get away from the complicated life.

An Atmospheric Video of New Orleans French Quarter

This great video montage made of New Orleans French Quarter conveys a lot from the local atmosphere. I like walking in the French Quarter especially when the weather is fine. There is jazz swirling in the air, easy going atmosphere, and lots of time on your hands, smiles on the faces. I like to hear 'sweetheart' when buying a cake, hear the ships on the Mississippi river, and, just to be, exist, listen, learn, talk, dream, have fun.




If you wish to learn more about the history of New Orleans French Quarter, check out this site for further info. In a nutshell:

Founded as a military-style grid of seventy squares in 1718 by French Canadian naval officer Jean Baptiste Bienville.

In 1762 the indifferent Louis XV transferred Louisiana to his Bourbon cousin Charles III of Spain.

Francophile colonists staged a revolution in 1768, squelched by Alejandro O'Reilly with a firing squad at the Esplanade fort.

1803 Louisiana Purchase transferred the colony to the US

The "glorious victory" of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans fixed loyalty to the American nation.

Golden era followed as cotton, sugar and steamboats poured into the city. American, Irish, German, African and "Foreign French" immigrants swelled the population of New Orleans

Civil War and Reconstruction: creoles moved to Esplanade and later Uptown, and famine-driven Sicilian immigrants found cramped lodging in the grand spaces of French Quarter mansions of the 1890s.

The 1900 birth of jazz in nearby Storyville nurtured musical legends Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Nick LaRocca, and other jazz and ragtime greats.

By 1920 the legacy of a storied past attracted artists in increasing numbers. William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote etc. were attracted to the French Quarter for its creative stimulus.

1936 marked the onset of regulatory controls in the form of the state-sanctioned Vieux Carré Commission to preserve the quaint and distinctive character of the old Quarter.

1960s traditional jazz in decline, Preservation Hall emerged to serve beleaguered musicians.

2005 Hurricane Catrina

Historical facts based on the Brief History of French Quarter by Sally Reeves