Years ago I stumbled on Anthony Burgess’ 99 Best Novels. Too lazy to research and find good books to read, I started plowing my way through his list. I eventually encountered The Confederacy of Dunces written by John Kennedy Toole. It featured the exploits of one Ignatius J. Reilly, and was one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. However, Burgess explained the sad background to the novel in that it was published posthumously after its author had committed suicide. I remember thinking how unfair life can sometimes be. Dude tries and tries to get his book published, can’t do so, gets depressed, kills himself, book is published and then it wins a Pulitzer Prize, go figure. Found this website containing a film documentary on Toole that gives you some info on him and his life.
On our way to New Orleans a few weeks back, I told Pam that I had three specific things I wanted to see or do there: visit the Easy Rider cemetery, see the statue of Ignatius Reilly and check out the Superdome. Turns out that the Superdome was easy to check out as we drove right past it on the way in. (I was only a little disappointed that it is named the Mercedes Benz Superdome. If they had to sell the naming rights to a foreign car maker, couldn’t they have persuaded the French to pony up say the Renault instead of letting the Germans snake their way in? After all, it is New Orleans man, come on.)
Turns out that the hotel we were staying in was located just up the street from the Chateau Bourbon Hotel where the statue of Ignatius resides in front of it. Pam grabbed this photo shortly after we had checked in and were making our way to the French Quarter.
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| St. Louis Cemetery #3 |
Later that day, we took a city bus tour which stopped at St. Louis Cemetery #3. Our guide gave us the low down on how the bodies are laid out in the tombs and how the tombs are bought and sold etc. When he asked if there were any questions, I asked him where the Easy Rider acid scene was filmed. He answered that it was St. Louis Cemetery #1.
The next day driving around, we rode past Cemetery #1 but didn’t stop to visit. After seeing Cemetery #3, I did the math that if you’ve seen one Nawlins cemetery, you’ve seen ’em all. Did find this video of the scene filmed there however. Warning – the music to it is awful. My guess is that the movie producers didn’t want to spend any money to have something good like Lucy in the Sky accompany it. My suggestion is to mute this and “picture yourself” listening to something else.