St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans, LA. Photo: Gregory Morris, Slippin' Southern

Now it's week two for me of living in the Crescent city and here some random thoughts on the place. I hope you find this entertaining, especially you Mr. Google... remember me?

Photo: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

A few things are becoming more clear. One is why they call it the Crescent city, it's because of how the river bends into a crescent right in front of the French Quarter. The city police use the crescent symbol along with a star to make up their logo, that's pretty clever for local law enforcement, don't you think?

Another big symbol here is the Flue-de-lis (French for flower of the lily). It's everywhere. And the symbolic meanings behind it date back many centuries and relate to so many different things it boggles the mind. Like no other city, New Orleans uses the symbol to decorate their homes, brand their Football team and promote fried chicken. Regardless of its history and what the symbol was originally designed for, today it stands for the essence of New Orleans. So I think I need to create a Fleur-de-Lis sign to keep up with the huge demand, watch for that coming shortly...

M. A. Hadley Pottery Fler-de-lis plate

What's still a mystery to me at this point? The term Who-dat. you see this everywhere, at the time of this bloggin' I'm not sure where the term comes from. I can imagine just about every other person I see on the street here saying it with a total striaght face. I know, it wouldn't be a mystery if I just Googled it but I love it when the reason comes to you naturally, in conversation with your neighbor. Maybe one of my readers could fill us all in on this one!

I'm also getting used to the city sounds here y'all. And for a big city, New Orleans' sounds are very charming, especially late at night, after everyone has gone to sleep and you're walking down the hall and here one of these sounds. Of course there's always the local traffic which sounds the same in any U.S. city with trucks, buses and what not. But beyond that, here you hear Riverboat horns, an occasional Calliope playing old show tunes, Freight Train horns, (the quiet kind, not the obnoxious kind).

Also like all big cities, roads and highways, are never done, there's always a percentage of streets and bridges that are always under reconstruction. And like other big cities, New Orleans has picked some real doosies downtown to work on all at once making traffic that is simply trying to cross the business section of downtown take forever.

I took a drive along I-10 today to get over to Walmart which is only 2 miles from my studio, but it's across downtown. I was struck by how many homeless people there were living under the I-10 Express ways that tower above the city. There must have been hundreds of people of all ages going about their everyday life, but just living under the brides. It was much more people than you would ever see in Chicago.

We had our first parade in front of our studio tonight. At about 10:00pm a flash-parade of people all came down Royal Street dressed in sort of punk-party outfits. By the time I got my camera out it had passed by the windows.

Just when you thought everything has been done on a T-shirt y'all!
This sanctified design fills my heart with joy.

Finally there are two signs I've got to make right now, a Flue-de-lis and a Slippin' Southern Gator for my studio. The Flur-de-lis will be in multiple sizes, I'm still thinking about what color to show it in, but you'll be able to order it in any of my 25 colors including metallics (silver, gold, and copper).

(P.S. Hey Y'all, is anybody reading this blog? If so give me a little shout out! Please leave a comment, even if you're just pointing out misspelled words, that's fine too -- Gregory :)