The guerilla street poetry etched in New Orleans' A/C grills

The joys of scratching words into soft metal

During our first few months in New Orleans, Thomas and I noticed a few things. A). There were bumpers lying all over the place. B). Sane people don’t do simple errands, like driving to Lowe’s to buy a weedwacker, during Mardi Gras. C). People can’t seem to stop themselves from scratching stuff into the aluminum grills of street-facing window units. I suppose it’s the same satisfaction one gets from writing something in wet cement (which people do here, too, with great creativity and style).

Scratching text in the grill of a window unit makes no sense in the first place, so it’s not suprising people usually write something cryptic like “Cher HD.” Honestly, if I’d decided to become a window-unit vandal, I think I’d adopt the dumber tag of “Cher A/C.”

CRUSAWE? CRUS AWE? CRUSADE? CRUS AVE? CLUS AVVE??

I think that top word might be “Clouet,” as in Clouet Street, home to one of our favorite coffee shops, Petite Clouet Cafe.

I think this person borrowed a ladder from the hardware store, went outside, vandalized the grill, and took the ladder back inside. Also, what instruments are people using for this? Their keys? A special art awl? A coke nail?

This practice is so pervasive — I have yet to see an unprotected A/C unit that’s unmarked and umolested — people are forced to go to great lengths to protect their air conditioner from getting some unwanted flourishes.

This guy above figured it out, though. “Not today, Satan!”

From far away, this almost looked like a done-up window unit. The first dead giveaway that was not the case: it wasn’t in a window.

Here’s what’s up: New Orleanians have a compulsion to transform anything boring, practical, or everyday into something fancier and weirder. They can’t help it. Case in point: this headboard, hand-painted with Veves, out in the sidewalk for bulk trash collection. On a nearby street, someone else turned one of the oldest and most practical human inventions ever — the glass window — into a nighttime poetry billboard.

There are days when this Utah girl loses her patience with New Orleans’s zaniness and lack of practicality. But I do hope this place softens me up and teaches me how to subvert, decorate and amp up the mundane. It’s a good art to master.

Shoutouts and Housekeeping

Thanks to new subscribers L.T., Jennifer C. and Krisia. I’m always grateful to readers, paid and unpaid, as well as readers who’ve thrown some coffee money my way. You guys are the best.

Thomas’s sub-Substacks, Silver Tray and Artica Ever After, have tons of new content going up at a steady clip, so keep checking over there (or subscribe!). Silver Tray focuses on music of the STL diaspora, and AEA documents that wild and lively North Riverfront arts fest, Artica, which is one of our favorite events of the year.