"I'm walkin' to New Orleans..."

ROSEMARY: Not really walking, but I love that song. Fats Domino.
Once again I've been asked to put together Mystery Day at ALA. ALA is the American Library Association and twice a year they hold conferences which get anywhere from 8,000 to 20,000 attendees (depending on location.) It is a lot of work, but I love it and it lets me hang out with some really cool writers.

On Saturday June 25, we'll hold panel discussions and one on one interviews all day and we have a stellar lineup which includes Amy Alessio, Frankie Bailey, Rhys Bowen, Jane Cleland, Barbara Fister, Steve Hamilton, Carolyn Hart, Libby Fischer Hellmann, JA Jance, Ken Kuhlken, Nancy Martin, Cathy Pickens, Karin Slaughter, Julie Smith, Elaine Viets, Michael Wiley...and me. And what better city to party in than New Orleans?

I confess I was not always a big fan of The Big Easy (actually I'm a big fan of Ellen Barkin so I love the movie of the same name) but it's hard to stay on a diet there, the streets are frequently crowded with rowdy college students and then there's the whole boobs and beads thing which I just don't get. It didn't help that when I was in the video business I had to go there once a year for a television programming conference and one year we had the misfortune of booking a party space right next to a place where Howard Stern was having a party. It was a disaster.

But one thing changed my mind - Preservation Hall.
A friend in the music business took me there years ago and now no trip to NOLA is complete without at least one and usually two trips to Preservation Hall where the musicians change but the music never does. And I always request the same song, Petit Fleur by Sidney Bechet. They don't serve food or alcohol - that's okay there's no shortage of either in Nawlins - and they shoo you out after one set, but for me it's the quintessential New Orleans experience and I can't wait to go back. Anyone else know what it means to miss New Orleans?

HANK: I covered the Super Bowl there! When the Patriots played the Bears. It was hilarious..and because I was the feature reporter, I went everywhere and saw everything. That was pre-Katrina, of course, so I know it's all different now. SO sorry to miss ALA this year..sigh. Have chicory coffee and a beignet for me.

HALLIE: New Orleans is always about the food for me. YES, chicory coffee and beignets. Crawfish. Oysters oysters oysters. Po-boy sandwiches eaten on the street while listening to jazz. Are they eating local seafood again? Bread pudding so many wonderful ways. Bananas Foster. (Hank, I think we were there that year - I remember the hotel was crawling with football players.)

ROSEMARY: Hank, you covered the Super Bowl..that's so cool. Bananas Foster...does anyone know who Foster was? Acme Oyster House, Jacques Imo and Mother's. Actually saw Dr. John having lunch at Mother's once, peek experience. And zydeco at MidCity Bowling Alley.

HANK: Yes, it was wonderful..although we stayed on a river boat that was under construction--what I remember most about it: the towels were the size of--dish towels. But when you cover a story like that, there's zero time for sleeping--I remember being up literally all night editing in room we had rigged. But I saw Richard Gere in Jackson Square, and at Galatoires's, Jimmy Buffet!

ROBERTA: Funnily enough, just saw Ellen Barkin in THE NORMAL HEART, which we talked about here a couple weeks ago. About as far from the big easy as she could get!

I love NOLA and am very sorry to miss the ALA mystery event you arranged Ro! When I was in graduate school, the powers that be let us students borrow the "research Winnebago." We loaded it with beer and other refreshing drinks and drove ten hours. About half the crowd slept in the trailer in the parking lot downtown. Such Fun! The administration curtailed further excursions when the next driver sheered the top of the vehicle off by driving under something too low for its height. Tee hee, those were good times.

Oysters, beignets, and don't forget the muffalottas! Julia Reed's THE HOUSE ON FIRST STREET is an interesting foodie memoir about rebuilding a home after Katrina.

DEB: Oh, I'm hungry just thinking about it. Oyster po'boys! Beignets. Crawfish anything. Haven't been to NOLA in way too long. So sorry I'm missing ALA this year. Sniff. Ya'll have fun without me . . . The Big Easy, by the way, is one of my favorite movies ever, and I LOVE the soundtrack. Any votes on who's aged better, Dennis Quaid or Ellen Barkin? Mine goes to Ellen.


Oh, and Roberta, thanks for the book recommendation. That's just the kind of read I love.

ROSEMARY: Ellen! No contest!! Okay, since we're talking about Ellen Barkin, I saw her once at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires. Gorgeous. When they called my name for my treatment, she said "good name." I was so excited I didn't relax during the massage. I've always thought she would make a great Babe Chinnery. Ellen, are you out there..I know where you can get the rights ;-)!!

What should we not miss in New Orleans?? Best recommendation gets a container of chicory coffee and a box of Cafe du Monde beignet mix.

A Friend on Broadway: The Normal Heart

HALLIE: I know this is a detour for Jungle Red, but I hope you will indulge me...

Tomorrow night is the Broadway opening for Larry Kramer's searing drama, "The Normal Heart." It's about the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and I only wish that my friend Dr. Linda Laubenstein (in the picture at the left) could be there to see it.

One of the play's main character, Dr. Emma Brookner, is a smart, caring, take-no-prisoners physician who has been confined to a wheel chair since she contracted childhood polio. Emma Brookner is based on Linda. Linda was also my roommate at Barnard College and a dear friend.

"The Normal Heart" ran for years off-Broadway in the '80s and since in various productions. Dr. Emma Brookner has been played by, among others, actresses Julie Harris, Barbara Bel Geddes, Joanna Gleason, and Judith Lightfoot. Barbara Streisand optioned the play for years, planning to play the role herself in a film version.

Now, on Broadway at last, Ellen Barkin steps into the role; Joe Mantello plays Ned Weeks, the character based on Larry Kramer; Joel Grey directs.

I met Linda the day I arrived from California as a freshman at Barnard College in 1965. She was attractive and slim with straight brown hair cut in bangs, and big features--large, expressive brown eyes and a toothy smile that took over her face. From years of physical therapy, her shoulders were muscular; from a summer spent on Cape Cod her skin was the color of coffee with cream in it. Despite multiple operations, her back was twisted. Her legs, encased in steel braces, were delicate and child-like. Among other things, we shared a subscription to the New York City Ballet.

I never intended to become friends with Linda. I have no patience with people who can't keep up. It turned out, neither did Linda.

She went on to complete her MD at NYU in 1973, became a hematologist, and in 1979 she was at the heart of the early discovery of AIDS. She was the first among her profession to hear the name Gaetan Dugas, the flight attendant who would become known as "Patient Zero," the friend and common denominator to both of the first gay men patients whom she saw with unusual cancerous lesions. She organized the first medical conference on AIDS, and developed a groundbreaking chemotherapy regimen, a so-called AIDS cocktail, that prolonged lives.

In the 1980s, Linda got to know Larry Kramer, the outspoken writer and activist who organized the Gay Men's Health Cooperative and the more radical ACT UP. She treated his partner and many of his friends, making house calls via New York City transit busses. When they died, as they all did, she went to their funerals.

Over the decade of their friendship, Kramer told me that he became Linda's voice, and she became his conscience. She didn't mind that he wrote a play about her, but he once told me she was furious that he'd put her character in a wheelchair. She refused to attend even a single performance.

Linda died suddenly in 1992. I wish she'd seen "The Normal Heart" because her friend Larry really did justice to her and all of her anger, despair, and passion. I wish I could be there Wednesday with Linda's mother Priscillla and her brother Peter, and to congratulate Larry Kramer, still alive against all odds, when the play opens at the John Golden Theatre on West 45th Street.

The Broadway cast of The Normal Heart with Ellen Barkin playing Dr. Emma Brookner and Joe Mantello as Ned Weeks.