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Calliope Street

Spotlight on a Southern blog about life in New Orleans.

We continue our ongoing feature highlighting blogs throughout the South with one from The Big Easy today. Marketing executive Arthur Smith writes the blog “Calliope Street” from his ground floor apartment on Burgundy and Esplanade Avenue on the edge of the New Orleans French Quarter. Described as “mispronounces about life in New Orleans and the big world beyond,” Smith gets into the mispronounces part right away with his choice of blog name.

A street that runs through the central part of the city, Calliope is correctly pronounced KAL-ee-ope, and New Orleanians can spot a tourist from a mile away just from their mispronunciation of this word. By the way, Smith’s street name of Burgundy is pronounced Bur-GUN-dee.

Smith’s blog doesn’t take itself that seriously, though. Post topics range from a morning walk through the Quarter to activity along the Mississippi River as flood waters were rising and Palm Sunday in the city. The best part? Smith is also an excellent photographer, and most posts are heavy on photos of New Orleans sites and people. We love his photo below, titled “Debauchery at Pontchartrain Beach.”

Earlier this summer, Smith captured a group of Russians playing volleyball in Lake Pontchartrain. Pontchartrain Beach was formerly an amusement park complete with a roller coaster, bumper cars, haunted house, concession stand and live concerts from the likes of Elvis Presley. The park closed in 1983, and today New Orleanians use the spot as a way to cool off in the summer months.

To find out more about the nuances of life in New Orleans, bookmark Calliope Street. If nothing else, you’ll learn how to pronounce a few street names.

The Snow Shack
Heat and Hullabaloo
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