In Memory of What I Cannot Say

Thursday April 4th, New Orleans, Louisiana

Our luck with the weather has ended for now. Dawn came with a line of thunderstorms; Swiffer is very anxious with the sound of thunder and little we can do consoles him. I decided to wait until the rain broke to walk them but an especially vicious cell of the storm got all three dogs going — all of them barking and running back and forth, Baby nipping at my heels, and Swiffer then decided he couldn’t wait and peed all over the trailer floor — the full length of the place. In fairness to the dogs, thunderstorms are very loud in a trailer and more vicious in the south than we usually get at home. Even heavy rain coming down can be quite deafening in the trailer.

Fortunately the cell broke past and a gap opened up in the in the storm and I was able to get the dogs out into the park and almost all the way back before the rain started again with drops the size of large grapes. I was only 40 yards from the trailer when the rain started and we were all almost soaked before we got back inside. 

Because rain was in the forecast we had set today aside for the WW II Museum. The museum is billed as a big multi-media interactive exhibit and takes more than two days to see completely. We grabbed an Uber because the parking lot has a height limit of 6’8” — not quite enough height for me to be comfortable parking the pickup. Between waiting for the storms and cleaning up after the dogs we were a little later than I would have wanted so we arrived a full hour after the place opened at 9. I’d purchased advance tickets to avoid the line-up but so had everyone else — the will-call line was just as long and moving slower than the ticket purchase line and so another 30 minutes was lost of museum time.

The museum is well presented and does a lot to be interactive and interpretive. All of the galleries have a good balance of audio-visual, written and actual exhibits. The exhibits do have a strong focus on the human side of the war — letters, diaries, journals, personal stories and they do a great job of driving the impact on people and society home.

We started with a gallery that presented the art of Guy De Montlaur who was a French special forces officer in the French Army before the surrender and then joined the Free French special forces under De Gaulle after making his way to England in 1940. As a result he was one of the first French soldiers to set foot in France on D-Day ahead of the landing craft on Sword Beach and then headed for Pegasus Bridge to link up with the British Paratroops. They had an exhibit on his life and very impressive war record alongside a display of the weapons of the British Special Forces of which the Free French Commando formed a part. They had a small exhibit on PTSD and combat stress and its impact on De Montlaur and WW II troops generally. And then there was his art — but deeply disturbing and moving. He ranged from cubist, abstract expressionist and fully modernist and massively violent canvases; Tremendously powerful, a few of the canvases made me weep openly. The name of the exhibit is “In Memory of What I Cannot Say”, as well curated and presented a specialty exhibit as any I have seen. Lorraine really enjoyed that as well.

Navigating a museum like this can be a challenge for Lorraine and I; By most people’s standards I  am very knowledgeable about the war while Lorraine is interested but not deeply and has never spent much time studying this out side of school or hanging out with me. The museum however is generally geared more for people who have not studied the war extensively and so a really good introduction to a complex topic. I would strongly recommend the museum for anyone who’s level of knowledge is based on a 3 week coverage in an 11th grade history course. But even for me it was a good presentation — there are always new viewpoints and the attention to day to day lives and stories of the regular fighting man and woman was well thought out.

We spent half a day in the “Arsenal of Democracy” exhibit after the Guy De Montlaur presentation before it was time for us to go to lunch. This was particularly good as they showed very clearly and effectively the balance between isolationist and interventionist politics and the gradual shift in support of the population to the war. There is a nice presentation of Roosevelt’s Four Freedom’s speech which contrasts painfully in all aspects with current US politics and must chill Americans to think of how current politicians might handle a similar global crisis today. There were extensive video clips of Lindbergh’s speeches and some prominent America First propaganda that really looks weak and foolish in the light of the events that followed.

After lunch, we had a reservation on the “Beyond all Borders” 4D film presentation which really piqued a little of Lorraine’s ire. They pack 240 people into an anteroom to wait for a pre-show presentation. This is of course just to allow the theatre the time and space to clear and reload the main theatre quickly enough to get more people through and run the film hourly. Being crammed into an anteroom like cattle in a railcar in the context of WW II so we can go into a second as yet unknown room was a little too on-the-nose for me; but maybe I have an overactive imagination. Lorraine was uncomfortable because there was insufficient egress in case of emergency and being crammed for 20 minutes of standing just to watch a little 8 minute presentation by Tom Hanks on wall on the TV just annoying and tiring. She was annoyed before the movie started. They obviously spent a lot of money on this movie — the fourth dimension is largely vibrating seats but the through in a few other gratuitous and occasionally hokey 3D effects as well. In the battle of the bulge artists sequence snowflakes ( soap) gently drift down from the ceiling on the front third of the Audience. In the strategic bombing sequence the nose of a Superfortress is lowered from the ceiling to jut down in front. For the nuclear weapon exploding at Nagasaki the seats shake and blast of air follows the huge blast on the screen and off. Some of these are effective some seem a little amateurish. 

Not surprisingly for an American Museum Presentation you see little mention of the allies beyon Bdritain standing alone until December 7th 1941 and then America wins the war on its own... There is very little mention of any allied involvement or allied operation anywhere other than the odd passing reference after America enters the war. Fair enough for an American Museum to focus on American Involvment but I suspect that half the people passing through might think that Canada was neutral...

After the film Lorraine and I pushed through the European and Pacific Galleries very quickly. The museum was very busy and some parts so crowded with people watching the short films presented through out that we could not see the display material in the adjacent cases. For some reason as well people seemed to think the museum was a good place to bring small children and babies. At one point a baby screamed at a particularly cogent point but beyond that they were mostly bored and underfoot and some of the material was not appropriate for kids at all - they do use uncensored film and pictures of wounds, dead, executions and prison camps. I’m not big on censoring these things from kids — but 5 and 6 years old is too young for this in volume and in crowds where parents can’t take the time to explain how horrifying these things are and answer questions. 

On balance I would recommend the museum and may even return someday. There were galleries unseen and another multimedia presentation we did not see. Lorraine learned a lot and is interested to learn a little more; it filled in some blanks for me and I really enjoyed a number of the personal stories.

Lorraine was tired and anxious about the dogs so we just ubered back at 5 when the museum closed. The weather had stormed all day — much worse than the original forecast. I didn’t want to drive all the way downtown again for dinner nor did I want to grocery shop and cook either. So I poked around and found a take-out place “Cajun Shack NOLA” that had a good menu and was only a 10 minute drive away. Lorraine stayed home and I went off through the residential neighbourhoods of Little Woods in East New Orleans. This is clearly a very African American and Vietnamese area with large pockets still damaged by Katrina. The Cajun Shack was in a little strip mall next to a much larger abandoned suburban business mall and across from a large abandoned industrial lot. Two white policemen were shining flashlights into the windows of what looked to be an abandoned business next to the mall of the Cajun Shack. This was a little scary and I was prepared to run past and return to the park without dinner... But the Cajun Shack looked clean, and brightly lit and people were coming in and out.

As a Canadian I’m never quite sure how to handle situations like this. The people running the business — behind bulletproof plexiglass — were all Vietnamese Americans. All of the other customers were Black — with a single exception, me. People would come in and out and pick up their phone in orders and or place their orders and wait and look at me like I was an exotic animal in the middle of the room. Was I in danger or just a victim of a slightly racist overimagination? I guess the later. The manger offered me a crayfish sample that was a delicious as it was spicy — if I was in real danger it was probably from the Crayfish! I ordered a half-and-half po’boy for me Catfish and Shrimp, and Lorraine had a Philly Cheese Steak Po’boy ( from Philadelphia Mississippi, I expect). I did not order the Pig Lips.

Both sandwiches were delicious. The fried catfish and shrimp in mine were light and crunchy and not greasy at all. Lorraine’s was greasy and juicy in the way a good cheesesteak should be. I also bought a bowl of Gumbo that was just spicy enough, full of chicken and sausage — it will make a good breakfast because it was way more food than I needed to have ordered.