The Bluesiana Snake Festival. Aubrey Bart

“. . . Probably many a road scholar would testify this place makes good leavin’ and better comin’ back to . . . Place puts a hold on your soul, man, these streets call you like an old song . . .”So starts The Bluesiana Snake Festival as Hidden Dave Crossway, a New Orleans street sweeper, celebrates the city in its pre-Katrina skin. With the night of the “snake moon” as the backdrop, we experience the lives, languages, and rhythms of the French Quarter, an unexpected urban idyll.“Yeah . . . Way down river, heart of a swamp, she’s a city made of music, down soft ground between memory and dream . . .”Through a blend of voices — Big Jim Bullshit, Shushubaby, and Brooklyn Bob, to name a few — the musical voice of New Orleans is revealed in its varied dialects, grooves reminiscent of ragtime, jazz, and blues. The result is a look into who these folks are, their ways and beliefs, their senses of truth, and of existence itself. A novel about the joy and beauty of life in the depths, the momentum and narrative heart isn’t driven by a plot — it’s about the trance.