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49

MikkoMacchione,aNewOrleans historian,

has that job. As a French Quarter ghost tour

guide, he claims he is not peddling fiction.

“As I tell my tours, I’m a terrible liar,” he

says. “So I don’t tell a story unless I’ve

researched it or it has been corroborated

so much — and so similarly — that I can

report it in good faith.”

He goes on to tick off the names of local

ghosts like they’re old acquaintances:

Antoine, who wears a billowing shirt and

pantaloons as he wanders about Muriel’s

restaurant; Alejandro, who hangs out in the

balcony at Le Petite Theatre, and so on.

His theory about why there are so many

ghosts in New Orleans makes as much

sense as any other explanation:

“Who’s to say there’s no psychic component

to the universe,” he says. “New Orleans was

a really easy place to die in the 19th century

— floods, fires, hurricanes, Indians, pirates,

jealous husbands, duels and, of course,

yellow fever.

“So its like the trauma keeps your mind off

the fact that you’re dead. And spirits tend to

be found where the trauma occurred — or

in places they enjoyed being, like the church

or the theater.”

Hey, sounds good to me.

The actor James Franco, who has filmed

several movies in New Orleans, once wrote

about his experience taking a ghost tour

here. It was — as James Franco tends to be

— very candid, macabre and unusual.

“Our tour guide told us that New Orleans

has recorded the highest number of

missing-persons cases since those statistics

began being tracked,” he wrote. “There was

something strange about hearing all this at

the start of a walking tour. At a carnival,

inside a fun house, or around a campfire,

the recitation of disturbing information

serves to create a certain mood. That’s the

way many Disney films work. But to use

missing persons and murder to set a tone

within the environment where those things

are still happening confuses entertainment

and reality. Basically, New Orleans is an

amusement park where you can get killed.”

No doubt about it: When the subject of

conversation is the afterlife, people tend to

have strong opinions.

After all, It’s the only permanent state of

mind, body and being.

That I know of.

Now, about those real estate signs — the

Haunted, Not Haunted ones:

They are the work of French Quarter

Realtor Finis Shelnutt.

In addition to doing a double take at his For

Sale signs, one might also be taken aback by

his name — but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Among other things, he is the ex-husband

of former Bill Clinton mistress Gennifer

Flowers, and you simply have to admire the

guy for surviving junior high school with a

name like that.

(Any Gulf Coast historian worth his salt

knows that Finis is a traditional name of honor

in the South. It was Confederate

President Jefferson Davis’ middle

name. But maybe this isn’t the

best time to talk about that!)

But I stray. Back to the story:

After former Star Trek actor and

cultural commentator George

Takei posted an online photo of

one of the “Haunted” signs last

year, Shelnutt responded:

“Speaking as someone who’s

from NOLA (New Orleans)

that IS actually a selling point

… Can’t swing a thing without

running into some haunted

local. Ah, the charms of home.”

USA Today then picked up the story.

They wrote:

“Shelnutt, a Little Rock native, says he

wasn’t always a complete believer in the

spirit world ‘until we started doing these

tours and it gets really bizarre,’ he says.

‘Every night, someone will pick up orbs,’

Shelnutt says, referring to white circles

sometimes picked up in photos that some

paranormal experts say represent ghosts.”

“Now, Shelnutt says he has seen so much

— including a frequently swinging trash

can lid in his kitchen — that he believes the

eight properties he has listed are haunted. ‘I

think all of them are,’ he says.”

Can’t swing a thing?

I guess that doesn’t include trash can lids.

After researching this story, I am pretty

much convinced that the Rouses Market in

the French Quarter is the only building in

the neighborhood that’s

not

haunted.

I mean, the testimonials are staggering.

Who is one to believe?

Me, I tend to be a skeptic.

Then again, several times while browsing

the aisles of that store, I have walked

through what definitely felt like a cold spot,

some sentient apparition in my midst.

And I have to admit: It’s a jarring, unnerving

experience. It raised goose bumps on my

arms, made me shiver, and made me wonder

if maybe there isn’t something to all this talk

about ghosts and hauntings in the French

Quarter.

That is, until I look around and notice I’m in

the frozen foods section.

LaLaurie Mansion, French Quarter

Finis Shelnutt, Realtor

HALLOWEEN