SEPT_OCTOBER_2015_FINAL_no bleed

HALLOWEEN

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

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

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

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.”

Finis Shelnutt, Realtor

ROUSES.COM 49