It's been a hot summer so far in the Big Easy. The lazy whirl of the ceiling fans above the grand porch at The Columns Hotel is no longer enough to keep the cubes of ice in my daily cocktail from melting far too fast. The air rushing through the open windows of the streetcar is now a reasonable facsimile of an open oven on Thanksgiving Day. My seersucker suits are now unable to keep pace with the sweat... what? It's not summer for another eight days? Oh, you're kidding me. And let's face it. ...