Pableux Johnson died yesterday, at the age of too-goddamned-young, photographing a second line in New Orleans. He was part of an old-school late-1900s Web cabal that I was lucky enough to be tolerated by. To say he was beloved is too timid.

I got to meet Pableux in person only once. We were on a mailing list together, back in the days before social media and private Slacks and group chats, and when I mentioned I was passing through Louisiana on a vacation with my family, he said that, if we liked, he could show us around a few places to eat.

Which, if you knew anything about Pableux, you took immediate, full, and greedy advantage of.

The day after we arrived, he took us to what are still the best oysters I’ve ever eaten. You paid for tokens, and stood at a bar, and when you dropped a token down, a man with a very sharp knife would pull a fist-sized oyster out of a tank and cut it open and hand it to you. You’d put Tabasco or horseradish or lemon on it, and tip it back into your gullet. And then you’d do it again, and again, and again, while laughing and drinking and just having the best damn time.

In the following days, he sent us to New Orleans landmarks that deserved the designation, avoiding touristy nonsense — a classic lunch restaurant near Jackson Square, a spectacular breakfast house, even a fledgling burger place that was unexpectedly terrific, for our way out of town. He told us about a second line to visit, and it still defines New Orleans for me, the chaos and joy of a parade springing up in the middle of a major urban center like a confetti explosion in an Ingmar Bergman film.

Of all the things we did on that trip — we went to a Saints game, and spent New Years Eve on Bourbon Street (speaking of touristy nonsense), and walked cemeteries and old neighborhoods, and saw museums, and ate, and ate, and ate — the thing that stands out the sharpest in my memory is the simple kindness and abundant generosity of a man who best knew me as an e-mail address, and still took the time to show me and my family the city he loved.

Rest in peace, Pableux.