Showing posts with label Katrina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Katrina. Show all posts

Saturday, August 29, 2015

KATRINA -10 YEARS - "OUR LADY OF THE DRIVEWAY"


Our Lady of the Driveway

O Mary of the Driveway,
Broken like your city,
Your head lies on the ground.
A sorry sight, a sign,
A sign of devastation
Wrought by wind and water,
Angry blow and raging flow.

A passer-by, one of tender heart,
Sees and stops and mourns your head
Lying there apart,
And gently, gently takes it
And replaces it.
There. Our Lady's whole again.
Or so it seems. Or is it so?

June Butler - 5-13-07
The anniversary of Katrina and the federal flood has been celebrated(!) for a month now in the local media, and I had to stop reading and watching.  Maybe the straw that broke the camel's back was the announcement that George W Bush would be in New Orleans, or maybe even before.  Since I'm pretty well played out on the subject, I dug out something from the past.

Thanks to Athenae at First Draft for the photo and the title. She took the picture when she was in New Orleans at the end of March, when a group of us led by FD bloggers, Athenae and Scout Prime, gathered in New Orleans in 2007 to gut a house that had flooded, view the destruction, and squeeze in a little fun.

The statue of the Virgin Mary stood in a driveway with the head broken off, and a kind person put the head back in place. The photo and the title struck me with such force when I first saw it that I have never forgotten. The image of the statue of Mary in the driveway - "Mary, full of grace" as Athenae calls her - was the symbol of my destroyed and broken home town, my abandoned city, my beloved New Orleans - always full of grace to me.

Friday, August 29, 2014

KATRINA - AUGUST 29, 2005 - NINE YEARS LATER

Our Lady of the Driveway
Thanks to Athenae at First Draft for the photo and the title. She took the picture when she was in New Orleans at the end of March, when a group of us led by FD bloggers, Athenae and Scout Prime, gathered to gut a house, view the destruction, and squeeze in a little fun.

The statue of the Virgin Mary lay in a driveway with the head broken off, but a kind person stood the statue upright and put the head back in place. The photo and the title struck me with such force when I first saw it that I have never forgotten it. The image of the statue of Mary in the driveway - "Mary, full of grace" as Athenae calls her - was the symbol of my destroyed and broken home town, my abandoned city, my beloved New Orleans - always full of grace to me.

Our Lady Of The Driveway

O Mary of the Driveway,
Broken like your city,
Your head lies on the ground.
A sorry sight, a sign,
A sign of devastation
Wrought by wind and water,
Angry blow and raging flow.

A passer-by, one of tender heart,
Sees and stops and mourns your head
Lying there apart,
And gently, gently takes it
And replaces it.
There. Our Lady's whole again.
Or so it seems. Or is it so?


June Butler - 5-13-07
I posted the picture, the commentary, and the poem first on May 13, 2007 and then again on the anniversary of Katrina in the years that followed. Until I change my mind, I will post the picture and the poem every year on the anniversary of Katrina and THE FEDERAL FLOOD, which, in New Orleans, was not a natural disaster but an ENGINEERING DISASTER. I remember the nearly 1500 people known to have died and all those who loved them. I remember the 275,000 who lost their homes. I remember those who survived, but suffered through horrendous conditions in the days after Katrina. I remember those who have not returned to their home towns, and who want to, but can't find affordable housing. I remember those in Louisiana and Mississippi still struggling to recover and rebuild their homes and their lives.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

LONDON RIOTS NO KATRINA

 
From Matt Davis at The Lens:
After plenty of research, reporting and countless conversations on the riots in England, it is my considered opinion as a native Englishman with dual U.S. citizenship, that sometimes, weird things just happen, and that the riots in England were just that: weird.

I arrived back in Blighty on August 20 for a long-planned vacation, burdened with a question many Americans had asked me: What was with those riots, anyway? Somehow, the more people I asked, the more the question came to feel basically unanswerable.

That’s not to say there is no merit in the many theories being put forward. Some of them, anyway.

Case in point. On August 10, the British newspaper, The Independent, ran an editorial under the headline: “Britain has experienced its Katrina moment.” On the same day, a photograph of my hometown ran on page one of The Times-Picayune with the caption: “A building burns Tuesday in Croydon, South London.”
Matt is a transplant from South London, Croydon specificaly, who so far as I can ascertain, moved to the US, because his South London accent would never, ever be considered posh 'over there', but 'over here', any English accent sounds posh. (Just kidding!, and aren't we glad to 'ave 'im)

Matt continues:
I considered calling The Independent to ask why its editorial writers had chosen to diminish the experience of disaster victims in my adopted city with such a glib and ridiculous reference to Katrina. Yes, British Prime Minister David Cameron was lost in a Bush-like moment of political disengagement when the disaster struck. But what’s next? Describing a leaky dishwasher as a Katrina moment?
When Matt returned to Croydon, he walked the ruined areas with his high school friend, and they discussed the reasons for the rioting. Was it a race thing? Was it a class thing? Was it the have-nots getting back at the have-mores? In the end, he comes up short. The best he and his friend can come up with is 'weird'.

Matt tells of a conversation with 'a man in a suit' in Croydon:
“I think we’ve created an underclass,” the man said, when I asked him what he thought had happened. “There’s too many people without fathers, and there’s no structure. What bothers me is we have to spend taxpayer money to babysit these people to give them places to play, otherwise they do this.”

He was affable, perhaps a little conservative by English standards, but then his tone changed, and so did the look in his eyes.

“What we really need is a good war,” he said. “Send ’em all to the front and they’ll all get shot. The Nazis had the right idea.”
Oof! We have that kind over here, too.

I confess I'm intrigued by a South London transplant living and writing in and about my beloved city of New Orleans. I'm sure Matt has more than a few experiences of two countries divided by a common language and of misunderstandings due to cultural differences, as the wedding comparison story which he relates in his post demonstrates.

Read his entire post. I hope I have not gone beyond fair use. Sometimes I get carried away.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

OUR LADY OF THE DRIVEWAY - I REMEMBER KATRINA


Thanks to Athenae at First Draft for the photo and the title. She took this picture when she was in New Orleans at the end of March, when a group of us led by FD bloggers, Athenae and Scout Prime, gathered to gut a house, view the destruction, and squeeze in a little fun.

The statue of the Virgin Mary stood in a driveway with the head broken off, lying on the ground, but a kind person put the head back in place. The photo and the title struck me with such force when I first saw it that I have never forgotten it. The image of the statue of Mary in the driveway - "Mary, full of grace" as Athenae calls her - was the symbol of my destroyed and broken home town, my abandoned city, my beloved New Orleans - always full of grace to me.

Our Lady Of The Driveway

O Mary of the Driveway,
Broken like your city,
Your head lies on the ground.
A sorry sight, a sign,
A sign of devastation
Wrought by wind and water,
Angry blow and raging flow.

A passer-by, one of tender heart,
Sees and stops and mourns your head
Lying there apart,
And gently, gently takes it
And replaces it.
There. Our Lady's whole again.
Or so it seems. Or is it so?

(June Butler - 5-13-07)
I posted the picture, the commentary, and the poem first on May 13, 2007 and then again on the anniversary of Katrina in the years that followed. Until I change my mind, I will post the picture and the poem every year on the anniversary of Katrina and THE FEDERAL FLOOD, which, in New Orleans, was not a natural disaster but an ENGINEERING DISASTER. I remember the 1500 people who died in New Orleans and all those who loved them. I remember the 275,000 who lost their homes. I remember those who survived, but suffered through horrendous conditions in the days after Katrina. I remember those who have not returned to their home towns, and who want to, but can't find affordable housing. I remember those in Louisiana and Mississippi still struggling to recover and rebuild their homes and their lives.

Katrina - August 29, 2005

Saturday, March 27, 2010

"NINE LIVES" - DAN BAUM

 


An email to me from Dan Baum, the author of Nine Lives:

You were kind to write to me years ago about my daily New Orleans blog on the New Yorker website. I wanted to let you know that my book, "Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans" is being released today in paperback. It got blushingly good reviews when it was published in hardcover last year; you can read them here. If you liked "New Orleans Journal," I think you'll enjoy "Nine Lives."

Indeed, the reviews of the book are blushingly good. Here's a sampling:

The New York Times, February 18, 2009: “Nine Lives may be this young year’s most artful and emotionally resonating nonfiction book so far, and for that, to Mr. Baum, a belated New Year’s toast.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 11, 2009. “One of the most moving -- and riveting -- books ever written about the rich and complicated life we live here.”
People Magazine, February 13, 2009: “Brilliantly reported. . . . Compassionate and clear-eyed. . . “

Time, February 19, 2009: “With all that has been written about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, few writers have been able to capture the essence of New Orleans as skillfully as Baum.”

The Los Angeles Times, February 20, 2009: Dan Baum's extraordinary book . . . resembles a vast Victorian novel in its many-sided evocation of an entire world -- worlds, actually. . . .

The New York Times Book Review, February 22, 2009: “A splendid book. . . . Crowded with memorable characters. Baum continually serves up wonderful detail and phrasing.” (A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.”)

The Advertiser (Lafayette, Louisiana), February 15, 2009: “One of the finest books to be written about Hurricane Katrina and its effect on New Orleans waited the longest to come out, most likely because of the immense research involved. But it's worth the wait.”

The Washington Post, March 1, 2009: “(Baum’s) technique brings to mind Robert Altman's film ‘Nashville’ . . . . He adroitly moves his subjects through parades, prison, divorces, sex changes, fancy balls and gun brawls.”

Surely enough to cause Dan's face to turn fiery red.

I purchased the hardcover version of Nine Lives some time ago, and I am now about three quarters through reading the book. As I told Dan in email:

I love the book, and I am quite willing to give it publicity....I didn't want to write a post until I had got at least part way through the book. I would have bought "Nine Lives" just for the introduction, because you "get" New Orleans and New Orleanians.

Not everyone "gets" New Orleans, not even folks born and bred in the city. I have friends who moved after Katrina and the federal flood and never looked back. Not that I blame them for moving, because having your house flood more than once is enough to cause one to wish never to have the experience again. I left New Orleans over 50 years ago, and I still look back with longing to the city of my birth, childhood, teen years, and college years. I will never get over moving away. But enough about me! I'm supposed to be selling Dan's book.

From the introduction to Nine Lives:

That New Orleans is like no place else in America goes way beyond the food, music, and architecture. New Orleanians don't even understand such fundamentals as time and money the way other the way other Americans do. The future, for example: while the rest of Americans famously dream and scheme and chase the horizon, New Orleanians are masters at the lost art of living in the moment. If we're doing okay this minute, goes the logic - enjoying one another's company, keeping cool, and maybe having something good to eat - of what earthly importance is tomorrow or next week? Given the fragility of life, why even count on getting there? New Orleanians are notoriously late showing up, if they show up at all, because by and large they don't keep calendars. Calendars are tools for managing the future, and in New Orleans the future doesn't exist.

And ain't that the truth? Grandpère and I have been at odds over money and time for nearly 49 years. We settle for truces, but we have never signed a peace treaty.

From Rebecca Wright, originally from Thibodaux, a character in the book:

Cousins showed up often from Thibodaux, looking for a better life in the city. Ronald [Rebecca's adopted son] knew times when five or ten might be packed into the house, covering the living room floor like dead soldiers, standing around the table at mealtimes, spooning up Mama's rice and gravy, and talking in plantation accents that struck his ear like music. They'd tell of hog killings, alligators as long as Cadillacs, and hot pones sticky with molasses. Everybody would be shouting and laughing until Rebecca, standing over the stove with her spatula, hushed them all by snapping, "When I die, do not bring me back to that place."

Like Rebecca, I want my ashes in New Orleans. I haven't decided where yet. Perhaps my ashes could join my sister Gayle's ashes in City Park, where we spent so much time as kids. But once again, this is about Dan's book. See how easily I drift into telling stories?

Nine Lives tells the stories of ordinary and not so ordinary people from New Orleans before Katrina and after. In Dan's words:

These stories come to the reader through two filters. The sensibilities, emotions, and memories of the nine principal characters color them most of all. They all sat for many hours of interviews, unpacking their innermost moments for a stranger, with nothing to gain but the very New Orleanian pleasure of storytelling. Although I supplemented those interviews by talking to many of my characters' friends, relatives, and associates, I chose to recount these nine people's lives from their own points of view. They invited me into their heads and hearts, so that seemed the best place from which to tell their stories.

So. If you're looking for something good to read and think you might like to read about other quirky and wonderful (blushing) people like me, consider buying Dan Baum's Nine Lives.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

NEW ORLEANS - A "GENIUS LOCI"

"Bad Lieutenant"
In the Times-Picayune's Lagniappe, David Germain interviews Nicholas Cage, who stars in "Bad Lieutenant", a movie in which, according to Cage, "explosive violence and extreme drug use are leavened by raucously twisted humor".
Directed by Werner Herzog, the film stars Cage as a New Orleans police detective traipsing about post-Katrina New Orleans, snorting, popping and smoking whatever drugs he can while threatening witnesses in pursuit of savage killers.

The film is not an outright remake of 1992's "Bad Lieutenant," which starred Harvey Keitel, but rather Herzog and Cage's take on the idea of a cop without conscience, doing his job in a sometimes hallucinatory fog.
Why film the movie in New Orleans?
"Bad Lieutenant" marked Cage's first time working in New Orleans since he shot his directing debut there with 2002's "Sonny." Cage said he was anxious about returning, because he had a life-changing experience in New Orleans during the "Sonny" shoot.

"In some ways, you could say that I was reborn in New Orleans, and I had this terrifying, mystical experience," said Cage, who would not provide details about what happened.

Critics might assail Cage for his action movies, but they're heaping praise on the actor for the frenzy and fearlessness of his role in "Bad Lieutenant."

New Orleans might have something to do with that, Cage said. Going back was a catharsis, and the city's spirit helped inspire his performance, he said.

"New Orleans is not like any place else in the world. It was colonized by the French and Spanish, it has these African energies, and all these things sort of roll into one to create this genius loci, which is the reason we have jazz," Cage said.

"I felt that I could embrace that, and that I could maybe have a bit of jazz, or my understanding of jazz, in the delivery. Which, my understanding is, that you know the lines so well that you go off-page and you improvise, and you can riff, and you can soak that energy up if you're willing to listen to it. And that's what I think happened."
(My emphasis)
I haven't read a better description of my beloved native city in quite a while. His words on jazz as a metaphor for the city are brilliant. Not everyone "gets" New Orleans. Not all of the native-born "feel" the city, and then there are those who come from far-away places who "feel" the city right away.

I may have to see the movie, although "explosive violence" is not really my thing. Here's a link to the review of the film in the Boston Globe.