Jean Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop
 

i just came across this odd poem i wrote the week i got back from new orleans in june

http://marezion.blogspot.com/2005/07/ichthyology-etymology-epidemiology.html

the bit at the end's uncanny.

"On Wednesday afternoon, helicopters begin lifting evacuees from shelters to a designated stretch of I-10, where dozens of school buses wait to take people west toward Houston. National Guard military trucks packed with people barrel out of town toward the makeshift transport hub, but tens of thousands of people remain stranded in downtown New Orleans, without any idea of where to go, or how to get there.

Rescue efforts did not begin in earnest until late Wednesday afternoon, although the worst of the storm passed mid-morning on Monday. Initially, Coast Guard helicopters transported a few stranded flood victims to storm shelters around the city, while camera crews beamed the images of rooftop rescues. Mayor Ray Nagin had warned before the storm that shelters would be places of "last resort," and in stifling heat that reached 95 degrees, with no running water or electricity, they became chaotic scenes of desperation.

We talk to a few of the thousands of people for whom no shelter was provided. Tourists have been some of the unlucky ones. "We were kicked out of our hotel several days ago; we were thrown out onto the street with no food or supplies or anything," says Betty Ellanson, a 60-ish woman from Sumter County, Ga. "We're on our own. We've been told that by law enforcement and the National Guard." Ellanson is camping out, sleeping on a cement pedestrian bridge that runs between the convention center and the Riverwalk shopping mall with a makeshift clan of 50 other tourists, who had been expelled from the same hotel for "liability reasons." They have been scavenging the streets for food and water, hoarding peanuts and soft drinks among their Samsonites.

Lacking any reliable source of information about how to proceed, residents from the flooded eastern parts of the city and stranded visitors wander westward in a state of desperation. People shout at cars, pleading for rides to anywhere, and ask each other where they're headed. Several thousand residents forced from their homes line Convention Center Avenue, where rumor has it evacuations were set to begin. National Guard personnel say they had no immediate plans to begin evacuations from that location.

While chatting with some of the National Guardsmen, another guardsman approaches and informs us that a woman is in the middle of a stroke around the corner. The guardsmen shrug. There is no emergency medical tent in the downtown area, and many people in need of medicine have no way of getting what they need, even inside the shelters. On our way into the French Quarter, a wild-eyed man flags down our car, begging us for insulin or information about where some can be found. We cannot help him.

In contrast, some residents of the French Quarter appear comfortable, well-fed and relaxed. About 150 New Orleans police officers have commandeered the Royal Omni Hotel, part of the international luxury chain of Omni hotels that is housed in an elegant 19th century building, complete with crystal chandeliers and a rooftop pool. "All of the officers that are here, I can tell you in a classical sense, are gladiators," says Capt. Kevin Anderson, commander of the Eighth District of the NOPD (French Quarter). "To be able to put your family's concerns aside to protect the citizens of New Orleans, it's just an awesome job," he says.

Across the street from the Royal Omni at the Eighth District police department, several police officers keep a wary eye on the street with shotguns at the ready, while some fellow officers grill sausage links over charcoal barbecues. They are under strict orders not to communicate with the media. Capt. Anderson does confirm, however, that locations where officers were housed came under gunfire on Tuesday night. No officers were injured. "It is a very dangerous situation that we're in," Anderson says.

Apart from rescue operations, the police department patrols for looters, who have ransacked stores in virtually every part of the city. Looters are visible on every street corner. Every kind of business, from rundown corner markets to the Gucci storefront on South Peters Street, has been looted.

We walk half a block down Royal Street from the Eighth District headquarters and come upon Brennan's Restaurant, one of New Orleans' most venerable dining institutions. The Brennans are a high-profile family of restaurateurs and run several of the highest-end eateries in town. Jimmy Brennan and a crew of his relatives are holing up in the restaurant along with the chef, Lazone Randolph. They are sleeping on air mattresses, drinking Cheval Blanc, and feasting on the restaurant's reserves of haute Creole food.

The atmosphere in the French Quarter, while relatively quiet, is decidedly tense, but Brennan isn't worried. "We're not too concerned. The police let us go over to the Royal Omni, to take a shower, freshen up, and we cooked them some prime rib. We take care of them, they take care of us," says Randolph. Two Brennan emissaries whisk past, bearing multilayer chocolate cakes, headed toward the precinct. "This has been working out real well for us," says Jimmy Brennan.

Contrary to many reports, the French Quarter remains undamaged by flooding. The streets are dry and damage to the 18th and 19th century buildings appears to be minimal. Heavily pierced French Quarter denizens are emerging slowly, almost groggily, and some are looking to evacuate. One woman, wearing a black lace slip and fanning herself with a souvenir fan from a production of "Les Miserables," makes her way toward the Superdome, carrying no luggage.

"The Quarter always survives!" declares Finnis, the owner of Alex Patout's restaurant on St. Louis Street, who declined to give his last name. Standing in front of his restaurant, he sips champagne with several friends, insisting that his restaurant's gradually warming walk-in fridges will provide them with sustenance for up to a month.

Indeed, food doesn't seem to concern those who intend to stay through the rebuilding process. Back Uptown, Jerrell and her sons will avail themselves of the local A&P, which has long since had its doors broken off. It will be a long time before it reopens, and until then its shelves will be a lifeline for many.

While the water appears to have ceased rising since Tuesday night, the French Quarter is hemmed in by water on three sides. Four blocks away from the Eighth District headquarters and Brennan's restaurant lie mile-long stretches of the stinking floodwaters of Lake Pontchartrain.

Back on Canal Street, no one seems to be going anywhere. Despite the city having shut off the water supply in an attempt to force evacuation, many New Orleans citizens don't seem intent upon leaving. Others, who wish to leave, are in the dark as to how. With authorities saying that services may not be restored for one to two months, the question of what will become of these thousands of New Orleanians remains the most unresolved issue in Katrina's aftermath.

As the afternoon begins to wane, we hasten to leave the downtown area. Nighttime is pitch-black in New Orleans now, and martial law has not succeeded in quelling the sense that total anarchy is just a few more hot days away. "

salon.com


- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writers

Kathryn Jezer-Morton and Gray Miles are freelance journalists based in New Orleans.

shacks, mississippi 

Bryant Park and the back of the NYC Public Library the other night. Went to see Jaws on the big screen as bats fuffed overhead and ate cold mickey dees with lite beer with the rest of my office. best line in the movie is "Wanna get drunk and fool around?"

hustle and flo, dirty ho 

I can't believe how this thing in the gulf of mex keeps getting worse and worse. You guys who usually check in on me here, could you post up some answers to this for me?

If your city disappeared tomorrow, what would you miss?

I'd miss the fragile, casual, snotty NY irreverence we've tried so hard to hold on to since 2001 (Year of our collective wake-up call)

I'd miss Lupe's and Elora's and Tea Leaf coffeehouse in the Slope

I'd miss Brooklyn sidewalk sales

I'd miss the park (Prospect. Central, too, I guess.), especially the lake and the drum circles, watching little kids boogie down in the dust and big fat ladies shaking their mega-groove-thangs, and everyone's having a good time. Sometimes I wonder what a suicide bomber would think of such a scene. Would he take out his stabber and start striking down infidels, or would he tap his foot and look at the okayness and think that maybe this wasn't the Great Satan or whatever nonsense they're on about if all these folks can eat bbq chicken and dance like fools on summer weekend afternoons without setting anyone on fire or crying over tiny corpses or whatever terrorists like to watch for fun and personal growth? Ugh. HATE.

I'd miss the NY Public Library - all the branches, even the ratty ones, because you walk in and it smells so safe and filled with all possibilities. Whether you need ideas for new window treatments or you want to read Aristotle, you can find real answers. And movies.

I'd miss (hell, I do miss) the rastas in Washington Square.

I'd miss belonging here, at least

To me, the main thing is that there's a certain joie that you can maintain, as long as a certain amount of what you love is saved. After 9/11 we all wondered, I think, what would become of this old, dirty bitchy old queen of a city, but we just gathered up our size-fourteen Fredericks of Hollywood heels and our LouisV knockoff from Chinatown and we fixed our powder and hiked up the falsies and ignored the terror level colorwheel and kept on keeping on. We were able to do that because there was enough left. Enough untainted ground, enough space, enough will to fight, enough anger and bloody-minded capitalistic will to power-walk. This is what frightens me about New Orleans. How bad can you beat a grinning old bawd before she can't sing or smile or dance anymore? If you manage to put her back together with steel pins and send her to a halfway house and get her a job at Walmart washing the lino, then what?

New Orleans and Baton Rouge constitute the largest shipping port in the country. Before too long, someone's going to find a way to put the big pieces back together, but who will be in charge? Will the restaurants reopen? Will the Preservation House? Will there be music coming from every doorway? Will they remember to drape the trees with years'-worth of Mardi Gras beads? Will they keep in mind that even though it's a nuisance and a disgrace, that drunken fools on Bourbon Street ought to be able to carry a giant takeaway cup of Rum Hurricane? Who will have the heart to stress that New Orleans was once called 'the safety valve of the South'? Will coporate streamlining and disaster relief and the cost of a barrel of oil leave room for the moldy old history and the million-calorie dinner at a four-star restaurant where you can walk out of the dining room in your best evening gear with a plastic cup of sixteen dollar brandy, and just go strolling down the street?

swamp 

Mississippee, Natchez 

Lake Pontchartrain, courtesy NASA

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/pontchartrain_143_amo_11feb05_250m.jpg

add these to the list:

Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge

Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge

7612 Oak St. New Orleans, LA 70118

(504) 861-2802

Snake and Jake's Christmas Club Lounge opens at 9 P.M. daily (nightly?) and stays open until sometime near sunrise.
Snake's is a friendly neighborhood bar until things really start to swing around 2 or 3 A.M., when just about anything can happen.
So, if you are looking for mellow, come early. If not, stay late.
Super groovy Snake and Jake's sunglasses available for purchase if you stay a little longer than you expected...
Oh, yeah, and... abandon hope all ye who enter here...


Cooter Brown's Tavern
& Oyster Bar

Cooter Brown's Tavern
& Oyster Bar
509 S. Carrollton Ave.
New Orleans, LA
phone: 504-866-9104
Welcome to Cooter Brown's zany and slightly demented "Obeertuary and Barsoleum." OK, the tour begins: Over on one wall we see big John Wayne with a 10-gallon hat and a Lone Star beer. Ah, the
cowboy motif. There's Richard Nixon with a Tsing Tao, obviously because of his China diplomacy. Then there's Judy Garland drinking a Hexen Brau, which translates as "Witch's Brew," conjuring images of "The Wizard of Oz." Mickey Mantle in his Yankees uniform has a Michelob, as he and the beer are both commonly known as "Mick." A wonderful Alfred Hitchcock with a bird on his shoulder is downing a bottle of Rogue's Dead Guy Ale, and not far away, the unmistakable top-hatted W.C. Fields with his bulbous nose, and a bottle of Pennsylvania-brewed Rolling Rock in his possession. ("All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.")

Cooter Brown's features 400 different kinds of beer, 350 of which are imports and 42 of which are on draft. Nationwide, these kinds of bars are very trendy, but Larry B., as most people call him because of obvious pronunciation difficulties, started his imported beer gig 19 years ago, long before it was popular. "You gotta have a gimmick," the native of the Bronx, N.Y., said. "You just don't open a bar and make money."

For years, locals and tourists who ventured into this Uptown beer-taster's oasis frequently made the comment after seeing the enormousness of the stock: "I'm in heaven." So Larry B. and his artist simply took the comment to heart and created some heavenly residents...

the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas' Gulf of Mexico exhibit

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas
Canal Street at the River
#1 Canal Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
Phone Number:
800-774-7394
"You’ll be glad you’re on the outside looking in when you visit the Aquarium’s 400,000-gallon Gulf of Mexico exhibit featuring a replica of an offshore oil rig. Residents of the exhibit include endangered sea turtles, stingrays, the largest tarpon in captivity, and 10-foot-long sharks."

Jazz Funeral

oh, goddamnit. they had better sort this shit out. all the servers for new orleans sites are down. how odd.

please help? donations:
http://www.redcross.org

Blind Idiot God 

Clem Cats 

cry, the beloved country
i've been to new orleans four times in my life. each time i go, i come away with a sense of alternate reality, as if there's a version of me that's been there for years. back when i was making decisions about what college to attend, i narrowly missed landing at tulane university, courtesy of a last-minute deal with my parents and a slightly heftier scholarship from nyu's gallatin school, where i ended up. i have a feeling that a vanessa in new orleans at seventeen might have ended up staying there, and things would have gone very differently for me.

all speculation aside, i've always been in love with the place... with the attendant music, past and present ("house of the rising sun," the be good tanyas' "lakes of ponchartrain," and even "bloodletting" by concrete blonde") and the historical mystique and the marvelous food and the horrifying, carnal primality of the flesh-hot air and the swamp and the bayous and the roachy, lizard-spotted, banana-leafed immediacy of it all.

if you shuffle back in the archives here till you reach june, you'll see copious notes on where i went, and what i ate, and about a million photos of everything i saw, save for the goddamn roaches because i just don't have the presence of mind to take snaps of insects which are skittering about at excesses of the speed of sound. i could go on, here, but i guess what i am leading up to is the big storm, Katrina (a category 5 hurricane, to be precise) which is even now plowing mightily over jefferson parish on its way to points north. i didn't take any pictures of it, but if you've driven over the Lake Ponchartrain causeway, you'll have an idea of what i'm talking about when i recall the seemingly endless shallow-water flats of glassy silver reflecting the sunset in shades of dove-gray and blush-pink. it's something. the city and it's environs, under the folkloric-sounding name jefferson parish, which is a nifty euphemism for 'county' i guess... are all clothed in a palpable sense of deep, purple, tropical gothic mysticism. it's not so hard to imagine half-mad voudons gleaming with sweat under fragarantly smoking bonfire shadows, or nattily attired vampires abroad in the garden district, for god's sake, when you find yourself in a place as determinedly backwards, (and beautifully so) as this...

with the palpable sense of mortality that hangs over the whole shebang, it ought to come to no surprise that the teasers of it's own doom sound like this:

"NEW ORLEANS — When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries. -AP Monday, August 29, 2005"

What a way to go...

So here's a list of things I'd miss, if the Atchafalaya Basin becomes the Atchafalaya Memorial Landfill today:

Trey Yuen Cuisine Of China in Mandeville, LA

http://www.treyyuen.com/

especially the monster crab rangoons and the crayfish in spicy lobster and black bean sauce, which i never would've ordered if it weren't for Andy nagging my ass. also, the gorgeous gardens with the biggest man-made fishpond i've ever seen, just crawling with frogs and crayfish and god knows what else.

Audubon Park, Garden District

http://www.auduboninstitute.org/park/index.php

A very pleasant, if horrifically steamy, place to run, with the most gorgeous lake populated by what seems like hundreds of snowy egrets and mossy-backed turtles.

Oysters

Rockefeller, Bienville, Arnaud, on the half shell, and best of all, Drago's Charbroiled...

Drago's Restaurant in Metarie http://www.dragosrestaurant.com/

was the first meal I had off the plane the last time I was in the city, and I'm never not going again.

from the site:

"About ten years ago, Tommy Cvitanovich, manager of Drago's, was thinking about the dish that bears his name. (Drumfish Tommy is broiled drumfish napped with a superb butter garlic sauce.) He wondered: How would that sauce taste drizzled over one of the fat, tasty oysters for which Drago's is known? And what if that oyster was then cooked over an open fire? There were other oyster dishes cooked in a shell, but those were baked with a stuffing. Tommy's idea was simple. Almost too simple. We tested it. It was extraordinary! We tried to improve on the sauce by adding wine. We tried bordelaise sauce. But the unofficial tasters at the restaurant, who had the enviable chore of sampling countless oysters, all came to the same conclusion. You can't improve on perfection!"

paralysis

kenny salvini is two years younger than me and now he's a quadriplegic. he has no feeling below his shoulders, just stuck in a - what? a bed? a chair? forever. before his accident, he was an athlete and an amazingly gorgeous and obviously very smart person, with every reason in the world to be happy and to expect to enjoy his life, and then one day, he broke his neck skiing with his dad, and now he's facing the prospect of always being reliant on people for the most personal and basic tasks. bless him, though, he's been writing it all out so lazy fuckers like myself can look into his head and see the movies of memory and hopes he's replaying. i came across his weblog in msn spaces and was amazed when i started reading his posts as often as he refreshed them. eventually i figured out that he had pictures up on his site and was even more dismayed that this guy was just unfrickingbelievably beautiful to look at, too. somehow that made it a bit worse. does that sounds shallow? would it be even more terrible if he was a brilliant, sensitive horse-faced pigmonster stuck in a pressure bed for the rest of his life? i don't know, so don't ask me. i'm just saying that he's so gorgeous, and it makes my heart hurt a little to think that this is what he's got to work with from now on.

today he writes about making weight for wrestling and i was just shattered by the determination and the clarity of purpose. (two things i'd do anything for.) towards the end i caught myself wondering if it was worth it. all that rigor and early mornings getting to know how to use this body, honing it down to it's peak, starving it and working it till it was perfected, so that he can now recall in such details the sense-memory of electric impulses jagging down every nerve fiber, or the sharpness of hunger after a week of starvation. would you be glad you'd made the most of it? relieved that you'd proved your mettle before it was stripped away? or would you wish you'd smoked up and eaten brownies and mac n cheese and taken the ease of your body.


what makes every minute count? when i'm lying in a bed i know i'm not getting back out of, am i going to remember the roasted foie gras with peeled grapes and brioche and sauternes or will it be coming to the top of the hill in the park and seeing the lake and feeling the pain fade away and the wind buff my cheeks and chill my sweat? will i remember being loved and falling asleep in someone's arms, or the sheets on saturday morning?

(to some extent, this train of thought is lawrence's fault, as his blog from this morning got me thinking about the astroglidelubed texture of time, about how fast each good minute flows past.)

back when i was taking scott's classes, i remember talking about the arrow of time, and about how there is not any particular reason for us to percieve time as flowing from past to future. although that has since proven to be untrue, (http://www.aip.org/pnu/1998/split/pnu402-2.htm) having to do with 'T violation in the observed decay rates for neutral K mesons,' (whatever the fuck that means...)

it seems to me that i was on the right track back in sophomore year of college in thinking that time just rushes us through like a snotty waiter.

i deserve this... punishment? for my life of fornication and pot-smoking, wine-swilling, cigarette-huffing sensualism far more than killer kenny salvini does. at least he gave it his best shot... what in the fuck am i doing with it? making amusing comments, i mean...?

check it out: http://spaces.msn.com/members/smalls149/PersonalSpace.aspx

I'm famous!
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/001884.html

the ship of now has sailed
and glides like night into the port of evening
through foggy voices
like shouts in pillows
or birds calling in a downpour

the rattle of the subway
is the ringing of the telephone
and the empty platform
is the hum of an open line
and friends brought home by the cops
after long wandering
were disconnected, but fine

certain particle-board futures
have the bland mouth
of bread and flesh
the pallor of swedish modern
the knotted hardness of knuckles on toes
without the utility of the other kind
and after long discussion,
do we agree that these are just as dangerous as
the hardwood forest
the undisclosed source of the blackest river
the well that fills with sleep
and then starts to seep past its bounds

sparkly with denial

like coal, i resist,
and my hard black center
is the backlash of gravity,
the impurity of spirit.
looking closely you will note
that my inclusions are exclusions
my flaws are in relief
my false color, an overdose of
flourides and sulfur.
army world, you're making indestructible
shatterings of me.
my foaming black life
into stark formality
in crystal facets.
no engagement ring or
weeping innocent tears,
but a navel ornament
for a trophy queen.

i refuse to be blamed for what's been
wrought of me.