Finally read A.D.: After the Deluge, Josh Neufeld's graphic novel about the storm, the failure of the federal levees, and the aftermath, last night. Neufeld has drawn many issues of Harvey Pekar's great comic American Splendor, and his artwork also seems to have pleasant echoes of the Hernandez Bros. A.D. is wonderful, terrible, powerful, and true. Yet reading it didn't undo me like I feared (and almost assumed) it would. It's a very important book, but I realized no single book can ever compare to all the stories we heard and all we lived through ourselves. For that I owe Josh Neufeld a word of thanks -- he made me know I'll be able to read some of those other books in my library if and when I need to.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
louismaistros has an excellent guest editorial in today's paper about Ruthie the Duck Lady's passing and the larger subject of evacuating the elderly during hurricanes. (I'm not sure if something is wrong with nola.com -- I can't get this page to load on either Firefox or Safari, but I'm hoping you'll have better luck.) I was reading this article over coffee, thinking, "Gee, this is good ... [glancing at top of page to see who wrote it] ... HEY! IT'S LOUIE!"ETA @ 5:24 PM: Seems to be loading fine now.
Speaking to him gave me a small inkling of how the friends who managed to reach me by phone in early September of 2005 must have felt. I have no idea what I said to them then, or whether I made any sense, and I never look at my blog entries from that time. Dale sounded tired, but not particularly upset given that the place he loves has sustained a severe wound. If not for their flood wall, it would have been almost entirely destroyed, as the lovely, fragile-looking Bolivar Peninsula is now.
louismaistros's blog regarding New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin's "Just kidding!" hotel special for Texas evacuees:Nagin has done more damage to our city than any other single human being in history. "Spoons" Butler, Mark Essex, all the thieves in public office who have stolen money from our citizens (including our schoolchildren), even George W. Fucking Bush -- all pale in comparison to our current mayor's divisiveness, inability to think before speaking, and unshakable certainty that he is always right and his critics are just meanies who are "hurting the recovery." I think many Saints fans will agree with me that Nagin is the Aaron Brooks of politicians, grinning and eating crackers on the sideline after throwing his third interception of the game -- except that Nagin hasn't even led us to one playoff win.
In other, somewhat happier local news, Zachary Bosch's old apartment is for sale. I'm not sure this is the exact address where Zach lived at the beginning of Drawing Blood -- I'd have to go look and try to remember which one I had in mind -- but any of the upstairs spaces along tiny Rue Madison could have served as his. For just $15,000 more than I paid for my spacious house in the ghetto, you can live in a minuscule (71 square feet? Can they be serious?) but cute French Quarter pied-à-terre with a (fictitious) criminal history!
I cannot wish any real harm on Houston, it being Frankie's hometown and all, but I do hope the pus-brained pinhead who (POSTING FROM THERE) once told me on a friend's blog how stupid I was to live in New Orleans gets his roof blown off and drowns staring up at it in amazement, as turkeys are said to do.
From an e-mail to a journalist who felt bad for "bothering" me about an interview deadline during a hurricane:
Compared to the events of 2005, Gustav was only an inconvenience -- one that we probably needed, in order to prove that we could get through it. We had no personal damage except part of a fence blown down and the loss of a few things in the freezer. When hurricanes aren't tragic, their aftermaths are actually kind of fun -- you're so busy just keeping yourself alive and defending your property that you get to temporarily abdicate from all your other responsibilities. It's kind of like an anti-Mardi Gras.
CONE OF PROBABILITY
 | VoicePost  247K 1:14 | “We have power! We have power. It's so beautiful. I was just lying in bed this morning, staring up at the ceiling fan, and trying to think of some reason to get up, when it started spinning and what I heard was Chris's shout of joy, 'We have power!' Electricity's so beautiful. We don't have TV or internet yet, so... another voice post. Gotta, gotta, gotta have the TV back on in time for the Saints game on Sunday. And I'm taking Chris to Commander's Palace for his 47th birthday tomorrow, so things are pretty much back to normal here. Wish I could say the same for the folks down in Terrebonne and LaFourche Parishes and Plaquemines and of course Grande Isle, so give your thoughts to them, and thanks to everybody who sent us good thoughts and offers of places to stay and all of that. I probably won't make too many more voice posts, because I always feel like an asshole doing them, so here's hoping that we'll have internet again soon, and until then, don't worry about us. Everything's great here. Signing off. Transcribed by: chris_walsh |
| VoicePost 280K 1:23 | “Still no power. My mother says I'm going to be the only person who complains, after Gustav (----), who are upset because they couldn't vacuum, but I love my vacuum. Nothing could completely free me from the tyranny of pet hair, but it's come closer than anything else ever has. For anyone who has way too many animals, I recommend the Hoover Windtunnel. It's expensive, but it's worth it. I got out the little camp stove, a little propane stove last night, and made hot dogs for us. I have no appetite. I can tell I'm hungry, 'cause I feel dizzy and weak, but I'm not hungry, I just don't want anything. Ugh. Hot. Of course, our friends who do have power -- power in about two-thirds of the city, I think -- two-thirds? Power in two-thirds of the city? -- Chris says about 40 percent. Friends who do have power have invited us over to hang and chill, literally, but the backup battery on our burgler alarm has gone out, so I feel I must stay and protect the homestead. I may send Chris out later, because he's starting to get cranky. I think he needs a break. I'm cranky, too, but I can stay here and be cranky by myself. So that's all for today. Over and out.” Transcribed by: chris_walsh |
| VoicePost 84K 0:24 | “The water is actually very, very comfortable. It's amazing what a tepid shower and half a Xanax can do for your mood. Transcribed by: takhisis |
| VoicePost 216K 1:05 | “Chris has gone to get ice from his friend Dan, who owns <a href="http://www.steinsdeli.net/">Stein's Deli</a> on Magazine Street. They are open and serving food. Anyone who's in town, that's Stein's Deli on Magazine Street: they're serving food. Transcribed by: multiple users |
| VoicePost 254K 1:16 | “Everything's still all right here. We're getting kinda hot and sweaty and cranky, I may try to crank up the solar powered shower today. Um, our friend Todd came over this morning and brought us hot coffee (He's an angel) and also took some of the food from our freezer to put in his in the French Quarter where they have power. We don't know how long it's going until we have power, Chris said two weeks and I almost hit him. But, we're ok, we're hanging in there, but no mention of anything being given out, any kind of supplies, water, ice, food, anything. They warned us, if we stayed we'd be on our own. The people are coming back now, they lifted the evacuation order and it seems like it wouldn't kill them to give us a little ice. That's really all we need, I'm not hungry anyway, the only thing I want to eat is (huh? I think she said "Kneetops"), those little Nabisco cracker sandwiches with the malt cracker and peanut butter filling, I wish we'd bought a lot more of those. And that's where we're at, I shall report again later...” Transcribed by: tjcrowley |
| VoicePost 252K 1:16 | “I tried to post this before but I think I forgot to press pound(?) at the end. Everything's still fine here, very quiet. The only people we're seeing are cops and national guard but we hearing on WWL(?) Radio it's not so good. People looked ready to come back because they know it's ok and they're being stopped at the parish borders by sheriff deputy's who have been so instructed by the parish presidents and mayor and other such minor authorities and then they're stranded on the side of the road with kids and pets nothing to eat. They don't have enough gas to turn around and go where they came from like they're being told to do and it's sucks. It's a bad situation. This has been handled well so far so let's not fuck it up now huh. As for us, we're ok. Like I say quiet in the neighborhood. There's no way we're gonna be able to get that fence back up by ourselves but I did manage to pull out the mother of thousands and it's gonna be ok it's indestructible(?). I stick it up and it looks alright. It's a little battered but basically fine as are we. Everybody take care and I'll post tomorrow. Later” Auto-Transcribed Voice Post |
| VoicePost 250K 1:13 | “Hello from uptown new Orleans. We are fine. We lost power and cell phone service early this morning and land line phone service this afternoon. Everything's still off except the cells. Seem to have made a come back. I received several text messages and, let's see, Chris has eaten almost all the junk food. And part of our back yard fence fell down crushing a bunch of my plants which sucks but if we get off that easy I guess we'll be happy. Chris has as I said Chris has eaten all the junk food already I have not yet gotten into the Wild Turkey. Actually I should confess I bought 3 bottles of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill in case I decided I wanted to re live the old days but I haven't been brave enough to get into those yet and I'm not sure that I'll ever crack the seal. But we're fine. This is the back end of the storm going over now and it's just a bunch of rain no street flooding in our area. Very quiet haven't seen a soul except a few cop cars going by. We're gonna be ok. Thanks for all the messages. Love ya'll. Bye.” Transcribed by: infrogmation |
PZB: Don't you stick your arm in there!
CdB: I'm not gonna stick my fuckin arm in there!
PZB: And if you see a clown, you RUN!
CdB: A WHAT??!
PZB: Don't talk to it, don't look at it, just RUN!
Earlier today we brought in all the plants, tikis, etc., and threw the St. Joseph bread out both doors. There seems to be a great deal of panicking and doomsaying going on. We're prepared, but not particularly scared; from where we sit, conditions actually seem somewhat more promising than last night.
I've despised Michael Moore since I saw Bowling For Columbine, but I suggest that anyone who still likes him take a look at this YouTube video (apologies for the link, but I've not yet figured out how to embed a video in a journal entry, nor do I particularly want to since I hate it when my friends list is full of them). "Gustav proves that there is a God in Heaven." Very nice. Yes, I'm aware he added that he "hope[s] nobody gets hurt," but apparently he doesn't care if south Louisianians experience terror, loss of income, horrible evacuation conditions, catastrophic property damage, etc., etc., as long as those ee-vil Republicans come off looking bad. He is a pus-dripping fuckstick floating atop a big turd in a little toilet. George Bush, Karl Rove ("The Republicans can't catch a break with the weather in August, hur hur hur!"), Bobby Jindal, Ray Nagin, and many others float on adjacent turds, alternately hailing and trying to capsize one another.
Dammit, I meant to pick up the new Paul Theroux book before all this shit went down. I got nice bright camping lanterns so I wouldn't be caught without a reading light this time. Of all the creature comforts we lacked in early September of 2005 -- air conditioning, hot showers, hot food (except those scary MREs), clean clothes, flushing toilets -- I think that bothered me most of all, because, as Stephen King reminds us, "book-Valium" is one of the best drugs in existence.
Profile
- docbrite
- Poppy Z. Brite
- poppyzbrite.com
Syndicate
