Satire: Inebriated White Women

Random Underlinings found in a serial killer's handbag:

Whenever inebriated upper-class white women scorn fags and black people, you have to stop to think that inebriated upper-class white women are the minority that needs to be checked on their white privilege. Better yet, tell 'em their sons are homos and the WWII museum should be burned to the fucking ground. Viva La Revolution!

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Samples from SIGGRAPH 2009

Here are some pictures from SIGGRAPH 2009 in New Orleans.

Google had their tent at SIGGRAPH.

Sigh: no public transportation directions yet for RTA in New Orleans in Google Maps. Note to self: write to RTA.


There were several booths displaying a virtual reality experience. In this showcase, the actor is fitted with a facial device (which show up as bright colored lights on camera but are not so in real life). In this example, she is channeling a mean dude. On the second floor, another actress was channeling a digital rhino.
This dude from France demonstrated a cool virtual goggle that can interact with game pieces on a virtual display. Practical implications: Virtual RPG.
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Conference Notes: On My Way to Siggraph 2009 in New Orleans

I went to SIGGRAPH 2009 today, an international exhibition of technology and interactive graphics. The question that pervaded my mind was, "What is graphics?" Graphics is not only animation nor is it always easy to define. Graphics can be both analog or digital, or a mixture of both. I brought to the conference questions about the nature of graphics. Bonnie Wood had told me about SIGGRAPH years ago and I was waiting for their return to the Crescent City. The last time the conference was in New Orleans was ten years ago. Because animation studios work out of Los Angeles, and Asia is so close, usually the conference is out west, so I was thrilled when they decided to come South every decade or so. I heard the last conference was bigger than this one, but I must say I was still impressed. Nearly the entire convention center was filled. I seldom come to this next of the woods. I call it the big building built beneath the expressway.

This morning I was running late, took the streetcar downtown and walked five or so blocks to meet Bonnie. I registered but I did not see her so I waited for a half-hour and people watched. My phone was out of commission. I am going to save my iPhone story for another blog:

But, Max did an autopsy on my phone and it is dead. I am stuck with my old cingular phone (which I also left), which is fine, but I realized how dependent on my iPhone I have become: no Google maps on the fly, no email on the go, no random checking of random checking. I absolutely hate it. A person dies without water in the desert; in a digital desert I would die without my phone. I have become so used to having it as an information companion that without it I feel similar withdrawal symptoms associated with people quitting tobacco or alcohol. I am grateful to Max though for agreeing to fix my screen although I was not much help as I stood in his living room, suppressing panic mode, as he took apart my phone with an Exacto knife.
Sitting in the convention lobby. Watching the stream of people.
I will write tomorrow more about the exhibitions, but I am tired right now.

:-)

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New Orleans looks oddly vanilla on White Linen Night.

I had come to expect loosely populated streets this summer, especially downtown, where normally Canal street is mediocre, even with the Insectarium, Aquarium and Casino traffic. The side streets of downtown, namely Julia, were hopping tonight. Art vendors swung open their doors and people strolled through, wearing their finest white attire (and some with no attire), wishing they could afford original art. I had never been to white linen night. So when Tony called, while I was at home camming on Stickam talking about video games and cell phone covers with a guy from Missouri, I decided to go. He was funny because he was streaming his live camera from a cell phone cover store. His shop is in an Army PX. He would talk to me and the others in the room and then, without a hitch, Say, “hello. How can I help you?” Then you would hear the chatter of customer talk. No one knew his laptop, stowed low on the cashier counter, held such voyeurism, including his queer boss. Only once did someone discover it: “So what you got there?” quipped a girl who had violated the sacred space between customer and proprietor. My friend told the girl, “I am on camera with my friends.” She was happy with that answer. But, this story is a story within a story. With Tony's call, I had to pull myself out of cyber world (which has composed my summer existence). I want to write a book about Stickam but that is another story.

Let us talk about White Linen:
One gallery had a red carpet leading through its front doors with fake paparazzi taking our pictures. Instantly, of course, I thought of Lady Gaga. Even though New Orleans for me has never been associated in my mind with the glitz of Hollywood; it was nice to pretend. I wonder if Lady Gaga was at White Linen Night? She certainly could have fallen from a downtown condo similar to one in her video. The PAPA - PAPA razzi of the night mainly concerned local art. The Ogden was open as well as the Contemporary Art Center. We had not had this kind of art focus on Julia since Prospect One closed down shop in January. And of course, there is Art for Art’s Sake on Magazine. Difference: White Linen had no FREE booze. Not even water!

I heard there used to be free booze and cheese, but now, you gotta pay. Sucks. Even though the city is candidly an art gallery in of itself, the nights we dedicate specifically to art are special. A sketch of an alligator with two heads, to show a difference in motion: one head its jaw open, the other, its jaw closed, blood dripping from its mouth, called “In Remembrance of Jacko.” I wonder if the title was added as a dedication after Jacko’s death or before?
Now you could say the mass of white bedecked linens strolling Julia were Middle Class. Maybe upper middle-class white folk — like me! — who do not have original art pieces hanging in their homes — but it did strike me as funny the white in white linen also reflected race: I saw maybe three non-caucasions the entire night.
I made two faux pas at White Linen night:

1. I called a lady a bitch because she would not let me drink a glass of red wine in her store. Whatever happened to the congenial tradition of booze and art? She heard me but did not respond. I was a tad bit buzzed. One reason I am going straight to the burning flames when I cease to exist.
2. I took a photograph of some chick dressed in a peacock. See pictures. She was very angry at me. So, I post her here.




Anyway, thank you, White Linen, for giving me a reason to post on Blogger.

Look at all the wine we drank at W.I.N.O. Miss Mae was heartily happy to drink some red. Tony luxuriated in the semi-port we drank. The machines are way cool. To drink some red or white, you simply pre-pay or put a card at the cashier. They give you a plastic W.I.N.O card. Simply place the card in a slot, position your glass at an angle, press one, two, or three ounces and frothy goodness flows forth. Miss Mae and I spent forty dollars between the two of us in probably forty-five minutes.
We drank from these bottles: I guess I could make this a wine blog and go into each one’s specific gustation, but I won’t here. 1.) I am tired and 2.) It is not my intent.

Now, I guess one could argue just buying a bottle of nice wine and sharing it is more economical than guzzling choice ounces but one pays for the experience.

And, as Miss Mae told me as we walked away from Julia street: “You are the consummate English major, always living to write about a new experience."
Ain't that the truth. I am seriously thinking of writing about Stickam. I have that text novel going but I have no idea where to go with it. Maybe John will have some ideas. :-)

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Visiting the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium in New Orleans

The Insectarium is housed in the Old Customs House
on Canal Street in New Orleans

On the first floor of the Custom House on Canal Street in New Orleans, the Audubon Institute opened the city’s first insectarium. For twelve years the insectarium has been in the works behind the scenes and finally opened its doors to the public last week. I went with my cousin Ian on Tuesday to visit the array of ants, patent leather beetles, butterflies, and katydids. 

Ants go marching . . .

I was impressed by the ant farm. Along a wall in the museum’s main hallway has been constructed a sizable ant farm that spans about ten or more feet (I’m just guessing here). I was ready to spot the queen ant in her chambers but I could not find her but one of the museum volunteers told me that she is known to appear every once in a while but is usually surrounded by her ardent followers. Apparently, she is moved from chamber to chamber every once in a while and the lucky visitor who happens to be present can witness the event, but alas we were not fortunate enough to witness the royal entourage.

On the day we visited the insectarium, the black widow spider seemed to be missing. Ian and I looked for her but we could not find her, only an empty web. Hopefully, she did not escape! We informed the entomologist standing nearby and he said they were aware of the fact and were hoping she was hiding and not escaping.

Of course, the insectarium boasts the usual array of bugs: spiders, cockroaches, beetles galore, including the impressive diving beetle. One of the nice things about the insectarium is that it provides a place to view all of these bugs without fighting the urge to stomp on one of them. Probably, if I ever see a black widow spider coming my way, I am not going to point at it red belly and say, “look at that hour-glass shape, how fascinating!” I am going to either run away or defend myself. At the insectarium, however, the need for man to defend himself in his natural environment goes away, and I can safely admire the termites and cockroaches, without wondering if I should call Terminix (who happens to be a major sponsor for the insectarium).

Kids gawk at the Insectarium

I could have done without Joan Riversfly done up like a bug and yakking about insects on a big screen TV. And I did think some of the exhibits were lackluster, especially the underground gallery which was supposed to make you feel like you were bug-sized. Either I didn’t get it or my imagination has run dry. Also, the honey bee exhibit should be at the same size as the ant farm: huge. But, hey, it was still cool watching a few bees gather their nectar and return to a very small hive.

The most impressive gallery was the butterfly gallery. The first part is the metamorphosis gallery. Here, you can see all the stages in their natural glory. It was really fascinating to look at the butterflies lined up in their various stages of metamorphosis. It still boggles my mind that a caterpillar can change from a lumpy piece of fat into a diaphanous spectacle in a matter of days. Wow. 

A museum interpreter answers questions.

I think of metamorphosis as a different form of birth, I guess. The human baby comes out of the womb wet and hairless and over time grows up and after a while looks quite different from the infant he or she once was. But with a caterpillar, it is quite a different story. They basically turn from one species to another. But, I guess it would be like if a human baby was born looking like a fetus. When it was born it would pretty much act like a caterpillar: slow-moving and eating a lot. In the human’s case that would mean a plentitude of milk and baby food as it fattened up and then curled up into a leathery cocoon for a few weeks only to emerge a post-pubescent, adult-ready human. Mothman, anyone? I am kind of glad, though that puberty is not as bad as metamorphosis would probably be. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if you entered the pupa stage like in the middle of gym class? Gross …

Can you name the butterflies?

After the metamorphosis gallery, we were gladly marshaled into the butterfly gallery where you can watch the insects flutter about in an oriental style garden complete with music and coy fish swimming in an ornate pond. It was a nice way to end the visit to the museum.

I highly recommend this museum. It is fun and freaky. I think any age group would find it interesting and enjoyable. The price is about 15 dollars for adults and I forget how much it is for children under the age of twelve, but hey, I was not looking. You can get an insectarium + zoo + aquarium package but I would not rush your insect trip. Take your time and enjoy the bugs!

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News Report: Was it Dolly Parton New Year's Eve?

One Night in the French Quarter
While out last night in the French Quarter, my friend Dana and I saw Dolly Parton perform

Can the Real Dolly Parton Please Stand Up?

at Napoleon's Itch. It was completely a coincidence. We had just left the OZ (with its unabashed showcase of flesh) to go to Napoleon's Itch and there she was in her voluptuous glory. The small bar barely could fit fifty people. Everyone was clamoring to get Dolly's attention. At one point some Mary called out, "I love you, Dolly!" and she responded, "I love you too but I told you to wait for me in the truck"! She sang the duet "Islands in the Stream" with the bartender (he was no Kenny Rogers but it was funny). I wish she would have sung "Travellin' Thru". I think she sang for forty-five minutes. And then she left backstage as quickly as she had appeared.
Figuring Out Whether It Was Dolly or Not
Dana told me that Dolly is friends with the guy who owns the bar which is why we were feted with such amazing grace. I was so happy to see Dolly that I just had to write this down in a blog. When I was a kid I used to listen to "9 to 5" over and over again. Seeing her last night was a great way to celebrate New Year's Eve.

Addenda: I found this article (now archived) from the Times Picayune that states Dolly sang for Mardi Gras too. But, further digging on the internet I found reportage that said it was not Dolly but a look-alike performer, Sandy Vee Anderson.

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Talk at Tulane University: Salman Rushdie in New Orleans

   Salman Rushdie came to New Orleans last night to speak to a large assembly at Tulane’s Dixon Hall. If you don’t know already, Rushdie is a novelist known for Midnight’s Children and The Satanic Verses. He was placed on the Ayatollah Komeini’s “to kill list” because it was thought Satanic Verses defamed Islam. The fatwa against his life has been subsequently lifted, but it has not lifted the chatter that has circulated around the author and his controversial persona.
People Condemned Rushdie's Novel Satanic Verses Without Even Having Read It
    At the event, Rushdie spoke about how people condemned his novel without even having read it, going so far as to recount the story of a man who had publicly protested his book, but later on, read the novel, and exclaimed, “What was the big deal?”  “Asshole,” Rushdie said. “Why do people who condemn books never read them?” The people who want to get rid of books are the same people who say, “I am not a book person”!  That is the ludicrousness of the world, writ large. Rushdie also told a story about how Stephen King called up his publisher after having read Satanic Verses and realizing it was a great novel, told the publishers if they refused to put Rushdie’s book on the shelf then he was going to demand they remove all of his book from publication and call ten other best selling authors and demand that they do the same!  Rushdie laughed when he told this story saying, “And now, my book has outsold theirs!  There is no justice!”
According to Rushdie, A Novelist Writes "Fictions" But Tells More Truths than Politicians!
    He spoke frankly about politicians and how they do not tell the truth.  He said the novelist tells the truth because he is not ashamed to say in the beginning that his story is fiction! He spoke about the uselessness of fiction.  He said he was tired of the Utilitarian argument that novels have to be useful if they are to be read. Whatever happened to unadulterated pleasure? Alice in Wonderland, he said, is not a useful book. Its sole purpose is to create pleasure.  God forbid, anyone have a little pleasure!
       Perhaps, people are threatened by pleasure.  Are we really like the Puritan who thinks in his heart and is distraught that somewhere, somebody is having fun?
       Perhaps the role of literature is to open up the world just a little bit and to expand the cosmos.
Rushdie Makes Jibes About President Bush (And the Conservatives in the Crowd Squirmed A Bit)
     Rushdie was witty last night.  He made us laugh. He jabbed Bush. And he made the conservatives in the house queasy.  I saw a politician in the audience, but I cannot remember who it was (maybe it was Melinda Schwegmann): We don’t have many Salman Rushdie’s in our culture today, though.  Gone are the days of the public satirists. Perhaps, you can still find them on Youtube in the likes of Chris Crocker or on television with the Daily Show but the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain are few and far between.  It is like when they asked Dorothy Parker to speak about Horticulture.  “You can lead a horticulture but you cannot make her think!” (You have to say that joke out loud to get it!).
A Man's Daimon Is His Ethos
    I thought it was interesting that Rusdie was in New Orleans.  I think this was his first visit and I am glad I decided to attend. It invigorated me to hear a public intellectual speak who did not mouth the same tired babble over and over again.  I actually, got up and asked him a question. I had read an essay he had written on Heraclitus in Granta and he said his favorite quote from Heraclitus was "A man’s daimon (his character) is his ethos (or his fate)". So, I asked him, “What is Salman Rushdie’s daimon?”  He answered with another anecdote about him and his sister which I really do not recall the details because I was so nervous standing up there at the dais. It’s kind of nerve-wracking to ask a public intellectual a public question!

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Poem: "St. Roch"

St. Roch

Your ancestors are buried here,

she said,

pointing to the fuzzy monitor;

my roots displayed

as if someone had known all along

that francis killman is my Great Grandfather,

a tattoo of a woman sewn on his thigh

that I have never seen before,

never knew him before,

gets kinda excited

decomposed into a puddle

at St. Roch

his ashes are —

I presume, , ,

but I can never find him,

passing the chapel,

Cubicle “A-2-Z” is absent,

a square window penciled in on the side,

and peering in like Scrooge on Christmas day —

I see there are crutches, braces, wooden canes,

old socks

s t r e w n

on rocks carved, “Thank you to a saint”

LEFT BY KIERKEGAARD’S FAITHFUL

and we are changed —

the peeled off pavement

of Holy Trinity walk

and Saint Irenaeus lane

suffer … drop a penny, sink a ship, sailor blue leaning against the wall, washed out from the lake pontchartrain after the storm

Three Boys at the Pantheon

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A Poem Written During Hurricane Season: "on the vacation of spirits"

I wrote a poem about Hurricane Katrina - because I lived through it. Here is the poem (and yes, I took the photograph too).

on the vacation of spirits

when the zephyr blazed through MR GO, the gods, naiads, goddesses, with their hollow shrieks vacated the levee womb, a deposit bereft of running life
left, vacant and empty where once
spirits danced and melancholy wept –
on the corner of St. Claude and Alvar –
now split into dry wood, a gaping gash,
unsutured and sullied with faded peeled shrimp –
drained,
as if blood itself where all that is necessary for a full spectrum rainbow –
now only empty houses, prom dresses

milton’s house,
left on top of a pickup
because there are no longer laughing gods to re evacuate,
no longer a god to sit on the stoop at the fish market,
a boy to close the door behind him when he leaves

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text and image © Greig Roselli

Hurricane Katrina: My Personal Story on Living Through the Storm

We had just read Virginia Woolf’s The Mark on the Wall before the storm came. We were in a circle sharing thoughts and ideas about possessions and the seeming impermanence of things.
     It was the end of the week and I had a pile of readings to get through before weekend’s end. My first semester of graduate school had only begun on Monday at Southeastern Louisiana University and I had just started a Master's program in Englis. I had paid my tuition and fees and had procured a graduate study carrel from the library so I could stash my research materials in one locked place. I had figured out the best commuter route from the house to school and I was even beginning to feel normal in my new routine even though I was a little anxious and nervous at the prospect of my next new adventure; I am planning on getting a degree in English so I can teach at our local seminary college which is run by the Benedictine religious community that I belong to as a professed monastic. We live near Covington, north of Lake Pontchartrain, the behemoth lake that separates us from the fishbowl called New Orleans and the mighty Mississip’. We call our little municipality Saint Benedict. Area code 70457. We have a little post office stuck into an extremity of the Abbey. A Romanesque Church and Bauhaus looking college are architectural

I lived in St. Benedict,
Louisiana when the storm hit 

highlights here. Loblolly pines (a few Longleaf) characterize the area flora along with strawberries and bedroom community traffic. Many people who live in the towns and cities that sprinkle Saint Tammany parish work in New Orleans. Slidell. Covington. Mandeville. Madisonville. Folsom. Abita Springs. Reminiscence of convalescence from tuberculosis and insanity populate the urban legend of the area. The Northshore was at first home to the mad and the sick. Mandeville is a sanatorium founded by Bernard de Marigny who invented craps and Abita Springs is regionally famous for its beer and spring water, apparently easing body and mind for a century or more in what used to be called the ozone of New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina is
one of the most powerful storms
to hit the Gulf Coast in a century

     On Friday, August 26, I heard murmuring at the coffee bar about a storm system in the Gulf of Mexico. I kept the news in the back of my head but it didn’t strike me at first as something to be afraid of. Living in New Orleans, you always have the fear that a big storm will hit and there always seems to be some sporadic storm system in the Gulf, especially during August and September. We’ve escaped many hurricanes here. New Orleans had barely escaped hurricane Ivan, last year and the four most dangerous, recent storms that wracked the Gulf coast hit other states. So, I wasn’t that eager to evacuate. I didn’t want to come back to yet another near miss. Coming back to averted disaster creates anxiety and stress and an unwillingness to evacuate again in the future. Not that we want a disaster to strike this city but the financial hardships that the tourist and oil industry endure every time the city evacuates disturbs our already weak economy. The rich and the middle class can get out of the city (but even they are inconvenienced by gas prices and hotel bills) when warning of a hurricane is issued, the poor and disenfranchised are stranded. I know a person who lives on the corner of Bourbon and Esplanade and he doesn’t have a car nor a way out. It seems now, in retrospect, that not having a car in this city is tantamount to exile (the streetcar or the bus will not be much help). In New Orleans, buses cart the poor to work and cars bring the bourgeoisie back to the suburbs. Public transportation to the north of the city begins to break down until there is nothing except a stretch of road without a bus stop. When Katrina came ashore New Orleans was Naxos with thousands of Ariadnes.

Artificial levees (like the one above) broke
— which caused catastrophic flooding in the city.

     Fifty hours before Katrina hit, contraflow began in Southeastern Louisiana and everyone with a car fled and everyone without one stayed. Contraflow is extremely organized, one of the most organized things we have in this state. Street lights are turned off, so people don’t stop. Once you get into the flow on the interstate, it’s like the Pacific current; there’s no turning back. The expressways become one-way arteries out of the hub. I have family in Orleans, St. Charles and Jefferson Parishes. Everybody got out. Mom and my Great Aunt came to stay with me. My cousin Linda and her children went to Houston. One of the last people I spoke to on the phone before Katrina knocked out power was her eleven-year-old son, who is like a brother to me. He said he was afraid that there would be nothing left of his house when he got home. I asked him what valuables did he bring with him. He said he had brought some photographs. I told him that I loved him and for him not to worry about us. I would see him and other family members when the storm blew over. I wasn’t able to get in touch with my dad but I knew he probably fled like everyone else. His house is right next to the 17th street canal which now has a hole in it the size of an eighteen-wheeler.

New Orleans after the levees broke

     I spoke to my friend Frida on her cell phone hours before we lost connection. She works in the Garden District, a posh, live oak-lined neighborhood near the zoo. When I mentioned that there might be nothing to come home to, she dismissed it and said we can’t think like that right now; if it happens it happens. At that point, I was afraid for the city because I didn’t know what would happen. One guy here went to fetch his father from the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, but his dad insisted that he stay, to take care of the dogs. Still, at this writing, we don’t know where his dad is; the last we heard was that his roof was gone and Saint Claude Avenue was under twelve feet of water. As the storm crept inland doors were pressured off their hinges. Water pumps failed. Cell towers down. The Hyatt Hotel in the Central Business District looked like Beirut, according to one news anchor. The Super Dome suffered massive holes and its outer skin was peeled off. It looked like someone had peeled it back to reveal a rusty navel orange. At least two breakages in the levee system caused rising water near Canal Street, inching toward the French Quarter, which has managed to stay dry, for now. It seems like most of the city is underwater and massive relief efforts are underway to rescue people stranded on top of the expressways. I just saw a C-130 carrier plane rumble overhead this morning. They are carting people to the Astro Dome in Houston and there is talk that people will have to board naval carriers to get out of here. Last I heard there were still 30,000 people in need of evacuation. People still on houses. People unattended to even in shelters.
           On the news, a little girl was crying, “Somebody help us!” A mother was pouring lukewarm water on her son’s back. A husband lost his wife; she couldn’t hold his hand, the flow of the water was too much; the storm had washed her away. Humanity is supposed to come alive when a storm hits. Even though now, Red Cross shelters and FEMA are distributing food, providing shelter, and caring for the sick and wounded, they came too late. The National Guard, the 82nd Air Borne Division, even ATF agents, are coming in to give relief, four days after the storm. Because so many people were left behind after the storm, relief shelters couldn’t provide for their needs, so people died, babies, the elderly and mental health patients. Dead bodies have been found, slumped in their wheelchairs in the Convention Center. The good news is that even though the Federal Government was slow in responding, most of the humanitarian relief has been by neighbors helping neighbors. My mother has been volunteering at the local high school which has become a local shelter. There was a story about a woman who had a baby by Caesarian section and was trying to get to Baton Rouge for care. She was in front of the Convention Center in New Orleans waiting for a bus to bring her and her baby to a hospital. Looters and thugs were firing gunshots, forcing the woman to start walking. She walked across the Crescent City Connection over the Mississippi River to a car and apparently drove to Baton Rouge. The doctor who received her at Woman’s Hospital, a refugee himself, who was just credentialed to help out, was emotional when he retold the story. Here at my house, stray folks are asking for water and food. Even showers. One family up the road who come to mass here lost their entire house and need a place to take a shower. We have people living in the library, the gym and offices scattered across campus.
     I guess there is a secret desire in every one of us to weather the big storm, to see as King Lear sees: the cracked skies and the spitfire of physical evil. But this storm was different. A storm like a category five hurricane has the tendency to shake people to their basic core; either they come alive or curl into the fetal position; a storm like this one should be reassurance that we’re not dead yet! I’ve read articles about hurricane psychology and seen it in action in people, including myself. When Katrina hit, I was on the second floor of our building, watching pine tree after pine tree snap in two, sometimes like a broken toothpick and other times, trees were uprooted and splayed across our walkways, their roots gnarled and exposed to the air. I went crazy. Live Oaks kept their trunks intact but Water Oaks and Cypresses on our property were tossed like a baby’s toy. When you hear a tree, especially trees you’re familiar with, that you walk by every day, that you come to know and love, snap in two, it is a horrible noise, a sound like a crushed spine. I watched most of the storm from the second-floor balcony. As the storm barreled its way northward something inside of me, restless and unassuaged, was desperate for air. I needed to release pent up tension. So we went to the first floor to the outside walkways to see the storm at Katrina’s level, to feel the wind and rain. I was soaked and mad. We hooted and hollered at the storm. I flung out Shakespeare: crack you thunderbolts! I’m skinny, so I was afraid that the wind would take me so I hid behind Danny who is a bit heavier than I am. He didn’t appreciate it too much. The wind never picked any of us up but I have a vivid image of the Tulip Poplar crashing to its end. I was mad at God when the Tulip Poplar broke, symbolic of so much further, deeper anger. Something snaps inside of you when a big storm comes. I didn’t feel guilty that I was angry at Mother Nature; I guess can project all of my frustrations and anxiety on her.
Storms do different things to different people. Some people hunkered in their rooms and didn’t come out. Others couldn’t keep still. Like me. I was raging Shakespeare to the nymphs and dryads while the guy next to me was contemplating running through the yard to the bridge, oblivious to the fact that the wind gusts could actually pick him up and toss him to his death. One guy was already out in the storm, in the middle of the gusts, picking up window frames that had flown off. Even in the midst of the insanity, I knew I was insane, but I couldn’t stop. I had to feel the storm inside of me, the rush of it through my body like blood flow. Only then could I know for sure that it had passed. As trees fell one after another I felt sad and disoriented, as if the trees themselves were us, were me, were those that I love.
       When the roof of our dining room experienced a major leak, ten or more guys got the nerve to actually fix the leak in order to save the murals that had been done to decorate our eating area. But, I think some of the Celotex panels were damaged and I came to the realization that not even art is permanent, demoralizing, but true. Watching gobs of water spray into our beautifully done murals made me realize how bad it really was.

View of St. Louis Cathedral
from the Mississippi River in New Orleans

Not that we should be surprised. Climatologists and disaster experts have been doing worst case scenarios for years. In 2001 there was a spread in Scientific American about “Drowning New Orleans”. There are four major factors at play here, that isolated don’t do much, but collectively bode badly for our area. The first thing is New Orleans is below sea level. When you look down onto the French Quarter from the levee you look down into Jackson Square. Ships on the river seem to be above the Cathedral steeples. The levee system is ancient. Humans have been warding off the Mississippi River for over a hundred years. It is like a one hundred year old house that has been given periodic attention but is still old and cannot sustain the wear and tear any longer. The Army Corps of Engineers is in charge of the levee system, a network of man-made hills that keep the river from cresting into the city. New Orleans is like a bowl, sitting in a tub of water; you tip it a little, either way, and water starts pouring in. The third thing is that the Gulf waters have risen on account of global warming. And our wetlands have disappeared dramatically. When Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans our natural defenses were better equipped to fend off the storm. Now with long droughts that have plagued the region in the past few years, New Orleans sits on a dry bed of soil. The spongy swamps won’t protect us like they used to do.
        And they didn’t. Katrina hit us in the gut, worse than Betsy and Camille in the 60’s. At first, weather reports were saying that it was good that the storm was moving westerly, supposedly saving us from an even more disastrous hit, but it seems now, judging from the destruction, that it didn’t matter. When the storm died down and we only had tropical force winds blowing, we celebrated the Eucharist in an open room. I was soaked, oddly sad and disappointed that the worst of it was over. There was something about the insanity and chaos of the storm that I loved and also hated. Receiving communion while the winds still blew, I felt my first twinge of sadness and first real conjecture of what this storm did to our way of life. It would take us days to finally realize that this wasn’t just a normal gulf hurricane. I knew it was bad, when later, while watching the news, someone commented, “oh! they only have two feet of water.” and someone else said, “they’re only walking waist-deep through the water!”
        I knew New Orleans would never be the same again, maybe parts of the city uninhabitable for years; the body count will be in the ten thousand range and it will be difficult to identify all the corpses; missing person reports will go on for years and displaced persons will have to find homes and jobs elsewhere. Entire bridge networks have been washed away and people in cars stuck underneath train trestles and on the roofs of houses. Streets are only navigable in some areas by flat bottom boats where only last week cars were driving down them. I can remember in grammar school, watching historical footage from hurricane Camille’s aftermath, a storm that devastated Pass Christianne, Mississippi. A woman was with police officials and family, looking for her home that existed in a “bombed out” area where apparently everything was lost. But they found her house unscathed and I remember she was ecstatic jumping up and down in disbelief, unable to reconcile her fears with what had actually happened.
     I hope stories like hers will be repeated today. New Orleans will be rebuilt, even if the politics are against it. For one: New Orleans represents a cultural heritage that fuels the national psyche. It is also home to millions of people. Louisiana is a model for other cities in the world that are suffering from coastal erosion. Louisiana produces one-third of the nation’s seafood and one-fifth of its oil and one-quarter of its natural gas. From New Orleans to Baton Rouge on the Mississippi constitute the United States’ largest port. We have 40 percent of the nation’s wetlands along our coasts and they provide wintering grounds for 70 percent of its migratory waterfowl. I got this information from the Scientific American article that I had read four years ago. If anyone says New Orleans is not worth saving, then I say they really don’t know what they’ll be missing.
     I find myself saying little prayers to Our Lady of Prompt Succor, the patron of our state. Not that I have a particular devotion, but at times it is the only thing that I can utter in prayer. Slowly but surely it is dawning on me, my family, and my brothers whom I live with, the vastness of the destruction and the affect this disaster will have on our lives. I can only begin to now to painfully put all of the pieces together. My friend Bonnie was Hardy’s reddleman today (from Return of the Native), picking up sticks alongside our buildings, she represented apocalypse at bay, keeping the time with each dropped pine, a silence and calm. I am reminded of life and a quote from Woolf: "the perpetual waste and repair; all so casual, all so haphazard."

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The pig people: urban legend or fact?

They live under interstate highways. In New Orleans, they call them the "pig people." The locals say they're cannibals and their noses are upturned, like a pig. At least that's what was told to me on Carrollton and Tulane the other night. At about two in the morning. I just had coffee with Danita and I took the streetcar back to school. But I had to transfer to a bus. The bus wasn't coming anytime soon, so I figured I might as well walk.

The pig people purportedly live under the interstate in New Orleans 

Home was only five blocks away. But I was afraid of walking underneath the overpass at night. The interstate loomed before me like a badly placed skateboard park. From my room at Notre Dame, the blinking lights of vehicles communicate to me during REM sleep, the balustrades to commerce, concrete effigies that simultaneously (concurrently) hold up the little modules of despair, racing through our fair country, while harboring pig people down below in her concrete bosom.

So I decided not to risk an encounter so I waited for the last bus.

At the bus stop, I asked about the pig people to some wearied travelers.

Here is what they sang:
In her concrete bosom, the pig people sleep.
the pig people live and eat.
the pig people, the loup garoux, the boogey man,
the monster in the closet, the fear out to get ya, man.

boom, hear that, y’all?

yeah, bitch, she's keen on your hide,
her nose upturned like a pig snake, like a pig,
like a celluloid freak from the comic pages of your friendly horror page;

an immaculate mother, slouching to Bethlehem --

Urban legend?

Maybe. But no. It's not a legend. I have never seen a pig person, but I am sure they exist because I have seen their shadows lurking behind the balustrades of the interstate and I can give you a considerable amount of witnesses who can attest to their existence.

Next time you are around the interstate at night (or even by day) please let me know if you encounter the pig people.

Update: I heard a rumor that Master P is doing a horror flick based on the pig people legend in New Orleans.

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