Please help with my installation!
For my Contemporary New Orleans Literature class, i'm doing an art installation as my final project. It's going to have a lot of different elements, but one thing i'd like to include is some text from friends.
I would be super-grateful if you could leave a comment or email me at (ladybee-at-gmail-dot-com) and answer at least one or both of the following questions:
1.) What do you think of when you think of New Orleans? Are you from New Orleans, or have you ever visited or lived in New Orleans?
2.) Where were you when Hurricane Katrina hit? If you have time, please tell me your story. I want stories from people all over the country and the world, whether you were present in the city or weathering the outer bands in northern Mississippi or just reading about it on the internet in Zimbabwe.
Please understand that, by answering in a comment/email, you agree to give me permission to use your quote as part of this art installation. If you wish to remain anonymous/unattributed, that is totally fine! I will be writing up the installation and documenting it in my San Miguel blog, so you will get to see how your words fit into the whole thing.
Thank you SO much!
I would be super-grateful if you could leave a comment or email me at (ladybee-at-gmail-dot-com) and answer at least one or both of the following questions:
1.) What do you think of when you think of New Orleans? Are you from New Orleans, or have you ever visited or lived in New Orleans?
2.) Where were you when Hurricane Katrina hit? If you have time, please tell me your story. I want stories from people all over the country and the world, whether you were present in the city or weathering the outer bands in northern Mississippi or just reading about it on the internet in Zimbabwe.
Please understand that, by answering in a comment/email, you agree to give me permission to use your quote as part of this art installation. If you wish to remain anonymous/unattributed, that is totally fine! I will be writing up the installation and documenting it in my San Miguel blog, so you will get to see how your words fit into the whole thing.
Thank you SO much!
#1- I have never been to New Orleans, but in my imagined trip there, It is hot and sunny with a gentle breeze, I have a cool drink in my hand. As I stroll the evening streets of the Quarter I am listening to the music pour out of the various establishments. I am trying to decide which one to settle upon. I make my decision, open the door and enter.
ReplyDelete#2- in the boston area, crying.
I started writing waaaaay too much so I will email you :)
ReplyDelete1. I think of the Quarter and Lafayette Square. I've been to Nola once, at around 14, so my personal impressions are filtered through the view of a youngster - hot chocolate and begnets at Cafe du Monde, the facination with alleged voudou. I've desparately wanted to go back as an adult, but have just never made it down again. In my mind it's someplace that's barely even the U.S.
ReplyDelete2. I was in the DC area and honestly, was really more worried about my stepmother who was working on Katrina coverage in Mississippi at the time and thus I was mostly focused purely on the hurricaine and I was completely shocked at the later devistation from the levys breaking.
-Em
1) Anne Rice. I started reading her books when I was 11 or so and it was my first real introduction to New Orleans. I've never been but if I were to go now it would be to explore the New Orleans Voodoo tradition rather than the Anne Rice aspect of it.
ReplyDelete2) I love storm coverage and weather stories. Because of the time difference I was asleep when the storm hit New Orleans but I spent the evening glued to one of the American news outlets' UK channels (maybe CNN?) and watched the news coverage on the hurricane.
1) I was there once; you were there too - I remember seeing you.
ReplyDeleteThere was an old jazz man, half blind and using his trumpet in one hand and a broken wooden chair in the other to balance like a tightrope walker. He got to the middle of a four way intersection, put the chair down, and then sat there blocking traffic and playing the trumpet.
He had a hat and braces (I guess you'd call them 'suspenders') and he hammered out brassy jazz. I saw a NOLA cop walk over to him and, with my tourist head, thought "Here we go".
The cop gave him a little nod and directed the traffic around him as he played.
2) DJing in London, I dropped LZ's "When the Levee Breaks" into the set
1) I've been to New Orleans eight times, so far. The first three were to play rugby during Mardi Gras; the fourth was my first time to actually see the city, in 2003; the last four have been to volunteer with a nonprofit, doing green rebuilding/preservation in the Lower Ninth Ward.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of New Orleans, I think of Mack putting his life on hold to start a community center and bring his neighborhood back; I think of Smitty's cutting wit and sly smile and "oh please." I think of crawfish boils in at the 9th Ward Village, bottles of wine in a courtyard bar in Bywater, poboys and remoulade sauce and beignets and sooooo much good food.
I think of live music on Frenchmen Street, street musicians in the Quarter, punk rock blaring from Flanagan's, watching Rebirth play for the first time at the Rock n Bowl. I think of a man riding past as I kissed a boy late at night, bursting out with "Cupid, draw back your bow-ow..." I think of St. Patty's parades in the Irish Channel, where the ubiquitous beads are joined by flying heads of cabbage.
I think of the grass expanses in the Lower Ninth Ward, once packed with houses; the sad cypress stumps in the Bayou Bienvenue; the terrible streets and inept government; all the resources going to the French Quarter and other touristy areas, while the rest of the city goes begging; of five years on houses still needing demolition, with the infamous spray-painted Xs showing when each house was searched by whom and whether any bodies were found.
I think of the residents fighting so hard to rebuild.
2) With all that, this answer will seem strange: I don't remember where I was during Katrina. I mean, I'm sure I was in NC and horrified, but I don't have specific memories of that experience. I had a couple of friends who evacuated, and never moved back.