Nawlins

[Sweder]

I wanted to write something about this great city that has a special place in my heart.
And then along came todays' Guardian, and this piece by Howell Raines, the former editor of the New York Times. It says all I wanted to say.

Thursday September 1, 2005
Guardian

Unlike thousands of American families, my kin and I received at least one precious splash of good news from New Orleans. My daughter-in-law Eva Hughes Raines loaded her three-year-old daughter Sasha and the family pets into an SUV and fled town a full day ahead of the evacuation order. My son Jeffrey and his mates in Galactic, one of the city's better known funk bands, were performing in Seattle, watching from afar as Katrina inundated their homes in the US's most distinctive city. Soon the little family will arrive here in the Pocono mountains in Pennsylvania where we will wait, for weeks or
months, to see if their antique neighbourhood of distinctive "shotgun houses" can be made habitable again.

In the personal realm, there is no relief like the relief arising from the safety of loved ones. In the civic realm, there is no communal grief quite like that kind so well known to Londoners and New Yorkers from past disasters, the sorrow of watching as a beloved city is hammered by an unstoppable malice. Millions around the world now know about the inundation of the famous "bowl" formed by the city's levees.

What may need a little explaining is why New Orleans has been for generations of Americans a golden bowl of memories, both sacred and profane.

In colonial times, it was the one American city where Afro-Caribbean and Creole culture enjoyed at least a measure of tolerance under a succession of masters - Spanish, French, British and American. In 1814, it was the site of the United States' most complete victory over the Redcoats, a victory all the sweeter because it was crafted by the raw Celtic cunning of our most quintessentially American president, Andrew Jackson, and the Gallic conniving of his pirate ally, Jean Lafitte. Even the handful of Americans who died at the battle of New Orleans did so in Mardi Gras style, dancing atop the barricades before the last of the British snipers had skulked away.

For millions of Americans who grew up in strait-laced towns, the Big Easy has always been the city to dance, the one Southern place where the Bible Belt came unbuckled. A hundred years ago, the Storyville section was America's best place for the world's oldest profession and the birthplace of America's best contribution to world music, jazz.

Like millions of other young people in the preacher-haunted Southland, I bought my first legal drink in the French Quarter. We went for the booze, and in that world of cobbled streets and hidden gardens, some of us glimpsed the glory and costs of pursuing art or individualism.

This was the place where Thomas Williams of St Louis became "Tennessee", and where that much-ridiculed postal clerk from Oxford, Mississippi made himself into William Faulkner, novelist. This was the place where you could come to find or lose yourself. Across the river in Algiers, William Burroughs shot his wife, and Kerouac and Cassady ate Benzedrine like gumdrops. In the backroom of the Maple Leaf Bar on upper Magazine Street, my classmate Everette Maddox, a poet so precocious he had published in the New Yorker before he left the University of Alabama, succeeded after two decades of steady effort in drinking himself to death. Oh, wondrous city of music that floats from the horn and poems drowned in drink! Oh, cheesy clip-clop metropolis of phony coach-and-fours hauling the drunken Dodge salesmen of Centralia, Illinois, of shaky-handed failed watercolourists hanging unloved pictures on the wrought-iron fence at Jackson Square, of gaunt-eyed superannuated transvestite hookers, of Baptist girls suddenly inspired to show their tits on Chartres Street in return for a string of beads flung by a drunken college boy on the balcony of his daddy's $1,500 suite at the Soniat House - must we lose even these dubious glories of the only American city that's never been psychoanalysed?

I hope not. I am 62. If New Orleans is to be pumped out, its soffits re-replastered, its live oaks replanted before I'm gone, I'll be happily surprised. I'm just glad I saw it, and I'm glad my babies got out alive. For now, we wait and ponder this question. If it's gone or permanently altered, what memorial would be fitting? Surely it would not be some monument of stone, but perhaps a political memorial suitable to the city of Huey P Long and his fictional iteration Willie Stark, or a spiritual remembrance befitting the City That Care Forgot.

[Sweder]

OK, not quite all . . .

New Orleans, Louisiana, April 1987.
A cocky young man from South London arrives in the Big Easy for the first time. Amazed at the mixture of life that dwells in these dark streets of wrought iron and grubby cobblestones, he spends his days working in the riverside halls, evenings absorbing cocktails and fine music in equal measure.

He comes to the Old A Bar on Bourbon Street; a ramshackle house of ill repute, managed by close friends of one Francis Sinatra. Tonight, Brian Lee, blind genius of the blues, Miss Maggie and the Jump Street Five are wailing in the lounge. He sits in the corner, orders Sex On The Beach, settles back to let the R&B wash over him in the hot, steamy night. Hour after hour he sits, smoking his way through two packs of cigarettes, barely noticing the spritely blonde waitress as she glides between tables, re-fuelling the patrons under the steady thud of large overhead fans.

The set ends, and the lad seeks the girl to settle the check.
It's 2am. In Nawlins, the night is young.

'Goin' so soon hun?' the Blonde grins at him. 'Still plenty a life left in this ol' town, if you know where to look.'
She tips him the wink and leaves the table.
He hesitates, computing the signals.
'Err' he ventures. as she zips by with another laden tray.
'Don't s'pose you'd care to show me. Where to go, I mean.'
'Good lord, honey - I thought I was gonna hafta write you a note. I'll get my stuff.'

They tour the French Quarter, in and out of bars you'd never find without a guide and a powerful flashlight. Through the streets of Anne Rice's Lestaat, the early morning mists mingling with the heat rising from the street. Human flotsam festoons the grubby sidewalks and sun-worn benches. Humidity wraps the them in its warm embrace.

'Wow', breathes the Englishman.'This place is amazing. I've got to get my camera!'
'Sure honey,' Blondie agrees. 'Your hotel's just up here . . . '


November 2001, two old friends on the wire across the Atlantic.
Woman: 'So when are you getting back over here? It'd be fun to meet up, talk about old times.'
Man: 'I'm not sure - there's a lot going on but since 9/11 business is down. Not much chance to get over these days.'

They talk about their families, children, the old days, that night in the Big Easy, their time together. He laughs as he remembers watching PeeWee's Playhouse on Saturday mornings on her sofa, the huge electric fan wheeled in across the polished wooden floor to dissipate the heat.

'I miss Norton and Ralph' he says. There's a pause.
'I loved those boys' she sighs.
Norton and Ralph, two playmates who'd scamper freely around the appartment, their hammock-strewn cage always open. Some mornings, he'd wake to find one, or both on his chest, sniffing his face, whiskers twitching. Norton and Ralph, gen-u-wine New Orleans house-rats.

'I still laugh about that line about getting your camera' she giggles. 'Talk about cheesy - and I fell for it!'
He laughs with her.
'You know that was no line! I was an innocent young man and you took full advantage.'
More laughter.
Woman: 'So, no idea when, huh? If you do, you better call me!'
He laughs. 'You have my word.'


November 2004.
The man arrives at his hotel, the Royal Sonesta, on Bourbon.
He checks his bags and goes down to the street-side bar, orders Sex On The Beach. He watches human traffic cruising by in the warm evening and thinks of her. She can't make it this time, too much happening back home, some stuff with her ex, her sons' school, yada yada yada.

He's here for business. Brian Lee's playing at Storyville next week but he'll miss the old fella as he'll be home by then. Lips and the Trips are on tonight at The Kerry, the small-but-perfectly-formed Irish pub on Decatur. He drains his glass and heads into the night.

Two hours later he's on stage at The Kerry. The Guinness lays gentle in his stomach as he grabs the microphone, belting out the chorus to a Van-the-Man classic. There's two guys with him, crowded 'round the old-fashioned mic; across the stage a couple of local girls join Lips, the leggy, wide-mouthed singer.
"G-L-O-R-I-A - GLORIA!" they scream, 20 or so punters clap and cheer wildly from the dark corners of the bar. An hour ago these were strangers. In the wee small hours, they leave as friends.
This is Nawlins - the Big Easy.


November 2005.
A re-union planned, business again the pre-requisite. Flights and hotels booked, old friends anticipating warm nights of story-telling, drinking, maybe even the occasional dance. Then Katrina and the cruel waters of the Mississipi wash it all away, along with the lives and livelihoods of thousands of the most warm-hearted Americans you could wish to find. It's hard to grieve for a city but Nawlins has a heart, a pulse. This week she is stricken, wounded, maybe dying.
My sadness knows no bounds tonight, for I have lost a dear old friend.

[Nigel]

Great writing, Sweder.

Even someone whose acquaintance with the city is limited to reading The Pelican Brief some ten years ago can appreciate something of the sense of loss.

But what on earth took the authorities so long to arrange help for the stranded thousands ? Day after day we saw accounts from reporters who had reached the city. So why didn't any help arrive ?

[Nigel]

Perhaps somebody forgot to arrange any.

And are we really supposed to donate to the local relief organisations, like the American Red Cross ?

The Disasters Emergency Committee or Medecins sans frontieres seem better bets to me. At least those guys were pretty good at getting assistance to Banda Aceh and Darfur, each of which must be almost as remote and tricky to get to as southern Louisiana.

Or maybe we should just send our cheques and a map direct to the US Treasury Department ?

It's puzzling stuff.

[Sweder]

The presence of the Louisiana National Guard in an all-together more arid location in its greatest hour of need exacerbated an already perilous situation. That said, there is no doubt that this corner of The South, boasting a majority (somewhere between 65 and 70%) poor, black population has suffered from a blend of political indifference and a failure to comprehend the severity of the situation.

Biloxy is flat - match-wood - but so are many Southern and Mid-Western towns in hurricane season. Anyone with a basic grasp of the layout of Nawlins knows that if the levees fail the city is lost. Everyone, that is, apart from the National government and response agencies. The issue was never Katrina's rampage, rather what happened after she left. That said, the mayor stood up 24 hours before the storm hit and said 'get out of town'. You have to say a heck of a lot of folks didn't listen, or in many cases couldn't respond.

Once the inthinkable became brutal, terrible fact, the lack of response from above isn't surprising. The people of Louisiana hold too few electoral votes and little or no economic power. Bush had the temerity to grin as he councilled careful use of gasoline even as the filthy waters swallowed the city.

Consipracy theory? Paranoia?
Imagine this happening in California and the President chuckling through a TV interview.
Exactly.

[El Gordo]

Excellent post up there, Sweder. Very touching. I managed to miss it first time round.

Fortunately, we didn't miss New Orleans first time round. M and I were there in 1996. I've mentioned a couple of times a great holiday we had in the southern US, driving round Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

We spent just 2 or 3 days in New Orleans, arriving on the coast road - the one that now seems to have been wiped out by Katrina.

Yes, it's a remarkable city. Or should I say "was"? Only time will tell just how much has been physically destroyed, but you sense that a chunk of its heart may have been irreplaceably wrenched out.

We spent a couple of evenings doing what tourists do there - just hanging out in the blues clubs absorbing the atmosphere - as rich and dense as the gumbo. I have to say though that we found it a slightly threatening place. Like many US cities, there seemed to be a very uneasy truce between the tourist shop window and the unvisitable sectors. It makes me think of the shanties round Johannesburg. I remember filling up with petrol at a gas station on the edge of New Orleans city centre. I paid and was walking out when the guy behind the counter asked me which way I was driving. I told him where we were heading, and how. He just shook his head. "Turn round and go back. Use the freeway to get in and out of this city. No other way is safe."

I also remember talking to people about the danger of flooding. We visited the amazing St Louis Cemetery where we were told that coffins were laid to rest in the mausolems above ground because if they were buried, they would eventually float to the surface on the high water table.

But a fascinating place without doubt, and truly unique. We can only hope that the rebuilding of the levees and the city infrastructure won't attempt to paper over the deep cracks. Let's hope they grasp the opportunity to solve some of its underlying problems while they're at it.