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 drunken Dodge salesmen, of gaunt-eyed transvestite hookers, of Baptist girls suddenly inspired to show their breasts on Chartres Street in return for a string of beads flung from the balcony of the Soniat House — will we lose even these dubious glories of the only American city that's never been psychoanalyzed?
An interesting opinion piece in the L.A. Times today lamenting New Orleans and the Bush administration. It is an idealized, nostalgic, slightly maudlin depiction of the city, but it is part of the truth, and this is what makes New Orleans a wonderful place and not just a poor, violent shithole on the Mississippi. Though that is also part of the truth--as
David Brooks points out today in the NYTimes, the hurricane has revealed the underlying social problems in New Orleans in shocking fashion. One wonders if, when they rebuild the city, any of these sytemic problems will be addressed. You will forgive me if I am skeptical. It is important to note, however, that much of the culture, both past and present, that New Orleans is justly famous for often came from those parts of the city where the poverty and inequity were worst.
