blacksundae

We in New Orleans were always different from folks elsewhere. Now we’re real different. I wager that you learned more about life, death and everything in between this past year than in the rest of your life combined.

You are survivors. The Katrina Kids. The Children of the Storm.

Children of the Storm, it’s time to represent.

Reuters:

Shortcomings in aid from the U.S. government are making New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin look to other nations for help in rebuilding his hurricane-damaged city.

Pathetic. Just pathetic. I never thought I’d ever consider renouncing my citizenship. This is not the America I grew up loving.

NHC:

I SUPPOSE IT IS ONLY FITTING THAT THE RECORD-BREAKING 2005 ATLANTIC HURRICANE SEASON ENDS WITH A RECORD BREAKING STORM. TODAY… ZETA SURPASSED 1954 ALICE #2 AS THE LONGEST-LIVED TROPICAL CYCLONE TO FORM IN DECEMBER AND CROSS OVER INTO THE NEXT YEAR. ZETA WAS ALSO THE LONGEST-LIVED JANUARY TROPICAL CYCLONE. IN ADDITION…ZETA RESULTED IN THE 2005 SEASON HAVING THE LARGEST ACCUMULATED CYCLONE ENERGY…OR ACE… SURPASSING THE 1950 SEASON. SO… UNTIL THE 2006 SEASON BEGINS… UNLESS ZETA SOMEHOW MAKES AN UNLIKELY MIRACLE COMEBACK… THIS IS THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER SIGNING OFF FOR 2005… FINALLY.

[via]

T-P:

When Cita Dennis Hubbell moved back to Algiers in 1970 after living around the world with her naval officer husband, George Hubbell, she was dismayed to find her local library, the one she had spent so much time in as a child, shuttered by damage from Betsy.

Boards blocked the large front windows, and the library, at 725 Pelican Ave., was in a terrible state, George Hubbell recalled Wednesday morning.

Born on Belleville Street and raised on Elmira Street just blocks from the library, Cita Hubbell, a registered nurse, couldn’t stand to see the historic building, built in 1907 with a grant from the Carnegie Foundation, in such condition.

Determined to get the library reopened, she marshaled neighborhood support, including from the Algiers Point Association, which the Hubbells and other active neighbors had formed in the early 1970s.

The rest is history. Despite the objection of the city librarian at the time, the City Council, perhaps persuaded by the two busloads of people who lobbied in support of the library, provided money to renovate the branch. The Algiers Point library, which had been closed for a decade, reopened on Oct. 14, 1975.

Fast forward to 2005, though, and the scenario seems so sadly similar.

Like all New Orleans public libraries, the now Cita Dennis Hubbell Algiers Point Library, renamed for its longtime supporter after her death from cancer in 2001, was shuttered in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina.

“One of the first things the city did was lay off the librarians, along with hundreds of other city workers,” George Hubbell said.

But, struggling to bring back city services, even in a much reduced state, New Orleans officials announced in October that the Algiers Point Library would be one of three locations reopened in the city. The larger Algiers Regional Library had sustained heavy damage in Katrina and had to be gutted.

Upon hearing the announcement, Hubbell, along with other Algiers Point residents, immediately jumped into gear, determined to help keep the library afloat.

Jeez, Hubbells rock, don’t they? Yeah, I thought you’d agree.

Oh, my, yes.

My friend Donna just forwarded this to me. It’s by Boysie Bollinger, CEO of Bollinger Shipyards, Inc Sylvana Joseph [see comments].

There’s not a working clock in this entire city. This morning I went on my walk and the big clock by St. Patrick’s Church on Camp said it was 2:30; as I walked on, the Whitney clock said it was 11:15, and by the time I hit the French Quarter a clock there told me quite firmly that it was 6:00 o’clock.

I’m not really surprised at this - New Orleans has always had a problem with time. Time is not linear here; this is a city where people live in two hundred year old houses, have wireless Internet and use 600-year-old recipes while singing 60’s songs to their newborns. Time is more of a mental game in New Orleans…you can pick the year you liked the best and stay in that year for the rest of your life here and no one says a thing. You can talk about your great -great grandparents as if they were still alive and talk about your neighbors as if they were dead, and we all understand.

Time marches to it’s own drunk drummer here. This morning as I walked into the Quarter on Chartres, a woman ran out of a cafe to greet me, “Hey dahlin” she yelled as she hugged me, “Where ya been?” I looked at her and realized it was one of the exotic dancers from one of the smaller establishments on Chartres; over the years I’d become friendly with several of the dancers as I would take my morning walk. We’d smile, wave, and exchange pleasantries.

This morning I realized that even though I had said hello to this woman three times a week for four years, I didn’t know her name. I smiled, hugged her back and told her how badly I felt that I never knew her name and she laughed “Dahlin, you know my name, it’s Baby!” Time to laugh out loud.

Twenty minutes later as I walked up Royal from Esplanade on my way out of the Quarter, a dark sedan stopped in the street right by the Cathedral and all four doors opened at once. I was twittering with curiosity when the driver hopped out, ran to the other side and escorted a smiling [former Ambassador] Lindy Boggs out of the car. Before I could stop myself I’d yelled out, “Hey Lindy, good to see ya!” Mrs. Boggs, accustomed to such raffish behavior smiled and yelled out “Hey yourself” as she waved, laughed and headed to church, surely thinking it’s time to pray for better manners for the likes of me.

We’re dealing with a lot of time issues these days, time to meet the insurance specialist, time to call FEMA, time to put out the refrigerator, time to get a new refrigerator, time to decide whether to stay in New Orleans or head elsewhere, time to register the kids for school, time to sell the house, time to buy the house, time to find a job, time to leave a job, time to figure out the rest of your life.

Could we maybe, while dealing with all those time issues, take a minute and remember? Remember that there was a time when all of this was different, there was a time when slaves were sold in the Napoleon House, a time when Mid-City was considered the country, a time when people staged sit ins downtown, a time when there was no McDonald’s or Wendy’s or even Popeye’s, a time when the Quarter burned, a time when people spoke French or Spanish, a time when the Opera House was open, a time when this was all uninhabited, a time when your refrigerator worked, your house was whole, your neighborhood wasn’t flooded and your city wasn’t defined by a Hurricane.

More than any other city in this country, this is a city defined by the quality of the times people have had here. Maybe it’s because it’s a port city, maybe it’s because of the food, maybe it’s because of the heat, but this city remembers everyone who has ever lived, loved and laughed here. People visit us because they can feel the difference as soon as they get here, they can feel how time is honored here, in the time to craft our houses and the time to make a roux. They can feel that the city holds all of our memories, our joys, our sorrows and our triumphs. That any time spent in New Orleans is kept in the breath, air, water and sky of New Orleans. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in New Orleans changes the city and its people, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, year-by-year, so that we can’t help but live in the past, present and future.

Time will tell what we will end up looking like, how strong the levees will be, how many houses will be repaired, but we will tell time how strong the people of New Orleans are, how deep our commitments to each other are, and that sometimes the best stories are the ones we write for ourselves.

Once upon a time in a city called New Orleans……

Yeah. Not bad for a CEO human being.

UPDATE: I don’t care who this is by. This is wonderful, Sylvana Joseph, and I thank you.

From the New Orleans Weekly Library System Report: “The Blackwater guys borrowed an ink pad from us Wednesday morning. This means that they must be fingerprinting people for some reason’ either that or they’re helping Iraqis vote. We will have to investigate further.”

[via my dad]

NOLA.com [Chris Rose]:

We talk funny around here. I mean, where else but New Orleans could a man with a severe speech pathology — our beloved Buddy D — become a broadcast legend? Only to be replaced by a former Cajun quarterback who even fewer people understand — all this on the region’s highest-rated radio station, not just some curious and provincial late-night, roadhouse AM outlet.

While musing on these notions the other day, I was listening to WWOZ on my car radio. And, in chronological order, these are the names of the songs that played during the set I heard:

“Iko Iko,” “Ya-Ya,” “Ooh Poo Pah Doo,” “Cha Dooky-Doo,” “Ta Ta Te Ta Ta,” “Tee Na Na Na Na Nay,” “Look-a Py Py,” “Hey Pocky Way,” “Handa Wanda,” “Indian Red,” “Coochie Molly,” “Ki Ya Gris Gris,” “Ho-Di-Ko-Di-Ya-La-Ma-La,” and “Ya Herd Me.”

Each song was as familiar to me as a nursery rhyme, part of the musical backdrop of our lives. And it was all complete gibberish, made-up stuff, code language and vernacular indecipherable to your run-of-the-mill Harvard-educated linguist, yet I knew what it all meant in that sort of Jockomo Fe Na Nay kind of way.

[...]

The ‘OZ disc jockey for this show was Sherwood Collins. I tracked him down this week in Baton Rouge, where he was broadcasting in exile, to compliment him on his creative homage to the singular New Orleans patois.

“I got the idea thinking about how the city needed one voice to communicate its needs,” Collins said. “I kind of hit on how much our local vernacular adds to the esoteric nature of the city that draws millions of tourists down here.

“It’s that voice which speaks to every parade-goer — from 6 months to 60-years-old — to start shakin’ what their mama gave them. It’s something you and your mama can agree on, something that gives New Orleans a bit of its life.

“It’s that connective strand which makes us all Creoles. The history and melding of French, Spanish, African, Caribbean, Cuban, English, Irish, German, Isleno and Acadian cultures has created a culture with such a richness — which hangs on your tongue when you say Lagniappe or Tchoupitoulas or ‘tur-let’ — and that should somehow be manifested to help rebuild this city.”

Radio DJs — the rare few who still actually program their own music — are links in a great American cultural tapestry. They believe in what they’re doing, the message they’re sending.

Collins’ remarks remind me what a clich?© the term “unique” has become when used to describe New Orleans — particularly as the national media gazes down upon us these days. But it’s just so true.

We’re unusual, anachronistic and eccentric, often drunk and dirty. The longer you live here, the more unsuitable you become to live anywhere else — as so many of our people are discovering in far-flung cities and states.

And the reason I meditate on this today is to tell you that Collins’ aforementioned radio show is going to be replayed on Thanksgiving, at noon or shortly after. It’s at 90.7 on the FM radio dial and available on the Web at www.wwoz.org.

If you get a chance, listen to this amusing and essential reminder of who and what we are. It’s the most joyous noise you could hear — almost spiritual. (And it’s got to be better than watching the Cowboys and Lions play football on TV, right?)

Tell your friends in faraway places to listen to it online and to play it for the people they are with Thursday. Tell everyone you know that school is in session, New Orleans style.

In fact, tell your congressman to listen. And the president.

Not that they’ll understand any of it — or us — any better, but maybe they’ll begin to comprehend what a vibrant and unsinkable (but very floodable) cultural identity we’ve got going on here that’s never going to die — with or without their help.

Although “with” would be better than “without.”

Damn it! This is the second Chris Rose column that’s gotten me misty! What the hell is wrong with the world?

Via my Uncle Fwee.

WSJ:

The power elite of New Orleans — whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. — insist the remade city won’t simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. “Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically,” he says. “I’m not just speaking for myself here. The way we’ve been living is not going to happen again, or we’re out.”

Golden opportunity. Get rid of the coloreds and the hippies. Mother fuckers. They’ll have the blood of a culture on their hands.

Via Orcinus

sturtle:

To the dozens of right-wingers who say that we brought it on ourselves; to the countless conservative Christians who believe Katrina was their god’s attempt to cleans New Orleans of sodomites; please note:

The French Quarter was spared. The Faubourg Marigny was spared. The Bywater was spared. Most of Uptown was spared. These are the neighborhoods that we, the fags, dykes, and trannies of New Orleans, call home–not Lakeview, not Lake Vista, not the Lower Ninth Ward, not New Orleans East, not Arabi, not Chalmette. If god or Allah or Yahweh or whoever has it out for anyone, it would seem to be working families, immigrants (New Orleans East is home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities in the world), and the poor.

So the way I see it, either the hurricane was a random act of natural violence, or your god has really lousy aim.

Via Your Right Hand Thief