Friday, September 02, 2005

Evening thoughts

I don't usually post twice in one day--mostly because I'm not creative enough to devise more than one topic. But I read an article in the NY Times that I found very moving--"A Sad Day, Too, For Architecture." The author, who himself owns a restored, West Indian-style 1826 plantation house in New Orleans' Ninth Ward ( now likely destroyed), traces New Orleans' unique history--and the story of its fiercely individualistic, never-surrender population--through its unique vernacular architecture and the people who live in those structures.

I've only been able to visit New Orleans twice in my life, but I was completely enraptured by it. How could I not be? It has so many things I love. A strong, strange, ever-present history; amazing food; glorious jazz; eccentric people; ghost-y, creepy things; and just a generally bizarre, weird, crazy-beautiful vibe. It's--special. Like no place else. That's all. Like so many others, I watch the news now in stunned, saddened disbelief and a rising anger. I have a hard time finding words to articulate these feelings, but I thought the last paragraph of this article summed it up well.

"I expect they, too, will return, and that life in New Orleans will go on, with all its precariousness and sense of fragility and, yes, with all its relish for the moment. That relish, by the way, which arose from the constant awareness of precisely such disasters as we are experiencing today, accounts for much of what gives the people of that city their reckless abandon, their devil-may-care attitude, and their zest for life. Rebuilding after Katrina will be just the next in a long series of events in which that spirit has been manifested."

To send aid, contact the American Red Cross at 800-HELP NOW; or the Hurricane Katrina Displacement Residents Fund, 877-387-6126.

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