From Horror to Beauty in a few short miles

That is the terrible dialectic which defines this wonderful city these days. Today was a lovely and fascinating day filled with a few notable surprises and high points. I finished my one-on-one conferences with students at UNO around 4:30. The students seemed to genuinely apppreciate what I had to offer them and my efforts to fill them with enthusiasm for their own work and creative potential seemed to be as successful as I had hoped. I met so many wonderful and dedicated people -- working through such tough circumstances -- I can hardly express my gratitude for having had the opportunity. Most of the folks went out of their way to thank me profusely, and all I could do was thank them right back.

Desperately needing a respite from the sound of my own voice and the company of others, having spent the previous 48 hours flapping my jaws non-stop, I changed clothes back at my hosts' apartment and walked down to the Quarter for a nice, restful private meal at NOLA, one of Emeril Lagasse's New Orleans restaurants. Walked along the Mississippi for a while and took a few snapshots. On my way into the Quarter I turned a corner and ran straight into a Krewe's parade, a small, non-float Mardi Gras Krewe called the Druids, dressed in flowing red robes and wizard caps, led by a small brass band escorting their King Druid and his Queen on a horse-drawn coach. I was delighted to have been able to see even this small slice of Mardi Gras tradition and followed the Krewe into Bourbon Street and a bar, where the band took the stage and the king and his court drank heartily.





Found my way to NOLA after that and had an absolutely wonderful dinner of rich, roux-based seafood gumbo, cornbread, and shrimp sauteed in a barbecue-sauce-spiked buttter sauce, plated on a bed of smoked cheddar stoneground grits, green onions and chunks of applewood-smoked bacon. Absolutely delicious, and affordable to boot. Thus fortified, I contacted a documentary filmmaker whom AFI has made some efforts to assist in his attempt to complete a compelling and important documentary on the Mardi Gras Indians. We met for coffee and King Cake at a small and lovely coffee shop and talked about his efforts to get his film funded. I'll report more fully on his efforts in a later posting.

Then it was back here -- to post this message, and pack. I have the morning free tomorrow, which I intend to fill with early coffee, beignets and reading, followed by a hearty brunch, the acquisiton of a muffuletta sanwich for the flight home, and then it's a visit to tour a new, high end UNO-funded production facility designed to lure more film production to the area. Then it will be goodbye for now to beautiful, tragic, wonderful New Orleans until who knows when. Once I'm home I will reflect a little more fully on my trip. It has left an indelible impression on me and has been unforettable in many ways.
Last night's festivities involved Mike (below left) and Jeff (below right, my guide), both grad students at UNO, and a few hurricanes at Pat O'Briens, home of that noble cocktail and the flaming coutyard fountain above.On my way up Decatur I noticed the St. Louis Cathedral was shrouded in this eerie, glowing mist. About 15 minutes of diddling around with exposure and timing settings on the digital camera produced excellent results; these low-res versions do not do justice to the full-res photos.

The 9th Ward

The following are pictures I took yesterday while walking through the 9th Ward, the hardest-hit area of New Orleans proper but by no means the only site of devastation. It seems like everywhere for miles around is abandoned, half destroyed; you'll drive down a street and think, well, these places are still standing, I can see the water mark came up almost to the top of the first floor but maybe it's salvageable, then turn a corner and see a block virtually demolished. The grad student, Jeff, was driving me down a road like this explaining that it was under 9 feet of water. Surreal and horrifying to be driving down it now.

No matter what people say this is not a city that is quite on its feet again. It is functional. The people are amazing in their perseverance and good humor in the face of an utterly incompetent and uncaring Federal Government, bankrupt state and local governments and utilities. The fact that people outside New Orleans think life is anywhere back to "normal" here are fooling themselves. These are brave and hardy people with the greatest sense of civic pride and sense of belonging to somewhere they call home that I have ever encountered in this utterly unique melting pot of cultures and races.

My overwhelming impression when I was in the 9th Ward is that no lens, no camera could possibly communicate the immense and horrifying scale of the utter devastation. It is apocalyptic, literally like a horrible war was fought and lost here -- which in a sense, it was. The fact that there is no military presence here to battle this enormous and tragic loss and give the people who once lived here hope that the city they call home might one day welcome them is the greatest and most shameful sin I have ever seen visited on the American people. The police patrol the area and a few brave people make stand and stake their claim in the face of negligent government, implacable bureaucracy . . . some say there may still be bodies as yet undiscovered. Were we not, a few years ago, digging canals through the wetlands that might have absorbed most of the storm swell in the interest of oil companies, had the government -- federal, local -- stood up for the people they are sworn to protect and spent one thousandth of what we have spent in Iraq to shore up levees and improve pumping systems, had we not foolishly committed our young men and women to die in an unwinnable and unnecessary war of choice, so much of this may have been avoided. And the fact that to this day, months and months down the line, there is no power within miles of the affected areas, ghastly rubble remains essentially untouched, thousands of people have nowhere to call home, fills me with such rage I don't know what to do with myself. The main reason I'm down here is because many of the faculty and grad students were displaced, and we're helping to pump up their film program; my guide for this week fled the city, had his apartment flooded and lost everything. He is rooming with a professor until, like the other students, his FEMA trailer is ready for him . . . and the three students he will be sharing it with. His story is typical, and in fact he is one of the fortunate ones.

So much loss. So much negligence. So much completely, totally and utterly senseless and unnecessary destruction. A hurricane is a force of nature. But there is no question at all that better preparation, which all the concerned governmental bodies were well aware of the necessity of, could have minimized the worst of it. And don't get me started on the media, the Geraldos and the Anderson Coopers, or the Spike Lees and Jonathan Demmes carpetbagging their way down here to shoot their little documentaries, scoot back to their air conditioned suites at the Westin and jet back to LA the minute they have their footage. Or the lying, stinking swine who promulgated so many bullshit stories and ignored so many acts of heroism. One faculty member was in the hospital watching nurses heroically, manually keeping patients alive and dragging them bodily to the rooftop to be medivacced out for three solid days. A story that went unreported -- but the completely fabricated and unsubstantiated story that those same nurses in that same hospital were euthanizing patients got national press. I just can't believe the media anymore. If you want the facts about what went down here, go to nola.com. Ignore everything else.

Anyway. These pictures are from yesterday's visit to the 9th. When you see little childrens' shoes and toys, places where families, poor as they might have been, gathered to share their supper or go to church or do the simple little things we all take for granted, when you see all this wiped away it is hard not to get choked up. These photos do not do this disaster justice. It stretches as far and wide as the eye can see. Literally, to the horizon, just as if a giant hand came and wiped everything away. I saw the 9/11 site while they were still tearing down the iron and it was horrific. Imagine 20, 30, 50 times that devastation. And in a way, this is worse. 9/11 was the product of diseased, hateful minds but at least they believed in something, ignorant and mad as they might have been. There was a reason behind their actions, brutal and stupid thought it was. This disaster reached these epic and unspeakable proportions because people in power stretching back many years and spanning the whole political system believe in nothing but lining their pockets and making their rich friends richer. And I don't know what we can do about that, except remember that this is the ultimate cost we pay.







This enormous barge floated right over the breached levee and crushed several houses. Just to the left of where this barge lies pile drivers clang away, shoring up the levee.

Late Night

Just back from a long day. Started with some breakfast po-boys in the Quarter with a few grad students. Then we drove over to the lower 9th -- the hardest hit area of New Orleans. there are simply no words to describe the hideous devastation. It is something I hope I never see again, and yet I am glad to have seen it with my own eyes as no camera and no amount of Anderson Cooper mincing around can possibly communicate the massive and almost incomprehensible scale of the devastation to be found there. I took some photos which hopefully will wpeak about this more eloquently than I, but it is 2 am here in New Orleans and I need to sleep.

After the trip I visited the campus and then a grad student and I went for coffee and beignets; then it was back to my hosts and off to dinner with some faculty. My class session followed and it went quite well; several of the students really seemed to engage in the ideas presented and my cycle project from last year went over very well. The faculty were appreciative and tomorrow I will spend the day in conference with students discussing their work.

After class a couple of students and I hit Pat O'Brien's in the Quarter for a few Hurrricances, then across the street for late night cheeseburgers which for some mysterious reason did not materialize for nearly an hour. (Hence the lateness of my arrival back here.) So it is too late for a full update but tomorrow will be mellow and I will have plenty of pictures for you then.

A walk around the quarter

So I am back at my lovely hosts' home after a walk on a cool, ever-so-slightly drizzly night through the French Quarter. My hosts, the Benoits, live just a few blocks from the Quarter. Mardi Gras week is underway, though I won't be able to see any parades while I am here -- just missing a few. I enjoyed some delicious homemade gumbo and decided to stretch my legs for a while and look for a sweatshirt to ward off the chill (and give the Benoits some privacy). Couldn't find a sweatshirt that wasn't either in hideously bad taste (although the t-shirts depicting Mayor Nagin as Count Chocula were tempting) or didn't shriek, "I'm a dumb tourist" at top volume, so I decided on a brisk walk and sure enough I warmed up soon enough. Bourbon Street was hopping although one wonders how much crazier it was pre-Katrina. I had a beer or two but mostly just watched the hordes of happy drunks begging for or dispensing beads to young ladies. A nice walk back through more peaceful parts of the Quarter and I'm turning in early; some of the students are gonna take me on a tour of the city and some of the devastated areas tomorrow morning, and I still want to review my notes for tomorrow'c lcass. Meanwhile, a few quick photos I snapped on my walk tonight.

New Orleans

Hello, I'm back. Most of my updates these days are limited to Jack's blog (see link at right), mostly because I just haven't had the dang time to post anything else, or do much else besides school and daddy-ing. Work on my first thesis film continues apace, with a second cut of the film well underway. But I am posting now because I find myself in New Orleans for the next few days, as a guest lecturer at the University of New Orleans. It's part of a post-Katrina outreach effort by AFI that I volunteered to participate in. While it is odd to be away from my wife and baby for the first time since he came on the scene, it is a worthy effort indeed and a great city. Those who have visited my blog before know my views on the horrid bungling of the feebs in power in handling the woes of these folks. It feels good to be doing something concrete to help a film program that is working hard to bounce back. Tomorrow I will have a tour of the city and some of the affected areas, and tomorrow night I teach a film class. Tuesday is devoted to individual conferences with grad students, helping them with their work. So I will be posting some pictures and updates in the next few days.

Some time soon, I will be repurposing this blog to focus more on films and filmmaking -- or maybe starting another one and save my political rantings for this blog when I need to blow a fuse. So keep checking in.