On BART, tonight, this poster seemed so bittersweet:
New Orleans was going to host people who wanted to help others, but now it needs them. It's hard to comprehend how sudden and thorough this destruction has been; frankly I had a bit of hurricane fatigue and figured those Southeasterners knew what they were doing by now. But it's really pretty bad.
You've read the news. Maitri keeps the blogging coming. Saurabh at Rhinocrisy posts one of the saddest IM chat transcripts I've ever read. Celebrated science blogger Chris Mooney is torn between the hectic release of his heralded book and worry and grief about his childhood home and family's fortunes. At Slate, Josh Levin pens a requiem for the city as he and three generations of his family knew it and left it.
I'm left with the overwhelmingly repetitive thought that I never got to see it as it once was. No matter how well it's cleaned up, it will never be anything like before. It's not a city I have any real ties to. It first entered my consciousness, beyond its importance in the Louisiana Purchase, as the principle character in a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and the grimmest possible ending of death in a flooded car gave me nightmares even then. It has stayed earily literary in my mind since then. The junior high spate of bad Anne Rice books. Some poetry. A profile of some local writer in Poets and Writers. Emails from a schoolmate gone to Tulane for college. My teacher Steve told us some story about getting to spend the night during a layover; the story escapes me but an impression of historical architecture and mysterious allies stayed with me. Postcards from a math conference. Somewhere I have some shiny beads someone brought me from there. The silly little things that tell you, that yes, somewhere in this land of yours, there is another city for you to see, filled with marvelous sites and interesting people.
My prayers for the city now. The American Red Cross Donation Site.
