LOVER

what's my name

alien, colonist, departer, displaced person, evacuee, exile, expatriate, fugitive, immigrant, migrant, migrator, outcast, pilgrim, refugee, traveler, wanderer, wayfarer, émigré, departer, drifter, emigrant, evacuee, expatriate, gypsy, immigrant, itinerant, migrator, mover, nomad, rover, tinker, transient, traveler, vagrant, wanderer, foreigner, foundling, fugitive, homeless person, leper, maroon, outcast, outlaw, pariah, prodigal, renegade, runaway, stateless person, émigré, bolter, derelict, deserter, displaced person, dodger, escaper, evacuee, exile, fly-by-night, hermit, hunted person, outcast, outlaw, recluse, refugee, runagate, runaway, stray, transient, truant, vagabond, waif, walkout, émigré

I spent the day filling out paperwork and getting my head together in regards to my current responsibilities.  There are numerous shelters here in Monroe for evacuees and one for their pets.  Tomorrow I'm going to find out where that is and begin volunteering.  I have to do, do something.

I just watered Julia & Bill's new rose bushes.  Pinks, whites, reds.  Soaked their thirsty herbs & hydrangea.  I don't look at water the same way now.  I pictured my sunflowers, 10 ft high when I left, unbroken, heads swaying underwater.  Oh, it's just ... heart breaking.  But I picked up all the dog poop in their yard (2 of the dogs here now are refugees) and filled all the bird feeders with seed and though I am utterly homesick for the very way my home comforted me, reflected me, nurtured my friends I am certain that contributing to life & creation in any way I possibly can is the only way I have ever survived anything.

HOME

It's a place, I know, and shimmers / as it's gold.  Cold some days and / radiates / the pleasure in seeking, finding / how you know / the erotic alone.  I know it / when I get there.  Through all / the ice, piles of leaves, new / green, moon-sky or hurricane / I get there (so quickly go).  Going / makes it home / and sweet (not / like sugar at all but / the cinnamon on milk-froth, like / blood on the snow.

(I wrote this 15 years ago)

On This Day

1867: Stricken by paralysis, poet Charles Baudelaire dies in Paris, France, at the age of 46. Learn more about Charles Baudelaire. 1897: American inventor Thomas Edison receives a U.S. patent for his motion-picture camera, known as the Kinetoscope, amid rival claims by inventors of similar machines. Learn more about Thomas Edison. 1928: Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), a musical collaboration between dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, starring Lotte Lenya, premieres in Berlin, Germany. Learn more about Bertolt Brecht. 1962: Trinidad and Tobago (previously members of the West Indies Federation) join as an independent nation within the British Commonwealth. Learn more about Trinidad and Tobago. 1980: The Polish government comes to an agreement with striking workers at the Gdansk shipyard, leading to the recognition of Solidarity as Communist Poland's first legal trade union. Learn more about Solidarity. 1997: Princess Diana of England dies along with her companion, department store heir Dodi Fayed, when their car crashes in Paris while evading photographers. Learn more about Princess Diana.

Information

Here's the link:

http://www.fema.gov/index.shtm

They're the fastest.  You can apply online for funds for lodging, food, damage, etc.  Don't delay.

Also apply for unemployment.  A beginning link:

https://lavos.laworks.net/

Don't hesitate.  Remember, homeowners to begin the flood insurance process NOW.  Call all credit cards - they'll give leeway for payments & not gouge w/interest rates. 

Here's one link to list people who've made it out:

http://www.stoffaproductions.com/community/

Here's the beginnings of a N.O Katrina journal:

http://katrinaupdates.blogspot.com

I'm getting more information shortly & will post.  Please forward this to anyone who might need it or need contact.

Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans

"If the Angel decides to come it will be because you have convinced her, not by tears but by your humble resolve to be always beginning; to be a beginner." So said the poet Rainer Maria  Rilke, as if speaking to your exact needs right now.(this from my weekly horoscope.)

Here are a collection of writings I've been sending out regarding the loss of my home and city, New Orleans, beginning near the beginning:

*

This is it, Fork, the Category 5, like Camille, that's going to fill the city like a bowl.  99% of my possessions & my work place with it.  And all of the people who couldn't get out.  And all of the stray cats I feed.  The stories of snakes, gators, and dead bodies floating.  The "It's not a matter of property, it's a matter of life now" from government officials.  This storm is SO big and SO powerful that no matter where she hits its going to be awful for New Orleans.  I'm safe w/Annie & Cody in a house full of love & we got all of Herman's negatives in a fortress of a safe & Jenny has the harddrive & books as well.  The economic devastation, the physical devastation is going to be catastrophic.  All anyone's got is whatever cash & credit they have so me?  I've got $150.  Thank you Danto for protecting my car.  PLEASE pray for the wicked Katrina to PLEASE just move a few ticks east & to slow down.  Just a touch.  It's going to be awful no matter what but New Orleans is so especially vulnerable that it's ok to wish this disaster to hit Biloxi.  If only the eye won't cross & Lake Ponchatrain won't empty on our little tropical heaven

*   

We can't just hear all our mambo & psychics say "It's gonna joggle & head east up to Mississippi."  We have to make that happen.  Each one of us who fancies ourself to be connected to the spiritual power of what it is that has made New Orleans.  Each one of us must make no mistake: now we are responsible.  It's not just us -vs- Mother Nature.  It's Mother Nature -vs- Mother Nature.  I mean, she listens.  All of us who live in New Orleans live with the daily precense of magic beyond any outsider's capacity to understand.  I'm not hatin' the people who visit & love this place w/their souls.  I'm just saying there's magic there & we know it.  Magic's not some abstract thing, it's the result of the power of hearts and souls working.  And we have been singing and dancing for St. Ann, St. Roch, St. John, Danto, Gede, Marie Laveau, Louis Armstrong, all of the slaves drumming for freedom in Congo Square, Zulu kings and queens, the Muses our streets are named for, we've been.  We've been working and burning and living in creation side by side with the forces that live, alive, there.  There.

*

So I have worked my work, the work I do, poured a globe of light over our bowl of a city.  Yes it's a bowl but it's a circle too.  The swamp and the earth there are completed by sky.  You have to picture the whole circle.  Pour positive loving thoughts over your picture of this grand, mythic, mystic, brutal, absolutely unique history/culture/community.  Picture picture picture that storm boggling when she hits the coast at 4 a.m this morning.  See it boggling & losing steam, like a balloon losing its air.  And nudged nudged jogged just slightly east, arcing up to Mississippi, which will suffer, yes, but it's flat at least.   If you've laid eyes on Lake Ponchatrain picture that storm surge just barely topping the levee and only.  And blowing past.  This is our work.  The candles are on fire, the offerings have been made, I've been singing our traditional songs and shaking the rattles and I'm not alone.

And if we have to we'll restructure it may splinter it may move but what we are will survive.

Thank you each and every one of you for your love and support.

*

And yes the eye only clipped us on the western side but the influx of water from the counterclockwise surge has flooded the entire city.  No, it's not a gigantic bowl of water that will not go away for 6 months but yes, it's 10, 20 feet high and devastating.  If you want to see live news footage from NO check out www.wdsu.com & click on "Hurricane Coverage" link.  I just watched aerial footage of the city.  The Lakeview area where Herman lives is under 10 ft of water at least.  The marina not 3 minutes from his house is crushed, boats crumpled in heaps, docks all but gone.  All of those great seafood joints (including Joe's Crab shack Ron & Mimi) are gone.  The fairgrounds - Jazz Fest anyone? - grandstand has been destroyed and the track is under what looks to be about 5 ft of water.  The levee was breeched at the Industrial Canal and the pumping stations in the lower 9th ward broke down.  The lower 9th ward (Bywater, Elizabeth's Cafe, Sallie Ann Glassman's voodoo shop) is under 20 ft of water.  People on rooftops screaming for help, dead bodies & animals dead in the water.  Entire walls of brick look to have just slipped down to the ground leaving 2nd floor homes totally exposed.  Rescue teams are bringing in tons of dogs and cats found swimming & terrified on rooftops.  Horses in houses.  People trapped in attics of houses filling with water.  Parts of the Superdome roof sheared off & rain pouring in on refugees.  Drinking water contaminated. Looting.  Hideous live footage of looting of grocery stores, kids, teenagers, adults grabbing everything & anything.  People too poor to leave are going to scavenge.  The poverty of our city has always been devastating.  Now it's only going to get worse. 

*

SO yes, it wobbled, it's not as bad as it could have been but it's as terrible as it could ever be.  FEMA's helping & I only want to see footage of my mayor talking because when I hear him talk I feel like everything's going to be ok.  We won't be able to go home for at LEAST 74 hours and this means ... economic devastation & physical exhaustion.  I'm going to go watch Kung Fu Hustle and hold my dog as tight as she'll let me.

With love

Elizabeth 

 

*

been watching the live footage from www.wdsu.com.  It's not pretty, not at all pretty.  I just watched a family get rescued from their attic, water up to their roof, not 15 blocks from my house.  My house is up to the roof with water.  I'm in shock, numb.  No renter's insurance, no savings, no income for a long time because we're going to have to totally rebuild our business & what?  I'll be selling my private collection of Herman Leonard Photographs online so that I can maybe have a place to live some day some time some where and be able to buy a winter coat and a new set of dishes and maybe some towels and christ.  I've lost my books, my guitar, my amp, my new phonograph, my stereo.  This is IF no windows & walls blew up & I've lost my bed, my furniture well.  I know I know I know there's always someone who has it worse it's true, it's not the tsunami, I am alive with my dog & cat I'm alive.  I don't know what I'm saying I don't want to be pathetic there's SO MANY people stuck there, dying right now as I write, just oh.  Just oh. Oh.

*

Jenny-

I don't know if you can ck yr email but I assume Brod has a computer & hope you will be able to get online.  I've been trying to call but obviously can't get through.  Please email me the landline of where you're staying, and Herman/Shana also?

So of course you're aware of the damage to NO.  I've seen live footage of the lakefront by HL's house; the seafood joints over there are just gone, the Marina's burning, there's 10 ft of standing water in that hood.  Gentilly by my house is also underwater - oddly I watched a man get rescued by a helicopter from a rooftop just a few blocks from my house.  Water is up to the eaves.  My house is destroyed, though I hear you can live in a flooded house but lord what would that take?  A year of reconstruction?  I dunno. Where will I live in the meantime & how will I pay rent?  Certainly I can't replace all of my possessions, furniture, stereo, guitar & amp, clothes, blah blah blah. I"m so desperate to get in there & see what I can salvage but as you well know getting in there isn't gonna happen for weeks most likely.

If you don't know already, online you can get local news w/local live video at www.wdsu.com

and click on the "hurricane something link" on the leftish side of the page.  I have already watched Grandmothers & kids getting pulled out of attics just down the street from me @ Elysian Fields & whatever & I've seen things I wish I'd never seen.

It's going to be so long for that water to go away & then to clean up all the death & debris & then to get electricity up again.  So what now?  I feel am swinging from knowing I can handle any loss to feeling totally at loss.  Do I even have a job anymore if we don't have a way to make any money?  Will I even be able to get paid for last week?  I mean, how can I?  I am terrified of the damage to HL's place; I am terrified for Saki & Balou.  I wish he'd told me he wasn't going to take them.  I would have.  I'm terrified & praying for all of the people there in this night trapped in attics on roofs in the 9th ward and Kenner and Gentilly.

So of course I'm in a state of shock as we all are.  I know the CBD, French Quarter, your hood & some other areas aren't flooded like mine.  The lakefront levee was breeched you know.  Oh my god, I only have $100 to my name.  The money slips away like that levee. And here I thought I was going to be able to make some kind of safe life for myself.  Mother Nature? 

And how are you?  I'm sure you've been inundated with family calls & questions & fears & sorrow.  I feel so alone.  I wish to god I was with you & Herman.  I am just desperate to DO something, anything.  I"m definately calling Miami tomorrow to make sure the books will wait there.  I need to work.  I need to stop staring at the images.  I left 30 years of journals in my house & a friend who has never had to pack up her life in 2 hours & run just scolded me "I would have taken those journals.  They're priceless."  Yeah well my dog's priceless too.  I feel so empty.  I have my life, yes yes yes, I am just this is just I just need to work.  I wish I could get to NO & do something, cook for the rescue workers, get all of the animals out of the water.  I saw footage of a horse on a balconey, pigs on a rooftop trying to keep from sliding down, dogs paddling & cats yowling.  Where are Saki & Balou?  The 9th ward is virtually underwater.  Their pumps stopped working & the industrial canal was breeched.  Of course.  History repeating repeating.  I saw footage of Lakeside Mall with water almost to the roof.  Our city, our city is suffering.

I'm not in any way feeling "why me?" & I hope I don't sound pathetic.  Just SEEING my street with the houses underwater ... if the water goes down but I'm not there to open the windows & doors will it just stay in my house?  Will my house be full of disease?  I didn't bring the only photograph I had of my mother.

Please call me Tuesday.  I need to know how you are & talk to you & hear you.

Love

Elizabeth

*

I would call if I could but all phone circuits are so overloaded, I can't even call Herman or my friend in the hotel 5 mins away.  Herman & Shana/India/Steve are on their way, driving, to L.A. They're to stay w/Steve's brother.  Please help them.  We won't be able to get into our city for 6 wks at least. Jenny is without a doubt working her magic, I'm doing what I can & we hope to be able to get in & rescue our negs from the Ogden safes.  Fingers crossed. 

God I left so many things, I'm so sick for the people trapped, the city's burning & toxic & water continues to pour in from the broken levees.  People are dying.  12,000 will be trapped in the Superdome w/out electricty, can you imagine what's going to happen there? I couldn't bring my phonograph or even a sweater I forgot my pain pills and all my cookbooks & books & cds & the few trinkets I have from my dead parents and my 30 years of journals I'm going to vomit.

*

Yes the books that are in the city are underwater.  As are my 30 years of journals.  My guitar & amp.  My bed, dresser, desk.  My priceless vintage bunny glasses are probably floating. I didn't bring a single bunny!!! I'm gonna VOMIT.  All the mementos smashed.  If the walls are still up it's at least contained.  If not, well, there you have it.  Bodies and bones and bunnies floating away.  The levee's collapsed the length of a football field.  People are dying and being rescued and dying.  There's no water, no a/c, no nothing.  12,000 trapped in the Superdome till?  We won't be able to into the city for 6 weeks at LEAST.  I have no job, no paycheck, no nothing, after getting supplies for my animals I'm now down to $40.  No stereo or phonograph or dvd player or any of the little absurd things I was building up my life with.  I've lost much of my art, I have my negatives & that's it.  Why didn't I bring Annie's special shampoo?  Why didn't I bring a nice old soft sweater?  Or my jewelry?  I have no earrings.  Who needs 'em?  Why didn't I bring my 100's of cd's?  My car, it's so small.  Why didn't I bring all my vitamins and herbs?  I don't have anything for healing except aloe vera juice and dr.bronner's peppermint soap.  Why didn't I bring my shrines?  Why didn't I bring the glass angel my grandmother brought from Russia?  I brought Annie and Cody and a bowling bag full of cd's, a larger bag full of books, oh my god!  WHY didn't I bring Susan Nieman's "Evil In Modern Thought"?  ALL of my art books, destroyed.  My shoes, gone.  My rabbits, gone.  My menagerie of stray cats, dead.  My garden, plants I've had for years, poof.  My books my books oh my god my journals.  I brought my negs, I brought my Holgas, Herman's prints, a bag w/clothes (you never bring what you really want to wear), some cosmetics.  Why didn't I bring my mudmask but I brought my vanilla musk?  Why didn't I bring all my candles, my letters, my photo albums, my cleaning products?  I brought a transistor radio and a pair of pliers and a hammer and duct tape.  I brought Cody's scratching post and Annie's bed.  I brought my anti-depressants but won't be able to refill my prescription.  I brought my hairdryer but not my red dress paintings?  Oh god I'm SO homesick, stuck in the suburbs & grateful but it's not my home I want my home I want my floors and walls and passionflowers and warm moony nights in the dewy grass.  And the people I'm with they love me & are being generous beyond measure.  I'm so sick for that city.  We will rebuild.  We will rebuild???

*

C it's your birthday?  Yes yes celebrate life!  You are here to witness the beauty AND devastation, you are here to tell its story, not the story of a life w/out tragedy.  That is not life.  Life is tragedy and the clothes on  your back and nothing else and that water POURING IN Jesus Christ Mary Shit Fuck, and that sun rising goddamn it all, rising still. 

We are all, now, living with this PIT of emptiness and nausea and sorrow and shock and anger and even still even hope in our bellies and chests.  There are not enough tears in the world for this.  There is not enough blood in the world for this.  But there is companionship still and I was just now throwing the ball for my dog in the dewy grass as she is having a good day, not too arthritic, she woke up wagging, she's alive, she's with me, there's a ball, there's grass. 

It's the letting go, the surrender, the complete desperate need for compassion, the release that is hardest.  All we can do now is watch, watch in horror in disbelief but WATCH nonetheless.  And those fuckers with warplanes and warships and guns had better for once SAVE SOMETHING.  Why haven't they just parked ships in front of those levee breaches?  Why isn't there a convoy of copters just dumping sand or rocks down there?  It's been 2 days, are those men idiots????

So I'm here in Monroe, you're in Crowley.  Are you with family?  Are you in a house?  Do you have a bed?  Where is Crowley?  Are you far from me?  Do you have your negatives & cameras?  Does Adam have his unwavering optimism?  Are all your limbs intact?  Can you breathe air & not water?  Do you need anything?  Can I help in any way? Happy Birthday my love.  Happy happy birthday.

*

Thank you W.   We're just ---- it's just --- sigh.  I hate this being cutoff from Herman & Jenny & not being able to WORK I'm going to need to WORK for the next three months before I can even think about going home to see if my walls stood & maybe some of something of mine remains.  I'm so worried about Herman & I miss him terribly and I hate this suburb that's literally saved my life but what can I do?  Right now all we can do is watch.  Why aren't those men with their warships & warcopters dumping sand on those levee breaches?  Why isn't there a fucking tanker moored there?  The water continues to pour in.  The death continues to wave its wand.  The sun's up & here's my dog wanting to chase her ball.

Thanks for writing & caring.

* 

Now I wake to my dog happy, a less-arthritic day than usual, and in the clingy grass I threw the ball and the water's POURING into my city.  Why aren't those men with their war-ships & war-tanks & war-copters blocking those breaches in the levee?  Why aren't they pouring sand down there or rocks or something?  It's been 2 days for crying out loud why aren't they DOING SOMETHING???? I'm in an utter panic.  I'm - I'm - I'm

AHHHH Yemaya

I'm Dreaming Of A White Christmas

- Zenith phonograph at the foot of my bed (that's got to be at least as good as a husband.)
- Daisy bbgun
- Bunny Pez dispenser
- Her clean bones, their antlers
- Butterfly haven
- Two frogs hiding side by side
- Scrambled eggs on a toasted english muffin
- Ian Rankin
- They've put the message out
- Aimee Bender
- "Crow Dance" Zora Neale Hurston
- CocoRosie
- Un matin, j'etais sur ma galerie
- W + L = E
- Give me honors, courage and power
- "What you must learn to do is draw a boundary." "Between what and what?" "Your self and other people."
- Within my creative act/a template for who my self can be
- Last night/sortof cried
- Moist, mouthy
- The Ink Spots "Only You"
- Counseling the neighborhood's wild creatures
- Bowled over by oregano
- Foggy faint moon
- My blood brothers
- 'Take a ghost/made of fishing line/wreck a life/hanging around - make it go/away make it go - make it go/away make it go'
- I updated my will last week
- Workshopping
- Black leather bowling ball bag
- Some people own islands
- The day itself is a grand happening

Newsy

I'm moved/saddened by Peter Jennings' death from lung cancer. I've always loved his journalism and it was his voice and commentary that talked me through 9/11. It disturbs me that, generally speaking, his eloquence and intelligence got him tagged as "cold". Didn't John Kerry get the same prejudice? What's the matter with most of America, this fear of intellectual discourse? If you dance you're a fag; if you're articulate you're untrustworthy. It's all rolled on just the way Tennessee Williams predicted - the lowest common denominater rules the majority of public opinion and the arts, international affairs, and culture at large is suspect. Go Stanley! Goodbye Blanche.

It's amazing how a newsman can become part of your family. It's the same feeling I had when Johnny Carson passed - though sadly, in Jennings' case I can see no inheritor of his title. I mean, who, seriously? Katie Couric? Geraldo Rivera?

Sidebar:
Fascinating 1/2 hour at Syndey Byrd's last night - I went to pick up gift prints she'd had made for me (stunning) and was regaled with hilarious stories traded rapid-fire between her & one of her oldest friends Connie. Sitting on ornate antique furniture, surrounded by dense trinketry, art-covered red walls (hello Tennesse Williams waving up pigeons in Jackson Square - hello Cajun Mardi Gras roosters horses and men), opiated velvet curtains. The capper was the tutorial about hashish mixed with honey put in suppository form and stuck up the ass - for those who can no longer smoke or eat drugs.

I love New Orleans.

What It Is

The P.Dick android was FLIRTING with me, I'm not kidding. He kept winking at me and raising his eyebrows, staring right at me. Like a weapon honing in on its target. I asked him "Do you believe in a soul?" (obvious I know) and he said, "Yes of course" (of course he did). I kept gesturing with my eyes/head/hands for us to go and I asked "Can't we go somewhere more private?" He just got all confused, winking and eyebrowing and staring. I sat next to him on the couch and looked a little too closely at his scarry forearm and flaking nails. It was like sitting next to a sewn-up propped-up (re)animated corpse. Hello Uncanny! I couldn't get him to stand up. Andrew asked, "Will the Democrats regain control of Congress in 2008?" and he said something rude about George W. Bush. How strange, truly uncanny, all those people staring at him. When he would "talk" people would have these bursts of uncomfortable laughter & look at eachother big-eyed & open-mouthed. I wanted to ... I dunno, hug him give him some cookies, help him get over his fear of abortion & help him detox off meth. His face, it was so ... meme'd. Damn, do we all look like that, esentially? "Him" ???
Are we all just robots of artificial intelligence? It's very K. Dick to even ask that question but actually I'm thinking of Gurdjieff. Is everything "we" "think" merely programmed and our answers to life's daily questions are spewn out from our giant personal meme database? Even subjective experience, with time and memory, becomes a meme ... the line/s continues to blur.

DIARY ALERT! DIARY ALERT!
We went & got sushi and didn't talk about any of this at all. But we talked about a ton of other stuff and traded travelling stories & I gotta say that's the thing about Andy: he listens to my stories. I'm reminded again of how even when I just got back from Europe the people around me didn't ask for my stories. So Andrew & I talked about that, the phenomena of people only wanting to talk about themselves or not wanting to hear stories of far-away places and adventures. We both love Amsterdam. He was there with Nancy, they had sex in the bushes in the middle of the day. He's been to Dublin, I've been to Gexto Spain where they were amazingly (I had no idea in advance) having their yearly festival for their village deity. Who else knows how I really feel about Barcelona? And who else really listens to me when I talk about my job?

Well there's people - Meesha, Lee Sophia (who is, as she does, re-minding me of my Indian me), JB, etc - I know I do have great friends. That's not it - it's more about a general social/cultural lack of interest in the "other", what Andrew describes as "They-just-don't-have-any-stories-of-their-own" defensiveness, an egotistical competitiveness/fragility that is designed to protect the person from feeling any frightening feelings of inferiority. I do think it's about fear, a core spiritual fear and loneliness that only fuels itself. I wonder what the Philip K. Dick 'droid (has been programmed to) thinks? And is the current political/human situation a result of such human/social/cultural fears? More importantly, I'm drinking tons of water - why do I have a migraine? Ba-jillions are being spent on a racist war that's destroying bodies and homes and lives & they still can't tell me why anyone gets migraines or even really what it is.

dear Dennis Miller

You're a dick and you're also ill-educated. Just cuz you're famous (why, again?) you think you have some authority to rant about, well, women and Democrats and Palestinians. So "Palestine" is a "made-up word", to quote you, which should, as you insist, de-legitamize their fight for identity/freedom? Hate to break it to you, Dennis, but ALL words are "made up words". Like, say, "Dennis". All I know is that this artist is kicking your puffy arrogant racist sexist pompous ass and you don't even know it. p.s. Bill Hicks from the grave destroys you.

when everyone says "If he pulls your hair that means he likes you" every girl should holler, "No it doesn't! It means he's a dick!"

"Toilet paper, you couldn't live without toilet paper," he sneered, smug like he'd struck gold. "So long as I've got water, dude. I mean c'mon, I've been to Europe," one two three strikes you're out at the old ballgame.