LOVER

Apron, Saw, Hammers, More

Is it true (I was told this and for some reason I refuse to believe it) that "everyone in New Orleans was in denial" regarding the potential damage that could be brought about by Katrina? Moreover, is it true that this denial was such that "people were throwing ˜hurricane parties"?

Well I don't think it's ever good to make absolute statements (ie: "everyone" did this or that). And I would say that in this case no, it is not even remotely true that everyone in New Orleans was in denial about the potential damage of a storm like Katrina. It's hard for me to not get defensive about this kind of over-simplification; it feels insulting - I experience it as more stereotyping that people outside of the city rely on in order for them to stay in denial about everyone's culpability and inherent continued responsibility for what happened.

People outside of the Gulf forget that we have been dealing with hurricanes & tropical storms forever and we have a certain non-hysterical view of them, when it comes right down to the thing bearing down. (Unlike, say, Houston - which totally freaked out w/the mere thought of Rita hitting, the freeways became horrendous apocalyptic tableaus with folks dying and everythin' ... crazy).

Remember this fact: 80% of New Orleans successfully evacuated for Katrina. That's massive and impressive. And though of course the wreckage from the levee breaks was enormous, a lot of people, animals, valuables, art, businesses were saved because preparations were made and we took care of our business. We were not "in denial" - we were practical. There's a kindof tough, no-bullshit, let's just take this one day at a time attitude that we have to maintain here - we're not about to get stressed out if the hurricane is going to, say, click over to Pensacola, or just die in the Gulf. You watch, you get ready, you go to work, you talk about it, you time things so you're not giving yourself tons of extra work before you even know where the damn thing's headed.

There's lots of elbow grease hard work that goes into evacuating - it's like exercising, not glamorous, not fun, just hard. You're having to value judge your entire life (what's irreplacable? what goes in the car with you? what gets raised up? what goes into plastic bins? what gets let go of? at what point do you stop trying to capture the stray cats you've been feeding for a year? at what point do you actually leave the city?) - this is a process that non-locals have no comprehension of. It might seem like "denial" but it's really just pragmatism.

Beyond that, I think many of us were in denial about the level to which the local, state, and federal government were doing the jobs we hired them to do. We were living in a sort of dream, assuming that shit was getting taken care of, that people elected to take care of "us" would and were going to be good leaders when needed. We were naive, despite all proof to the contrary, we had faith. That's never going to happen again.

Now hurricane parties are an interesting phenomena and also really difficult for a non-local to comprehend. Sometimes it's about denial, about addiction, about people being idiots, endangering themselves and others by refusing to take the danger seriously. Whatever, that's everywhere - it's a democratic society, right? Got the good & the bad. But mostly hurricane parties are about squeezing the joy out of every last possible second that you can. They're generally a phenomena surrounding tropical storms & Cat 1 or 2 hurricanes - which are surely a mess and can wreak havoc but aren't worth having a nervous breakdown over. They're the equivalent of a big blizzard & have a tendency to change the vibe of a place to the extent that it sortof feels like a holiday. You know how a giant snow makes the landscape surreal & magical? It's the same for rain.

We cook a ton of food before the electricity goes out. We stock up on candles and water and batteries. We invite our friends over to share in the strange holiday like feeling. We eat and drink and batten down the hatches and even go to sleep, play games, talk. The day after the storm you get out & see what you can & pitch in where you can & generally enjoy a few messy days of not having to "be normal". Also another component of these "parties" is survival - lots of times folks will band together with all the food & drink they have, ice chests and flashlights, to be safe, to help eachother. People on the outside don't really understand this tradition because they don't live here. Doesn't mean it's self-destructive or more of the clichéd "Big Easy" razzmatazz Bourbon Street le bon temps roulet, cher, nonsense that it seems most of the country wants to reduce New Orleans to.

Beyond this, every single person I know took Katrina seriously whether or not they left town. It seems to me, again, that it's the government that failed to take it seriously. The people, well, we're an/other story.

By August 26, the possibility of unprecedented cataclysm was being considered because computer models had shifted the potential path of Katrina, putting New Orleans right in the center of their track probabilities. Furthermore, emergency management officials feared that the storm surge could go over the tops of levees protecting the city, causing major flooding. So, if people in the government knew this, is it too farfetched to establish that some people who had access to this information did leave New Orleans before August 29th?

Again: 80% of the city evacuated. That's HUGE. Most everyone who could leave did leave. We took that shit seriously. Too bad the government didn't.

It's important to remember that Katrina did not directly hit New Orleans, that the aftermath was the result of a federal failure on the government's part, failing us & our city, NOT "natural disaster". We did our part, they did not do theirs. The people caught in the crossfire (of whom I was one, having lost EVERYTHING as a result of levee failure) should not be judged for having trusted the system that failed them.

Lastly, I find myself resisting the notion that everything went on as usual in New Orleans until the levees broke on Sunday the 29th and that prior to that there were no concerns whatsoever because "New Orleans is so used to tropical storms and hurricanes."?

The levees broke on Tuesday the 29th.

If people weren't here they have no idea how much activity was going on to prepare for the storm. It's what we do. We do it because we're used to it - it's a compromise we make, it's a choice we make in exchange for living so fully, in the most amazing city in this country. It's a sacrifice. And it's hard work. People have no idea.

I spent all day Saturday evacuating my boss' negatives (Herman Leonard, the famous jazz photographer), archiving everything, hauling e'thing I could from the basement to the top floors, helping him pack, cleaning out the fridge, taping up windows etc etc. Then to my house to do the same. And to help my neighbors, call the landlord, get the car road ready, get the pets road ready, emotionally decide what to take & what to leave, figure out where to go, make sure all my friends are heading out, watching the news, etc. People have no idea.

It's a huge undertaking & we here in New Orleans are seasoned pros. Just because we didn't get all hysterical doesn't mean nothing was different about that week. You should be here for an evacuation - you'll get it instantly. The mood is so intense, so keen. You deal with folks who won't or can't leave and it's very emotional. But NOTHING is "normal". That's even kindof why we live here - it's an extraordinary mood & lifestyle.

Also it's very very important to remember that most of the people who didn't or couldn't leave did so because they couldn't evacuate with their pets. Generally these were lower-income people without the luxury of cars and credit cards who were told to go to the Superdome but that they couldn't bring their animals. They would not. This is not to be underplayed. Pets are family & imagine having to leave your most beloved animal alone to face god knows what. We like to think we can take care of our dependents. Many people died because they refused to consider for one minute that their pet was not an equal part of their family. This is intense & horrible because again, the government failed the people in this regard. There were evacuation plans w/PETA on the books w/the city for this very reason - and would have enabled a humane (for both pets & pet owners) system for coping with this. But the city's officials completely ignored the plan. It's horrific but it's true.

My style of answering your questions might seem a bit intense but I am very very serious about correcting misconceptions about my city and my life. I know you respect that, hence your asking in the first place, and I hope you know that you can ask me anything - anytime. What I would say is that the whole thing was very complicated - there are hundreds of thousands of valid perspectives, there are nuances I'm incapable of conveying, there are narratives I don't have the authority to relate. I think that to try to tell the story of what happened (and is still happening) requires real fluidity, gray areas allowed to remain gray, wet messiness examined for being that exactly, without judgement, without assumptions.

I regularly deal with people making all kinds of declarative statements about the trauma of Katrina, about the survivor's experience, about what people did or didn't do, about what people are or aren't doing, about how this "trauma" isn't a "trauma", about how one should be "better" or how one's way of being changed by the experience is somehow easy or even enviable, about how we should be healing or dealing or how we're not healing or dealing or what this story should mean - mostly from people who don't live here. My response to that: it's human to want to nail things down, find a center, feel like we can reconcile what happened in New Orleans (and is still happening) with a picture (or faith or idea) of what the world should be like. But I'm here to say it can't be done - and if you try to do it, well, you're going to piss a lot of people off. One thinks that by defining the experience one contains it or transcends it or even knows exactly what it's like - but I'm here to tell you: even if your definition of "it" is immense it is even more than that. So I appreciate it when someone from the outside asks with respect and listens without being defensive; I appreciate your willingness to put yourself objectively out there in order to hear what this story is like for those of us who are living it.

KamiKaze (Divine Wind)

Elliot’s Gun Shop, where I went that hot espresso’d morning with Arun when he bought his Gloc that eventually Tobey used to kill himself with, has been raided and shut down by the FBI for illegal sales etc. They shoulda closed it down December 4th 1996.

1. Where imagined future ruins were once the objects of metaphysical fancy or hubristic imperial dreams, the modern ruin is always, to some degree, a palpable, all-too-real remnant of the future.
2. Journals of late 18th century housekeepers
3. Internal antonyms
4. Théodore Vacques
5. The star of anonyminity, isolation, and failure
6. Dormitory at Le Navi in Cattolica
7. “I’m Not Down” The Clash
8. 1330 Arabella Street
9. Ester Partegás
10. Eternity appears not as such
11. as surely as fire burns iron to steel
12. Resist permanence
13. LASUG
14. Deep and good and strange
15. Little seed
16. The electric towers, the river!
17. Sera-t-il bien pour se sentir demain?
18. Every surface was covered in crystal, amber, and stone curiosities
19. A fleeting taped-up sky
20. He was enlivening his solitary existence by ordering lavish meals for twelve at which he would be the sole guest.
21. Nephew, Tring, Mrs. Fry, and Viscount Fartleberry
22. The ruin made meaningful
23. Of possible knots is infinite/tying bits of string
24. As the trees grow
25. Lovers analyzed themselves
26. Special excursions by train
27. Not just the felicitous gaining of the upper hand over worthy competition but the righteous vanquishing of an unworthy foe
28. Is anyone else trying this?
29. The cyan of the sea has been pristine
30. For a body without organs
31. With its silence and its castles
32. Adding a bit of fat to the lean
33. Degrees

heart's delight

Do you know how much I truly love pigeons?!?

Main Man

If you came into the store already not interested in what I'm selling it's no fault of mine that you left without buying

I recognize the uninterested/non-committed from the second they walk inside. I'm not required to give them one ounce of my energy. When they leave without engaging, as predicted, I'm not diminished and nothing's personal - nothing's wasted, nothing's given away. Oh it's all metaphor. There is a door and there are patterns - I'm in charge of my door.

nonpariel

At night I remember what all I can’t remember, which is a lot, years and years of it, and feel the unmoored life of a life undocumented, battered. My journals I would’ve referred to, I would’ve bequeathed to someone, gone. My one anchor, don’t tell me it wasn’t and don't tell me I didn't lose it - I know it's gone. And so at night, it’s hard, but it’s as real as it gets and I don't mind.

Because during the day I live, living, life, the way a wholly living person lives, the kind of life that continues to inspire me to write in journals, to pull photographs from the air, to hold plates on sticks and spin. Open arms, not closed; following an open road – just because I’m unmoored doesn’t mean I don’t go. Be, and think about sleep, free of gaps, free of tendrils of the past, and traces of grief I can’t grasp - just sunshine, a mule-drawn carriage, tea, fruit, men in hats, the circle widens, I breathe the gap.

Fire, water, a gurgling pull earthward, Mexican snacks brought to me with a white plastic fork, hardware store, broom, African style, cyan, woodland creatures, gardenias in a pink teacup, oils, water, air. We wipe our fingers on paper towels; we marvel at the waves and points of style. I work, straightening hangers on the rod, lying the book of Dada on the wooden doily on the mauve plate, reading “Cabinet”, wrapping string with yarn with string with yarn, and not giving too much away. I sell hats now.

And Bryant is profound, the only person I know with triple citizenship: German, Brazilian, U.S.A. I make him laugh; he gets serious. I’m gun-shy of people – we can be so insane - but he is a Libra too, another Libra man infiltrating my life, another one to tell so much to without saying anything at all, it’s in the depth of our Venus’d eyes. I work for him in his store and he lavishes me with rich iced coffee, seltzer with lime, Vietnamese food, ideas, images, words, visions, sushi, typography, jewelry, a pedicure, tales of the dream and romance, and we become friends. This is not how the story ends. Someone in the world gives what he gets.

Now it’s dark again and I don't forget what I can't remember. So I spritz some Coco on the pillows and aim my thoughts at the way clouds become wooden tchotkes in the store window – owls, pigeons, apron, bandana, spectacles – the metaphysical happen/s. The tin can phones ring, lying in a bed of cotton candy and glowing red, yellow, green. Little seeds of goodness feed the day. Open, closed, open. My kitchen will be white with green polka dots; the flame that lights this lantern burns white hot.

Gliese 581C

Ever since I heard about it I can't stop thinking about it. Also I can't stop thinking about women's uniforms, wheatpasting, and the hole where molar #15 used to be. Isn't it fascinating? Aren't we all fascinated.

Waning Gibbous

Things I am really feeling right now are the modes and clothes of the space age era Soviet Union; Viking embellishments and accessories; hats; enthusiasm; and well-cut suits on young men who wear them with a teeshirt. And I want new sneakers and this pair of Irregular Choice espadrillos. What else is new? I need a haircut but I don't know what to do with it. I am almost done with "Death On The Installment Plan". I am obsessed with beefcake photocards. I need a lamp projector though if I'm going to use them for tracing/bedazzling. Tel Aviv, Beirut, Baghdad, Jakarta, Calcutta, Tangiers. I'm interested in work boots and scarves, always scarves, silver jewelry, jewelry that does things, like weapons, and destroyed cotton shirts, silkscreened with cypress trees. I don't know, it's never pressing to write here anymore - I've become preoccupied with getting all my thoughts down in every other place. The volume of poems and short stories I'm working on has been taking up an increasing amount of time. So has:

- drawing sailer suits and bubbles on big cardboard squares
- watching "Pretty Baby", "Bunny Lake Is Missing", "Frenzy", and "What Have You Done To Solange"
- going to the parties my friends invite me to and dancing in the grass of front lawns
- tracking down my Native American elders
- tracing stags
- markers and pencils
- ArtInAction
- Becoming adept at not taking on responsibility that isn't mine
- Thinking about snowglobes and making marmalade
- How I want to start a wild commune with bunnies, a goat, horses, dogs, cats, cast iron pans, big beds with mosquito netting, artists from all over the world, a garden that works, radical exhibitions, and evenings of ball gowns, Pinochle, and getting my ass smacked.
- Or never stopping living out of a suitcase, a scrappy nomad, finding ridiculous ways to fund my travels, getting to Brooklyn and India and Berlin on a dime.
- How I skin my knees more than anyone I know, even kids.
- My old molar, #15, is gone.

To The Max

Of Savoyards, Single and Alone

Stand alone in this far field of mustard
away from the city of old bowlers,
behind the Douglas fir where
I've thrown my allegiance.
A failed jetty, my creation,
sits half sunk in the far harbor.
I should have been a zebra mussel, unalterable
genetically, unwittingly smothering the bottom feeders.
But the continued rush of a river reversed
is too much.

This consistent electric light, moths unlanguid,
small laces floating at the window, burnt Colombian on my lips,
those were my newspaper days. The regrettable
black film left fingerprints on the dinnerware.
What is a city, utopian mapping on the ceiling?
I am the city,

and there are flutes, and paid men.
What to expect? A city, designed, crumbles.
London Bridge is safe and sound.
Not unlike the vibrant dead who cross her,
Not unlike the victory tower meant to be an arch.

But a leaf, hoar frosted over, and the muskrats
busy with the business of winter. And yet, I cannot, have not
a mention of myself, I've no business here,
no passports, I never ponder
cycles responsible for the ascended
automatic resting on my forehead.