The Day That I Ate Crawfish
Friday, in New Orleans. It looks like the pictures. I don't know exactly what psychological effect it has on all of us to experience so much of the world with such visual intimacy but still at a tremendous distance - through pictures or videos or movies. It feels deadening. To be in the 9th ward here and still to think only, Yep, it looks just like the pictures, feels very soulless, very inhuman. But that was my reaction. It took longer to be able to think anything else. Specifically, it took driving around late at night and seeing all of the bright orange tags scrawled haphazardly on doorframes, and endless underpasses crowded with cars that are dusted lightly, with salt residue?, their trunks still open like someone just retrieved a blanket or picnic basket and will be coming back in a minute to close it. There are places where it feels nothing less than apocalyptic. And there are places where it feels only terribly wounded. And there are places, usually surrounded by large ornate gates, where someone seems to have put on a mask as if to advertise that Things Are Okay. The distance between these places is remarkably small here.