{"id":502,"date":"2005-08-31T21:15:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-31T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=502"},"modified":"2005-08-31T21:15:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-31T21:15:00","slug":"502","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=502","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Requiem for a city<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trying to prepare to teach tomorrow’s classes, I have been depressed all day about a city that I knew only as a visitor. This Washington Post<\/em> writer has me beat, of course<\/a>:<\/p>\n

For those of us lucky enough to have come of age in New Orleans — even more than for the tourist who falls for her instantly — the decadent majesty of the city is like a forbidden love. You want desperately to explain the depths of your enchantment, but you know in your heart that others will acknowledge it merely as an easy infatuation or a passing fling. You know they will never awaken at night drunk on the coffee-and-banana fragrance of her docks or the beery sweat of her pre-dawn streets or the humid hum of her streetcar summers. How could they ever understand the depth of your passion?<\/em><\/p>\n

I find myself going here<\/a> compulsively.<\/p>\n

Did the Tarot card readers of Jackson Square keep turning up The Tower all last week? (If they did not, someone will create a fictional work in which they did.)<\/p>\n

M.’s and my experience of being refugees for all of four days last July<\/a> did make me more sensitive to scenes of people fleeing their homes. In this case, though, it would not surprise me if people from southern Louisiana and Mississippi will probably still be living in tent cities a year from now, a semi-permanent class of refugees.<\/p>\n

[A]ccording to Shea Penland, geologist and professor at the University of New Orleans. “When we get the big hurricane and there are 10,000 people dead, the city government’s been relocated to the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain, refugee camps have been set up and there $10 billion plus in losses, what then?” he asks.<\/em><\/p>\n

Interestingly, that was published five years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: God punished New Orleans because it was a wicked city<\/a>, just in case you were wondering. (Link from Andrew Sullivan<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Requiem for a city Trying to prepare to teach tomorrow’s classes, I have been depressed all day about a city that I knew only as a visitor. This Washington Post writer has me beat, of course: For those of us lucky enough to have come of age in New Orleans — even more than for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-502","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3601,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3601","url_meta":{"origin":502,"position":0},"title":"The Young Woman Who Personified Everything","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Back when it was a print zine and not an (all too irregular) blog, John Yohalem's Enchant\u00e9 had some articles on \"gods of the city\"\u2014architectural and sculptural representations of the Olympian deities and other Neoclassical figures. Somewhere in there, perhaps, were sculptures based on a young woman named Audrey Munson.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"Audrey Munson","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/downloads.thedaily.com\/ui-images\/2011\/12\/04\/120511-opinions-history-audrey-munson-pandey-1-ss-662w.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1199,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1199","url_meta":{"origin":502,"position":1},"title":"Doreen Valiente remembered","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Hecate reminds us that ten years have passed since the Wiccan world lost Doreen Valiente, who still does not get enough credit for her part in creating the religion.I corresponded with her some in the 1980s, but, ironically, arrived in her home of Brighton just weeks after passing. Riding city\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13731,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13731","url_meta":{"origin":502,"position":2},"title":"‘Small Gods’ Is a Zine about Animism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Small Gods issue 1, 2024 Edited by Dver, a.k.a. Sarah Kate Istra Winter, Small Gods: An Anthology of Everyday Animism is projected to be an annual zine \"featuring art, poetry, and essays describing our relationship with, and giving praise to, the smallest of gods \u2014\u00a0those spiritual entities who are closely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/small-gods-1-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3255,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3255","url_meta":{"origin":502,"position":3},"title":"A Folk Healer in Urban Detroit","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting story but it raises the old question: how much credit goes to the herb and how much to the herb-doctor: A lot of inner-city folks don't have much money, don't have any health insurance, and have little trust for the run-down clinics that cater to the poor. So\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"herbalism\"","block_context":{"text":"herbalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=herbalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tamra Meadows in her garden.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/metrotimes.com\/polopoly_fs\/1.1198844.1315362262%21\/image\/1763030278.jpg_gen\/derivatives\/landscape_335\/1763030278.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2036,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2036","url_meta":{"origin":502,"position":4},"title":"Still “Chasing Margaret”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 26, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Years ago, during my research leading up to the writing of Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America, I went through a period of fascination with science-fiction\/fantasy writer Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995), seeking her books on the SF shelves of used bookstores in various cities. She\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"California\"","block_context":{"text":"California","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=california"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3509,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3509","url_meta":{"origin":502,"position":5},"title":"\u00c6gypt in Northern California: Isis Oasis","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In 1957, a young artist named Lora Vign\u00e9 and her husband moved from Southern California to San Francisco. \"It was 1957, the beginning of the Beatnik era, and we fitted the description,\" she writes in her memoir, The Goddess Bade Me Do It! No poser bohemian, she was already producing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Loreon2_sm-246x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}