just back from five days in new orleans.
what an eye-opening experience!
there is a vast untold story that needs attention. the city is active and busy with tourists. but what do tourists see? well, the french quarter was untouched by the flood that swept through most of the city. many businesses are open there. as you creep through the downtown traffic it allows you time to look about and up to skyscrapers with every single window blown out of their facade. you see traffic signal lights flashing their warnings while prostrate on the ground. sink holes wait for their next auto casualty. one way traffic signs and street name signs have blown away so caution is imperative to getting where you're going. and since traffic lights aren't always in working order drivers blast through intersections at full speed, even when there appears to be a red light, with their horn a-honking. it's an odd mix of urban decay in a modern world, almost a surreal mad max's world.
while driving through vast suburbs that were destroyed by the flood of katrina you can't help but wonder what will happen to all those abandoned houses. a standard spray-painted x adorns the front door to these homes, within average middle class neighborhoods, indicating the date the house was inspected in one quadrant, the group that assessed the house, the number of animals found dead in the house, and the number of bodies found in the last quadrant. fortunately we saw mostly zeros in the body quadrant, but many animals in others. new homes are under construction in between condemned homes. fortunately the new homes are being constructed higher off the ground. entire shopping centers sit abandoned, not razed, just in limbo. the ground, since it was saturated for so long, created pot holes that want to swallow your car. some are marked with a construction cone if you are lucky. i couldn't help but feel the worst about the animals that were left to drown. the photo shown here is on the banks of lake pontchartrain. graveyards of buildings and boats sit as a reminder of the ferocity of weather.
but amongst the carnage lives a city that prides itself with an amazing array of fabulous food. you can't be a calorie counter in this city. i tried mud bugs (crayfish) and alligator. standard on menus is turtle as well. while at the southern yacht club a steady stream of shrimp boats, right out of a forest gump movie set, motored by to unload their catch. if you like food this is the place to eat the best of it.
joy and sorrow coexist in this place on equal footing. the story of new orleans, post katrina, needs to be heard by more people to understand this colossal paradox.
(my latest illustration friday submission)
