behold majestic kings on real camels...

i told the clerk at the convenience store that i noticed a lot of dumptrucks and construction vehicles on the roads. things appear to be humming in sevierville and pigeon forge tennessee. "o yes," she said every year pigeon forge is just "biggr and bitter than EE-ver..." i like to visit the area, not just because sevierville is dolly parton's hometown and the location of "dollywood" — with its dolly parton museum and wig collection; it cant go wrong — but because its one of the largest sprawl developments in the world. branson MO/silver dollar city and bloomington MN/mall of america are its only rivals in terms of size.
so every year its bigger. more fireworks stores; "sexy stuff" lingerie outlets; bible bookstores; tshirt stores; and miles and miles and miles of franchises. the major cultural attractions in the greater gattlinburg area are the "dixie stampede" dinner theater ("hilarious ostrich and pig races ... pitting the north against the south in family friendly fun rivalry"); forbidden caverns; parrot mountain ("hundreds of tropical birds in a garden of eden setting"); various ripley's "adventure theaters"; elwood smooch's old smoky hoedown; and of course "the miracle" — "a stunning faith-based musical of epic proportion!" see "magnificent aerial battle of angles... witness lucifer's fall from grace ... see the birth of christ in all its glory ... behold majestic kings on real camels ... feel the wind and rain as jesus calms the sea ... experience the passion of His crucifixion ... behold His miraculous acsension!" i guess im always trying to understand america. thats why im drawn to places like pigeon forge. my brother and i visited for the first time about 20 years ago. he and my sister-in-law purchased gifts for their wedding party at the smokey mountian knife works. and so, i keep on going back. but each time i go, it seems like i understand america Less.

the bears roar interupts the silent canoe. the lynx is startled. the heron looks on. regulation fire and safety lighting has been installed.

jumping an elk and diggin in those claws is always patriotic. go for the juguler baby.
a polar bear in a case bears the inscription "souveniers of alaska". are the snowshoes leftovers from his lunch?

pay dirt in greenville, tennessee...

just a few miles south of highway 81 in the small town of greenville, tennessee is the andrew johnson historic site, home, national park service visitor center and the andrew johnson national cemetery.
i took the tour on my way back to vermont from new orleans. there was a very nice park ranger. there was johnson's tailor shop, all weatherbeaten yellow poplar clapboards, preserved for all time within a new-federal brick visitor center, just a few blocks from the house.
his house is the home that johnson, 17th president of the united states and abraham lincoln's vice president, lived in at the time of his demise at the age of 67. in the back yard there are several willow trees. the ranger explained to me that the trees all grew from an original tree, a willow that was brought to greenville as a gift to the johnson family. that original cutting was from the willow which draped it branches over the tomb of napoleon in france. there was a branch lying at the base of one of the trees the day i visited, probably damaged by an ice storm earlier in the season. it lay there on the ground, tiny pale green leaves bursting out along its flexible stalk. although the branch was separate from the tree, willows are vigorous. it was a perfect opportunity with a perfect story behind it. and so the main street museum is now the possessor of a botanical sample of a willow (Salix babylonica) taken from the cuttings of trees that sheltered the final resting place of napoleon.
now im back in vermont and cant wait to get more display cases built and this museum up and running. im going to work all spring at it. none of yall will believe what you see as it presents itself to the world.
the picture shows the backyard and the trees.
the educational film on johnson at the visitor center was also very informative.

the sweet sticky ooze of post mardi gras

this is matt, surfing on a discarded ironing board on dumaine street in the french quarter. theres lots of abandoned household items on the street at this time, in this town.
mardi gras has oozed into post mardi gras. at midnight on tuesday night (ash wednesday morning) cops and patrol cars and horses and garbage trucks processed down bourbon street in a haze of flashing lights and sirens as the crowd roared in unison “we who are about to die salute you!” carnival officially flipped over into lent. the cops on horseback raised their riding crops as if they were elevating the host in high mass. the crowd loved it more than ever this year. the whole scene actually may have been almost as dramatic as im making it sound.

so many said to us “thank you… thank you!” they thanked us for coming. its wonderful to be thanked for just showing up.
the restaurants are still humming here, but now you can actually get a table for two by the window at 7pm. gloria and i have just come back from “snug harbor” a good place to eat. they have live music later in the evenings. i had crawfish étouffée over long grain rice and sampled gloria's blackened sea bass. i am overfull — sweetness and warmth still radiating from my stomach. as i walked down city sidewalks this sensation was combined with the scent of the angel’s trumpet, night blooming jasmine vine and sweet olive. these plants are in full bloom now throughout the city, confusing the air with their sweetness, raging with sticky pheromones, calling to all insects, “fuck, fuck me now!”
nothing out of the ordinary for this town.

jazz funerals, taino indians and riderless floats

sometimes mourners at funerals just cant cry. sometimes in the somber moments when you think you should be crying the tears just dont come.
that’s when a jazz funeral does its job.
the jazz funeral has two interlocking, mutually opposite, mutually dependent parts.
everyone knows that sad, slow dirges are the first part. slow, sad music is customary for funerals.
but the second part of the jazz funeral is its distinguishing feature. the drums roll in a syncopated march. the whole crowd — both band and mourners — starts up in crazy, soul-lifting, emotional spiral that sounds to the uninitiated like a party. this is because it is a party. it's a party with a purpose and its purpose is to bring on the tears and it usually works. time and again one hears that the mourners chest’s tighten and then all of a sudden they are crying right along with the happy music. a paradox? perhaps. but the manner in which our emotions become locked within our hearts is non-linear. therefore the route to their discovery is strange and oblique.

in the caribbean there is a taino funeral tradition in which the body of the deceased is laid in the home to allow friends and family to grieve. during this time there is a celebration. people dance and sing. it is a party. those who cry are put off to one side behind a curtain to allow the lightness, the good spirits to envelop both the dead and the living. this allows for more crying. the taino puerto rican tradition, like the jazz funeral, works.

in our literal, linear society some people cant understand these incongruities which is why you may hear this season — its even made the national news i think — that new orleanians are somehow “insensitive” to host the countries largest party in the countries largest disaster zone. some have actually asked, shouldn't mardi gras be “cancelled” this year?
answering this, locals have said a great many things. (new orleanians are not known for remaining silent in the face of a perceived challenge.) one rebuttal reminds us that mardi gras — fat tuesday — the day before ash wednesday — the last day before lent — is a date on the calendar and cannot be eliminated by any official entity, even if there were just one centralized authority that was responsible for mardi gras.
other rebuttals are more complex but get more to the point. these refutations involve a theory on the nature of happiness and sadness that is both very new orleans and very buddhist at the same time. for there is no such thing as happiness unmingled with melancholy. there is no such thing as sadness unmixed with joy. its deceptively simple.
perhaps new orleans has always been a kind of national epicenter for this emotional crucible. it really doesn't matter why happy music should make us cry. it just does what it does.

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two nights ago, in the muses parade, the last float was darkened, riderless, and draped in black crepe. nice, very nice.
*see matt bucy’s blog aloofdork for pictures and descriptions of muses and other parades and parties we have been in, and to.

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typical mardi gras joke heard this season is, “i was so drunk last night that i couldn’t walk home – so i drove.”

this here IS elysian fields, honey

yesterday we drove around town with gloria, our friend in new orleans. gabriel’s worked with her, organizing his performances and puppets for various krewes over the years. we are staying in her house in the by-water.
we drove out elysian fields in gloria’s van. it was night but the street lights and the lights of most of the houses made the tree lined street nearly as bright as it would have been pre-katrina. like so many other new orleans streets elysian fields is further evidence of city planners' familiarity with shakespeare, virgil or just about any other classical source. i was thinking about this as we drove along. much of the debris from the double whammy of hurricane and flood is gone, but there are still mattresses, piles of mold-tainted rugs and furniture in the neutral ground (the grassy area in the center of the street where the trolley formerly ran). many of the traffic lights either aren’t working at all, or are set to a continuously flashing red. red metal stop signs on small metal stands are set up near the curb. major intersections are four-way traffic stops.
in the past when ive first hit the city and run into elysian fields with its mangy neutral ground and tatty trees ive always been reminded of blanche dubois not believing that she's arrived at her destination when she steps off the desire streetcar in that well known play. these memories are poignant now. as we were driving along i also remembered that an interviewer once asked tennessee williams if he imagined what happened to blanche, postscript to the play’s plot. he answered that she was released from the mental hospital and went on to open an elegant dress shop in the french quarter. “blanche dubois is a survivor” he chuckled to the interviewer.
gloria was so glad to see the lights of the street and the lights of the houses. each holiday — thanksgiving, christmas and mardigras — has brought more returning residents, more dumpsters, more debris and refrigerators on the curb; but also more lights, more lives, to the city. gloria said the lights made her glad but “you know the best part will be just to see all of us, and to see we’re out on the street and that we’re all here and that we’re all together”
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"[blanche] is carrying a small suitcase in one hand and a slip of paper in the other. as she looks about, her expression is one of shocked disbelief...there is something about her uncertain manner that suggests a moth. a sailor, in whites, enters...and approaches blanche. he asks her a question, which is not heard because of the music. she looks bewildered, and cannot, apparently, answer him...
eunice: what's the matter, honey? are you lost?
blanche: they told me to take a streetcar named desire, transfer to one called cemetery, and ride six blocks and get off at elysian fields!
eunice: that's where you are now.
blanche: at elysian fields?
eunice: this here is elysian fields. (negro woman laughs.)”
--tennessee williams, streetcar named desire, 1947.

whats the matter with purvis?

as i was driving down highway 59, en route to new orleans, i decided to stop at purvis, mississippi.
i had stopped there before, with my friend sigrid exactly a year before and i remembered that as we drove up to one of the most snaggle-toothed little po-dunk gas stations slash general stores i'd ever seen (and ive seen a lot) i wondered if it was open. it was just 10 minutes to 5pm.
sigrid stepped out of my large, older, gas and oil sucking cadillac. the cadillac has vermont plates. sigrid is a tall, gorgeous swedish woman with long blonde hair. at that time she was wearing a short, white fur coat. as i got out of the car i thought to myself, "o my, what a bunch of dangerously criminal yankees we must look.
there were soft, dry, rustling noises from inside the small building in front of us. sigrid stepped onto its listless little porch just as the "open" sign was swung into its reverse position. "closed".
from the small window i caught a glimpse of a rat faced man with weasel eyes. then he was gone.
o my. no gas for us, at least here. i took pictures as a way of memorializing this awkward moment in north-south cultural relations. sigrid strutted on the porch and asked me, "did he really just close... just for us?"
yes, im afraid he did.
we both thought that we might just stay parked right there. the building was free standing. barring underground tunnels the ferret-human inside would have to come out eventually. we wondered what we could say to him when we finally came out, hours later. "hey buddy, we're selling crack, where's the nearest junior high school?"
so, fond memories of true southern hospitality drew my steering wheel like a magnet to purvis.
this year though, i found an entirely new scene. the gas station was totally renovated. same size, same porch, but now all painted up and fancified.
surrounding the tiny gas station were more white fema trailers than any of us have ever seen in our lives. trust me.
i drove up to the sign and took a pic. i drove up to the gate thinking to ask a few questions. find out the low down. all these trailers must be earmarked for needy people. governmental altruism made my heart a little bit glad. a human interest story of rebuilding and rebirth could be blogged.
i was surprised at the actions of the attendant in his fema uniform. trembling with anxiety he asked me to remove my car, immediately from his lot of 10,000 white trailers. i just wanted a few pictures, i explained. "y-y-you cant take pictures here," he said. "well," i said, "i guess i can take pictures from the road." then he threatened to call the police. i decided it would be best to skee-daddle out of there.
apparently the feds have lots and lots of trailers both in mississippi and missouri but they refuse, for reasons known only to them, to install them in new orleans or gulfport, or some other place where people are still living in tents.
there are tents under the claiborne street bridge in new orleans. there are tents in city park. right now.
o well. i took the pictures anyway. and ill never, ever forget purvis.
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*Follow up to 22 feb post:
Apparently the fema trailers discussed in my discursion are being settled, perhaps too slowly, into sites in the gulf. The trailers are manufactured and shipped by bechtel corp. only 35,000 — total — are in use to date. when they first arrived at their sites in new orleans they had no keys.
The bechtel corp has a website: bechtel.com. There you can read the company’s strident denials about everything from boston’s big dig, the bin laden family, bleeding the taxpayer dry in iraq and of course the “rebuilding” of new orleans. if you’re in the mood to laugh to keep yourself from crying, go to this website. click on “news”.
--wlh, 24 feb, 2006

new orleans is still new orleans...

the loblolly pines* were chopped off 10 to 20 feet above the ground, broken off like toothpicks.
"wow, damage from katerina," i thought. highway 59 south into new orleans was corridor of sawed off giant pine trunks.
then i noticed a mile-marker. in hattiesburg, mississippi i was still more than 108 miles from new orleans.
i saw boarded up gas stations with shattered signs, vacant malls with the siding blown off and miles and miles of crushed forest. even the scrub trees in the swamps were flattened by the winds of last august.
the giant "six flags" sign -- a hulk of empty metal struts by the highway near lake ponchatrain;
a holiday inn billboard, with only one panel intact;
a mileage marker "new orleans 23 miles" bent over at the base;
the hulking restaurant "pralines" had a big banner "yes, we're open!"
just beyond, a cluster of small signs by the side of the road advertised roofing and construction companies, insurance companies, tree and debris removal, churches and, of course, a "gentleman's club" featuring adult entertainment "now open and better than ever!" in new orleans there are still priorities.
the sun was setting over the lake as i entered new orleans. the sky all cloudyyellow and the huge sheet of water all bluegray. as highway 10 enters the city there is a terrific view of the city. and there it was, still there, an emerald city at the end of a yellow brick highway 10 -- but now with blue plastic tarps wrapped over multitudes of rooftops; like venice, new orleans is entered over water -- but a portion of the highway bridge is now out, replaced by a temporary steel truss with a wavering road bed.
i probably wont publish too many pictures of wrecked buildings. you can find them online.
but ive seen empty shells of buildings and intact buildings; wrecked cars in front of newly opened drug stores; boats on the sidewalks and newly painted cafes; shuttered churches and drive-thru daiquiri stands -- all of them exist side-by-side in a roughly 60 square mile swath -- thats the area that was flooded. it really is the worst natural disaster in united states history.
from what i can see, it isnt an all-white city just yet. the devastation affected the black community disproportionately of course, but there are black and white neighborhoods that were almost completely destroyed. there are poor neighborhoods with huge numbers of empty buildings, there are middle class neighborhoods that are entirely uninhabitable. black and white, rich and poor, they were all affected. not even half of them have returned. but its still new orleans.
here is a picture of a church in the 9th ward. it is, and will be, apparently abandoned. i am staying in the bywater area of the 9th ward for the next week and a half.
i walked by a huge pile of old refrigerators, garbage and debris soon after arriving here. there were several large dead dogs, very decomposed, in the pile.
i am told that there are over 2,000 people unaccounted for here in the city.
some of the more sarcastic crewes this year have already thrown floating key-chains into the crowd. "jaques chirac, buy us back" they chanted.
a good bumper sticker: "new orleans, proud to swim home" (this is a play on "new orleans, proud to call it home," or "new orleans, proud to crawl home.")
ive eaten a fried oyster po-boy sandwich (pronounced, "er-ster"). ive watched circus performers present a cabaret in an artists loft with electric guitars, a trumpet and a banjo, ive been called "darling" by a middle aged woman at the grocery check-out, and "baby" by a clerk in a hardware store. (very new orleans)
this is still new orleans. this is mardi gras week. 60 percent of the residences in the city are not inhabitable. it seems to me like at least half the stores are closed.
another bumper sticker: "the big easy aint easy anymore."

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*Pinus taeda, the loblolly pine, also known as the Arkansas, North Carolina, or oldfield pine, belongs to the yellow pine group. Its native range extends from southern New Jersey to Florida, and as far west as Texas. This rapidly growing tree thrives in the maritime forest in a variety of soils, including well-drained upland areas with poor nutrient concentrations to poorly drained lowland areas and abandoned fields. It prefers relatively long, hot and humid summers and adapts well to tree farm environments. The loblolly is one of the fastest growing pines, and is often chosen to use for convenient landscape screening. The tree grows rapidly and can reach 100 feet tall. It is particularly prized for its straight trunk, which contains no knots for up to 30 feet. Early colonists used the tree's resin to boil into pitch or tar.
http://www.chesapeakebay.net/info/loblolly.cfm