Pay no Attention to the Girls Behind the Curtain

I am leaving for Spain a week from today and I haven't even finished my road trip. Again it is hard to write about things after the fact, all the repeated stories etc. And whats more...I started studying for the GREs, both subject in literature and the general. So all I want to post about is my reaction to vocabulary and the violence of Greek tragedy.

Observations on Texas work great because Texas in itself is so entertaining. New Orleans, is different. I intent to cheat:

I tried on masks and drank coffee in the French Quarter. Watched some music on Frenchmen Street. Took a walk down Bourbon Street.

While passing through I read the latest by Dave Eggars, Zeitoun, which is a true story about a Muslim family who survived Katrina. It is creative non-fiction at its best. It is written in a straightforward style with only a minimal amount of moments where the agenda to question our government's authority (or at least our government under the Bush administration) takes priority over the fullness and strength of the characters. Great book. I highly suggest it.

I leave it to the pros to describe this city that simultaneously exemplifies and does not belong in the United States.

In Greek tragedy, when something is so horrible and gruesome, like when Orestes commits matricide in Sophocles's The Libation Bearers, the audience is protected from the action. It happens behind a curtain or a wall and although the audience knows that is happening, their imagination is left to play it out. In the play Tripea Roadus, the scene in New Orleans is enacted behind a curtain. Like a tragedy, I can assure you, despite the fact I was sober, there was no way to not get involved. There was nobody uninvolved on that street. We were destined, no, FATED to succumb to the curse on the House of New Orleans. Only instead of the Greek gods, we entranced by the Voo-Doo queens of old. This one is Marie Laveau, the most famous of them all.

For every jerk who skipped reading the full Bukowski poem here is the essential part of our experience in New Orleans:

I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.

Lauren, Jill and I did nothing real in New Orleans, but I learned way more than I wanted to. The education N.O. provides can only be learned be visiting there on a warm Saturday night, or watching a lot of Girls Gone Wild videos. I think I will share the full story, after it all makes sense in my mind. Right now it is just a jumble of images of the marshy swamp, strippers, churches, open containers, loud loud music, hot-dog vendors, wrought-iron balconies, and the 300-pound bachelor I motorboated in the middle of Bourbon Street.