Monday, November 28, 2005

Ceci's cute but ...

Rob at realitique was fairly tee'd at The Washington Post for what he called their "snide" editorial about New Orleans, arguing that by not getting their facts right, they were actually performing a disservice.

I see his point. I'm getting a little hot and bothered as well.

I had to get my undies unknotted after reading a Washington Post article appearing on Tuesday.

I'm really sick and tired of out-of-towners trying to write quaint little articles from the perspective of a New Orleanian, while bungling cultural references, and just getting their facts wrong.

Hey, the Post's Ceci Connolly is cute and smart, but I just have to say, Ceci, there are no bayous to return to in the mistakenly-titled "Gradual Return to the Bayou," unless you're talking about Bayou St. John, which is now nothing more than a circumscribed urban creek.

I dare say, I don't think any hipsters "linger over chicory coffee on Magazine Street." Chicory coffee tastes like hot dirt, so there aren't any coffee shops that would serve it except the tourist traps in the French Quarter.

Ceci, it's true that "cars show off a now-ubiquitous bumper sticker: 'New Orleans, proud to crawl home' -- instead of the old favorite, 'New Orleans, proud to call it home,'" but they've been around for years now. I think the bumper sticker you should have seen if you spent more than an hour in the city is, "New Orleans: Proud to swim home."

I know some people will say it Ceci, but please don't repeat it when people say their house was ruined because "that's God's will." Would you say that it was okay to slaughter native Americans and drive them off their land because it was manifest destiny?

And Ceci ... Ceci, Fred Kasten is not "the cool voice of jazz on radio station WWOZ." He has a cheezy soft jazz show on the maddeningly-mediocre NPR affiliate, WWNO. WWOZ would never have him.

Thank you, Ceci, for mentioning it in passing, but the levees "that proved so fallible in Katrina" are not just the "singular obsession of the city's business leaders." The levees have become the MADNESS of EVERY citizen of this city and region. NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT than a PRESIDENTIAL COMMITMENT, NOW, to build CATEGORY 5 protection, and to build it soon. It would have been nice if you conveyed the absolute RAGE that every citizen utters when they think about how the president of the most powerful nation in the world has left one of the most culturally unique cities in the world TO ROT and get washed away in the Gulf of Mexico.

Ceci, check in with local bloggers. We'd love that. At least check your facts with a local on the street. If you're available, I'd be happy to take you around the city to a few of the places that only a person who's lived here for years would know about. That's New Orleans hospitality -- something else you missed in your article.

7 Comments:

At 11/29/2005 07:09:00 AM, Blogger Michael said...

Glad you keep making the point about Category 5 protection--someone has to, and that's the ONLY way to ensure the long term safety of the city.

And I love the point about coffee/chickory. I hate the stuff (chickory, that is). If I remember right, it was added to coffee during the Civil War(?) as a filler.

 
At 11/29/2005 12:38:00 PM, Blogger djpoptart said...

yeah. i almost had a *stroke* this morning reading that wash post article on a friend's treo while sitting through the bbno "cultural committee" meeting down at the sheraton. the cluelessness! i think that we need to leverage our current diasporic identity as orleanians to educate the nation. as blogging entities, we need to really hook that up... present ourselves as a blogfront.

for my part, i'm going to redefine and reconceptualize the_velvet_rut to reflect the post-k. three months is long enough to cling to old dreamscapes.

 
At 11/29/2005 01:38:00 PM, Blogger Schroeder said...

michael, I just can't help myself. It makes me sick. I don't know what the hell could possibly be the problem. Thanks for the encouragement.

Yeah, Civil War, WWI, WWII?

Okay, I took a moment and found what looks like a plausible history of chicory. It's much older than either of us thought:

http://www.orleanscoffee.com/explore/chicory.php

 
At 11/29/2005 01:38:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm a tea drinker not a blogger but my wife loves that chicory coffee!

And if you are going to have Ceci stay over you better get some heat on Freret Street!

Seriously, there needs to be a march in New Orleans for a Cat 5 levee system. Maybe on Christmas Eve. Then another one on New Years Eve, (Hey Eve! Are you listening?) New Years Day, St Paddys's etc etc until the voters of the USA start to take proper notice and then the fuckwits in Washington come trailing in behind all fucking contrite. Where are groups like MoveOn.org when we need them? Those fuckers can organize a half million signatures and some TV Ads faster than you can say 'Howard Dean got shafted.' Let's Roll...

 
At 11/29/2005 02:00:00 PM, Blogger Schroeder said...

velvet_rut, I look forward to the metamorphosis.

 
At 11/29/2005 03:21:00 PM, Blogger Schroeder said...

Duncan, I think you'll agree with the advice to make sure the kiddies are tucked in before you view this.

http://ashleymorris.typepad.com/ashley_morris_the_blog/2005/11/fuck_you_you_fu.html

 
At 11/30/2005 02:17:00 PM, Blogger Maverick said...

I dare say, I don't think any hipsters "linger over chicory coffee on Magazine Street." Chicory coffee tastes like hot dirt, so there aren't any coffee shops that would serve it except the tourist traps in the French Quarter.

SO TRUE

Fred Kasten - HA HA


Spitting in a Wishing Well

 

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