Attn. Mr. Weasel

Yes, this blog has been dead of late. But I've not forgotten our wager, and given that a three game set has resulted in the Yankees taking the first two games, you are in my debt.

I must ponder.

Given that there's a decent chance that Yankees won't make the playoffs this season, I must take my joy where I can find it. And though you seem a decent sort of chap, I feel no remorse at taking said joy at your expense.

I will attempt to leave your innocent, though still malleable, child out of my plans.

In other news, I am remiss in not yet welcoming Beckett Ace into the world. One of the highlights of my trip back East was being able to hold the young lad on the same day he returned home from the hospital while trying not to make his mother laugh in a way that might rupture her c-section sutures.

In all seriousness, I'm beyond delighted that two of my favorite people have decided to extend their family and I look forward to, as time passes, telling young Beckett all sorts of things about his parents that they might prefer he did not know.

And, lastly, if anyone needed proof that the concept of the beauty pageant is outdated and a total crock, I give you Miss Teen South Carolina, who quite neatly puts the lie to the "scholarship" aspect of the whole charade.

glumbert.com - Miss Teen South Carolina answers a question

Grace...

Picture from The New York Times

Go well Grace Paley.

When I was 19 or so, in my first fiction workshop, Grace Paley came as a guest. We were given an assignment to write a short story in her style, that style that changed the perception of what a story is and what a story could be about. When she flicked through the stories, impossibly small and old, eyes full of energy, she paused at mine, read some aloud, and said, "Now that's writing." I couldn't ask, today, for higher praise.

Years later, when I'd sold Snapshots, I was rushing to the New School, late for a class I was teaching or a meeting and I, literally, ran into her on the street. As I apologized and helped steady someone I just saw as an older woman, I realized it was her. I stammered out that little tale above, and thanked her, and she said, "That's nice dear, but please watch where you're going."

A master of the short story form and a dedicated activist, keenly aware of social justice issues, is gone and the world is a poorer place for it.

File Under Al Gore Might Have Been On To Something With The Whole Climate Change Thing...

Tornadoes? In BROOKLYN!?!?!?!?!?!?

Isn't that supposed to be my jurisdiction, seeing as I live right at the bottom of tornado alley?



I don't see Brooklyn in that graphic.

Better Late Than Never

I've started this post a number of times and left it, simply because I felt unable to capture the surreal reality of today's New Orleans in words or images.

Driving into town from the airport, the signs of the storm are everywhere, from damaged and destroyed buildings, to road work, to a sea of FEMA trailers set hard against the highway.

In the Quarter and Garden District, you have to look for signs of Katrina, setting aside the tacky t-shirt salutes to the storm in the Bourbon Street tourist shops. It's still a city that wants you to come and party, that wants you to come and eat. And eat we did, quite well. If I was a rich man, I'd go back just for dinner.

But there are jolting reminders of the storm even in the largely repaired and renovated areas most frequented by visitors.



This Garden District home, obviously restored, in one of the areas that bears few traces of the storm, still wears the hieroglyphic scrawled by search and rescue teams. In the upper quadrant of the "X" is the date of the search. The left quadrant bears the name of the searching unit, and the bottom is a grim reminder that one body was found inside.

A bit closer to Tulane, this house is obviously still unlivable, with it's FEMA trailer parked in front.



A closer look shows that the electricity is still out.



This is also a city beset by race and class issues that are even more magnified than they were pre-Katrina. It's impossible to ignore that the repaired neighborhoods are largely white and middle-upper class while the poverty stricken, largely African American areas remain in states of disrepair and neglect. More than one person commented on the influx of Mexican immigrants into the City after the storm, many or most working on reconstruction projects, adding another layer to an already complex situation.

I will go back to New Orleans. The food was unreal, the drink strong and plentiful and people kind and happy to see visitors again. But I've never seen a more poignant reminder of political failure than those neglected areas of the City.