Douglas Barbour wrote:
> A fictional Bellocq features in Michael Ondaatje's Coming Through
> Slaughter, a title all too appropriate now.
There was also a film from the late 1970s, Pretty Baby, with one of the
Carradine brothers (Keith? David?) and a kiddie-porn Brooke Shields, who
was all of 12 years old at the time. Shades of Jodie Foster in _Taxi
Driver_. I think Susan Sarandon was one of the whores and Shields was
her daughter whom Bellocq married!
God only knows how many works of literary, visual, and musical art have
some grounding in New Orleans. _Streetcar_, of course, but also some of
Williams' short plays ("The Lady of Larkspur Lotion," "The Last of My
Solid Gold Watches," etc.) and often ghastly short stories ("Desire and
the Black Masseur"), _Easy Rider_, a whole series of Anne Rice novels.
Okay, I am not a great fan of Ms. Rice's work, which ranges between the
baroque and repellent, but _Interview With The Vampire_--set in New
Orleans--is splendid; and she redeemed herself forever with her Op-Ed in
the New York _Times _over the weekend. She was not Gothic or
horror-novelistic: she was just plain angry that the city in which she
was born and in which she lived a large part of her life had been
indifferented to death and lied into extinction.
I'm sure there are lots of other works in which N.O. figures
prominently. Being the strange-o I am, I think also of the New Orleans
Opera (http://www.neworleansopera.org/index.htm), which may be the
oldest opera company in North America (1796), starting at the Théâtre
d'Orléans. American premieres of French works were of course much in
favor. The company has not touched its website: it appears to refuse to
acknowledge that it's undoubtedly dead, at least for the season, or
unless it can find a proper theatre nearby. This is crazy but it is also
great heart.
There is another oddity. Houston allegedly would not have been possible
without the air conditioning that came in after WW2. New Orleans, on
the other hand, with a climate at least as bad and with a profusion of
tropical diseases besides, was always somehow desirable. I can't figure
that one out at all.
> I would like to hope that Stephen is right about a possible
> impeachment, but I don't think so (indeed, the right' spin is already
> hard at work 'proving' that the pres has done a magnificent job just
> as he did after 9/11!). And what might happen to the Supreme Court
> (for at least 25 years) is more than sad to contemplate. In fact I
> read somewhere that Bush might choose to elevate either Scaglia or
> Thomas to Chief Justice (now there's something truly terrible to
> contemplate).
Well, the Chief Justice is now supposed to be Roberts, who got a
promotion even before a vote was taken. As for impeaching Bush, good
luck. He is so well-handled that he can be turned in a flash from a
resolute Commander In Chief to a fragile little puppy. No, he's going
to serve out his term. However, the carnage he and Katrina have left in
their wakes may bring about a different sort of election than we
anticipated even a week or two ago...IF for a change the Progressive
Democrats figure out where the jugular vein is and go for it like one of
Ms. Rice's vampires. Right, the spirit of New Orleans lives on....
Ken
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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