New Orleans & Vicinity
As seen by my camera’s eye and heart through the years
I’ve been to New Orleans a number of times, and according to previous test results, it’s nearly the ideal spot for me to live. The part of my heart that forever stays in New Orleans is broken and bleeding, pumping with towering anger.

You just know that every government official who “fiddled while Rome burned” has partaken of New Orleans supple, sultry charms. When the survivors of the city and its surrounding bayou country dries off and regains strength, hell hath no fury like a lover scorned.

There is an acceptable level of decay in New Orleans. There has to be, because the humidity makes fast work of even the freshest coat of paint. The forsaken 9th Ward (above) is just as engaging as the spared Garden District because of the endless coats of riotous color – ever-changing hues in a continuum of life/death/rebirth.

Horseback, bicycle, streetcar, foot… so many social ways to get around a city of relatively small square miles with a large, soulful heart. To live and die by a gallon of gas in a motor vehicle is a tragically unjust ending.

A watercolor bought for peanuts from a Jackson Square street artist has always hung in my bedroom. I gaze at it every time I prepare for the day, it puts me in a languid state of mind. But for the past week, to look at it causes pain.
A classic New Orleans burial tradition is a merry brass band marching the coffin down the street to the cemetary. Does a tuba float? Is this really a wake? What can we do to help?
Either way, no matter what your beliefs or eroding politics, just pray for New Orleans and her people.