The rain is diluting the color this morning, stripping yellows and reds from the trees and washing them into the gutter like a painter’s palette washed out in the sink. And yet the leaves are doing their best to resist- gobbing up the gutters and piling up as high as the curb, establishing a beachhead of autumnal color against a slick black street and cracking sidewalk. I’m sitting in my window with a hot cup of tea that has infused its delicate flavor with cinnamon. A few months back I decided to store a ziploc bag of ground cinnamon along with my tea in a small tin can because, well, I had no other place to put it. The tin seemed as good a place as any, and I didn’t imagine then that the cinnamon would seep through the ziploc and infect sir earl and lady grey. Fortunately, the result is quite tasty, as are the flakes of sugar clinging to my fingertips…the last bits leftover from the chocolate frosted doughnut i devoured for breakfast.

As the rain continues to fall an occasional car will swoosh through the street- the sound of tires through puddles is one of my favorites. My neighbor Steve is coming home from the drugstore, white plastic bags in one hand, and a sagging, broken black umbrella in the other. He is dodging puddles as if they were landmines, tiptoeing and hopping through the street as only an effeminate, elderly and uncoordinated overweight white man can.

Garrison Keillor is on the radio, and despite how wonderful the sound of his voice may be I cant help but wonder if I should replace his whispering with the drip drop of the rain to unmute the silence of the morning. I’ll wait until after Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking and all the children are above average, and cold rainy mornings like this are so commonplace that they give Garrison ample opportunity to reflect and say in his hushed, watery and drawn-out nasal-whistling way, “Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.” Because we don’t love it enough even though there is so much to love, with rainy Sunday mornings being at the top of the list.

and here are a few photos I made a few weeks ago while looking at the greco-roman sculpture at the Met.

I was driven thence by foul winds for a space of nine days upon the sea, but on the tenth day we reached the land of the Lotus-eaters, who live on a food that comes from a kind of flower. Here we landed to take in fresh water, and our crews got their mid-day meal on the shore near the ships. When they had eaten and drunk I sent two of my company to see what manner of men the people of the place might be, and they had a third man under them. They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eaters without thinking further of their return; nevertheless, though they wept bitterly I forced them back to the ships and made them fast under the benches. Then I told the rest to go on board at once, lest any of them should taste of the lotus and leave off wanting to get home, so they took their places and smote the grey sea with their oars.

-from Homer’s Odyssey, Book IX

I am still recovering from last week’s battle with the Acura, yet footing in the war against the gas guzzling beasts of the concrete jungle has continued to show positive advance. While the mourning period has yet to wane and being mired in police reports and insurance deals has done little to quell the sense of loss for my beautiful Peugot, a wonderfully corroded and multi-colored machine of two wheeled beauty has appeared and offered itself as an honorable replacement. In short, I have a new bike. Its a PUCH CAVETTE- an Austrian cycle from the mid 80′s. I found it this weekend, fell in love, paid too much for it and brought it home for some mechanical tweaking.

This is me doing the mechanical tweaking:

once tweaked and ready a baton passing ceremony was held, and the Peugot gave over her seat to the PUCH. Here is a view from the ceremony. It was beautiful and moving.

Most importantly, it was on the PUCH (pronounced like poohk, with a strong H sound on the end before the k sound) that I went right back to the battlefield this morning and cycled straight through the intersection where I had been plowed into exactly one week to the day before.

This is the intersection, taken from inside a friend’s jeep over the weekend:

Sucker intersection. I now own the corner of North Capitol and Mass. Ave.

Vengence is mine.

Sometimes I think that the sole purpose of the shuffle function on my ipod is to play every single song I don’t want to hear. I believe that my ipod has a brain, maybe even a personality (a contemptable one at that), and it is dead set on using its shuffling capabilities to thwart my music listening enjoyment by consistently forcing me to ask myself “why the hell do I have this song on my ipod?” One such song came up the other day- PORCELAIN, from Moby’s PLAY record. Whats strange is that I didnt press the click wheel to move on to the next song. Instead, I turned off the shuffle and played the entire record.

Stop laughing and I’ll tell you why.

Seriously. Shut up.

It happened a few weeks ago, right as the weather began to turn. The afternoons were still warm but the evenings were cool, and there was no humidity and a consistent breeze. The sky was big and blue and dotted with huge fluffy clouds, and I was on my way downtown via interstate. My earbuds were securly snug in my ears (and yes, I know that is illegal, but there should also be a law against jared driving a car without a stereo) and the windows were down. PORCELAIN came on and the weather and the wind and the sound and the song hit me all at once and sent me on a series of intense memories of Sarajevo days. You see, six years ago I spent a summer in Sarajevo, where the days were warm and the nights were cool and the sky was big and blue and dotted with big fluffy clouds. And everywhere I went in Sarajevo, no, everywhere I went in Europe that summer, I heard Moby’s PLAY. It was literally EVERYWHERE-cafes, stores, clubs, tv, radio…I even think that it was blasting out of the call to prayer speakers that are fastened to the tops of the many minarets of all the mosques in Sarajevo.

My most distinct memory is of the ART PLACE. The ART PLACE was a little gallery/cafe/reading room that Hajdi and I frequented. It was right next to the river that ran through the middle of the city, and it was the place of our first date. Hajdi (pronounced like Heidi) was beautiful. So beautiful that I had no idea of why she wanted to be with me. But she did, and I think we were in love…in love with each other and in love with language and art and books and music. The ART PLACE (and i never knew if that was the actual name of the place, or if it was just what Hajdi and I called it) was simply decorated- blue walls with a few posters and pieces of local art, lots of hand written advertisements for clubs and dj’s and rock bands and parties. The chairs were a mix-matched mixture of red, orange and yellow and they orbited white table tops that supported used cups and bottles and overflowing ashtrays, full of the remnants of previous conversations and silent thoughts gone up in smoke.

Hajdi and I would always order a coke in a bottle or a cappacino and PLAY would be on the house speakers. We might talk about the books we had read or tell each other about our families or share childhood memories and PLAY would still be on the house speakers. Sometimes she would tell me about the war, and sometimes we’d sit quietly and flip through magazines. She would read and i would look at the pictures, and PLAY would be on its second or third full rotation on the house speakers.

I loved those afternoons in Sarajevo with Hajdi, and I suppose that its those memories that cause me to keep Moby on my ipod, so that when I happen to hear those songs I can be taken back to one of the most beautiful places Ive ever seen, with one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever known.

Here is a photograph of Hajdi on the tram in Sarajevo:

I suppose a lot of the sensationalism of the hurricane and flooding has receeded with the waters in New Orleans, and the media has begun to move onto coverage that lambasts the government’s reaction rather than continue specific stories of the tragic matters at hand. Many are already talking about the rebuilding efforts, yet the rebuilding efforts lead to a quagmire. What will a rebuilt New Orleans look like? feel like? sound like? taste like? NO was a city like no other, a city teetering delicately between excess and chaos, of life and decay. In fact, it was the vibrant life found in the streets and alleys between the dilapidated and crumbling structures that gave the place so much distinction. It was the sights and sounds and tastes of cultures crashing…of artists struggling, of paint peeling, mosquitos buzzing, music making, gumbo boiling, buildings leaning, streets crumbling. In New Orleans, character lived in decay, and the decay of New Orleans made a comfy home to the ghosts of civil war soldiers, voodoo priests, rivermen, jazzmen, mardi-gras kings, aristocrats and down-and-outers. It seems to me that a cleaned-up, spic-and-span, adult disneyland/epcot center new New Orleans is a New Orleans without its most integral parts, a city without its soul.

Upon the first few months of living in New Orleans I created a body of photographs- over 600 instamatic polaroids- that documented the decay, and consequently the character, of my new home. I wrote an artist’s statement to accompany the images and i have copied a portion of it below, followed by a few of the photographs:

“…as I made day-long jaunts around the city I photographed the things that I immediately responded to, and I began to collect images that recorded the color, decay and texture of New Orleans. Upon my exploration of these motifs, I began to explore the abundance of hand painted pre-media signage that can be found all over the city. The romantic, hand painted signage tells of a time gone by and exudes a sort of Camp aesthetic. When approaching a hand painted sign, one is confronted with the mysterious personal mark left by someone gone before and is left with nostalgia of a time gone by. However, not all of the signage I have photographed is of a past era. Much of it was created recently, and tells of an socio-economic group of city dwellers and entrepreneurs that hand paint signs for its economical benefits or for its unique flavor.

No matter the year in which the sign was produced, the tale-tell marks of the harsh climate and general urban decay are always present. The decay of these signs is readily apprehendable, and the temporality of the subject matter I have photographed is matched with the use of the temporal, non-archival Polaroid materials that I have chosen to work with.”

this wall was demolished so a new wal-mart could be built in the historic warehouse district in 2004.

a whole foods market now sits over this spot of pavement in uptown.

723 basin street, now flooded

the clown house, now abandoned

vernacular

the rabbi of the 9th ward, now drowned

the battle of tchoupitoulas, lost to racism and greed

little debbie…the tasty maiden of central city

in the irish channel

In the end, I think the “temporal” is what New Orleans is all about. Its a city where you can lounge on your porch and watch the present casually slip into the past, you can wander the alleys of the Quarter and imagine by-gone eras, you can climb the levees and watch the riverboats pass you by. And then the hazy hot sun will dip into the horizon and the moon will take its place and a cool breeze will slip through the streets like a whisper or a ghost. After night falls the music will start, and even though the songs have been around for generations, not a single one of them has been played the same way twice. Its jazz, man. Its improv. Its the moment. And its New Orleans. Its the romance of the passage of time, it is decay and gris-gris and ghosts. Its somehow unchanging yet different every day. And no matter how New Orleans is rebuilt, time and the river and the humidity and the ghosts will have their say, and the city’s old soul will still be alive to let “le bon temps roule.”

the last few days of reporting from new orleans has been done from the 9th ward…a neighborhood that the reporters claim as being mostly black and poor. while the neighborhood is truly made up of many black and poor residents it was also home to some of the most hip people in new orleans- the up and coming artists and musicians, counter-culture denizens and cutting edge hipsters. it was one of the last places in n.o. still affordable for low income artists, providing old warehouse space perfect for studios and homes, just blocks away from the french quarter and faubourg marigny. most of my friends from my years in n.o. lived there, and i spent countless nights shucking crawfish and playing pool at marky’s bar on royal street. marky’s is under water now, so is dale and sarah’s house and thor and shea’s house (yes, i have a friend named thor…he is a metal sculptor of all things).

as the days since the hurricane have passed i have thought a lot about the great old junk store on louisa street, the crazy metal sculptor who lived off elysian fields and the clown house on decatur. the clown house was an old shotgun style house that sheltered way too many occupants…it was said that a whole circus company and freak show troup lived in it at one time. the entire exterior was painted red…the clapboards, the windows, the steps, the door, the sidewalk, the grass and the fence…all fire engine red. i was able to meet one of the clown house’s residents one afternoon- styx the clown. styx was an interesting fellow. unnasuming, soft spoken and inebriated most hours of the day, styx was never seen in anything but a patchwork suit and top hat, stuffed pet monkey in one hand, a 40 in the other. he was a local legend of sorts…a clown, yet tragically un-funny. he could juggle just about anything, though. the most striking thing about styx was that his clown make-up had been tatooed on his face.

i am saddened when i wonder where styx may be tonight. how can an un-funny inebriated clown with a tatooed face live anywhere else but in a red covered clown house in the 9th ward of new orleans?

here is a photograph i made upon first meeting styx in the spring of 2002: