Headline of the day, the New Orleans Advocate:
“Has New Orleans Recovered? Depends On Who You Ask?” Wherein, Della Hasselle reports:
“According to a survey released Monday by the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for Media and Public Affairs at LSU, nearly 80 percent of white residents in New Orleans think the state has mostly recovered…. But three in five black residents — 59 percent — say it hasn’t.”
The above image—the cover of the current New Yorker magazine features a piece of art by Kadir Nelson titled “Second Line.” I like the way if conflates the image of a black boy playing trumpet with another image (by now iconic) of a cement stoop in the Lower Ninth Ward. (You still find such stoops, last vestiges of former houses; here one I shot just yesterday, below.)
The questions raised by Nelson’s artwork—What will remain? How solid is the foundation?—seem apt for the panel discussion I moderated last night at Basin St. Station, “Ten Years After: The State Of New Orleans Music And Culture,” presented by the Crescent City Cultural Continuity Conservancy (C5, for short).
The panel was walking distance from the Sheraton Hotel on Canal Street, where the Atlantic magazine hosted a day-long conference yesterday, and where the city of New Orleans begins its bevy of discussions and events under the banner—there’s an official logo and a color scheme—“Katrina 10: Resilient New Orleans.” Yet it was far from that media glare.
Still, our room was packed, and I have no idea how many tuned in thanks to a live-stream on WWOZ-FM’s website.
The panel is archived and available for viewing here. Continue reading “New Orleans, Ten Years Past The Flood: Resilience Follies, Part 2 (Talking About Culture)”