Donate to help the victims of Katrina.

I have been avidly following the coverage. It’s so sad. In addition to feeling bad for the people who have lost homes or relatives and friends, I feel bad for all the people who went to the Louisiana Superdome or the New Orleans Convention Center – rapes, dead bodies.

I remember during and after 9/11 how odd it felt to have the whole country focused on the area where I lived. I’m sure media coverage is the last thing on the minds of most of the people of New Orleans right now, but I wonder if they find it strange that all of us are talking about levees and Lake Pontchartrain as if we encounter them every day. I had to go to the dictionary to make sure I was pronouncing “levee” correctly.

I was in New Orleans with UVa’s Virginia Glee Club in March 1998, part of a tour of the South. We were only there for a day and a half. We arrived in the afternoon and performed a concert at a church whose name I can’t remember. For breakfast the next day, I had a delicious beignet at Café du Monde. In the afternoon, six of us walked around the French Quarter (including a straight guy with whom I was deeply infatuated, an attraction that led to my finally coming out of the closet), and we six had a huge lunch at Galatoire’s. Two hours later, we had to meet up with the rest of the chorus for a group dinner. We were stuffed. That night, we all went out and partied, and the next morning, we left. It was a beautiful city.

I’ve been keeping tabs on Richard’s blog and the blog of his and Jonno’s host, Drew. There’s also this, which seems to include some posts from Richard (I think it’s the same Richard), and this.

The first sentence of today’s lead New York Times editorial begins, “George W. Bush gave one of the worst speeches of his life yesterday.” I think that’s a bit harsh, but maybe not. Although I wasn’t looking for crocodile tears or Clintonesque lip-biting, he was certainly less than inspiring. He seemed defeated. Rattling off numbers, he sounded like the FEMA director instead of the president. Then again, his first 9/11 speech was pretty awful, too. The man seems to have two responses to chaos: either he turns a blind eye to it (Iraq), or he is overwhelmed by it (New Orleans). I think his reaction is usually the former so he can avoid the latter.

He certainly lived down to his reputation this morning when he said to Diane Sawyer, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.” Oh? Not anyone? He’s such a schmuck.

Anyway: once again, donate.

In light of Hurricane Katrina, my thoughts are with Richard and Jonno (who both escaped New Orleans to stay with him). I hope everything turns out okay for you two and your house.

My reader’s block has ended and I’ve gotten into another book. I’ve been reading Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Last week, someone in my writing class said that he was reading Lolita, which I’d already read, but I was inspired to pick up some more Nabokov. Pale Fire is a novel in the form of a 999-line poem plus accompanying commentary. The “commentator” is hilariously wacko. Yay metafiction.

After this, I think I’m finally going to read Borges. I’ve had a collection of his fiction on my bookshelf for quite a while now, and since I seem to be getting onto a 20th-century postmodern kick, I think he’s next.