Just got home from the conference and then hanging with friends on Frenchman.
E-mail from ConEd telling us our power has been restored.
So hopefully our neighbors in our building will be warmer tonight.
Now, do we have internet?
We're never satisfied.
This is seems to be where Mayor Billionaire is different from Romney. He heard the 99%, and canceled the Marathon, which we've also just learned. Starting that f*cker on Staten Island, which is devastated was the worst thing he could have done. And that was just for starters. People hated him for putting up these two giant generators in Central Park to minister to the Marathon, while the rest of us don't have hot water or lights. That was the move of a mayor who sees his city as a theme park for tourists not as a city that functions as a place where people live and work.
In the meantime, just like in New Orleans, the tourists are starting to tour the Dead Zone and Staten Island and New Jersey.
You can see why everybody here in New Orleawns understands everything.
Wherever I go, any little local bar, I am greeted as a sister. And then, invariably, somebody says: hey, wait -- I know you (meaning mostly Ned) -- I've talked to you a lot, in the Bywater. Haven't seen you for a while this last year. Welcome back!"
But then, that's why we are here.
And Ned never stopped working the whole time, until tonight.
Gods, I'm lovin' on New Orleans tonight. And it is gorgeous tonight, o so gorgeous.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Got to Speak With Some of Our Neighbors
No basement flooding, no windows out.
Just waiting for the power to come back. They are very cold because the thermostat that turns on and off the furnace and sets the temps is electric.
Power supposed to be back by 11 PM tomorrow.
Now we're trying to figure out how to deal with getting food.
Though my first big job will be emptying and cleaning the refrigerator.
In the meantime Mayor Billionaire seems to have gotten bit by the Romney 1% Clueless Bug: he's running the NYC Marathon on Sunday, handing out water and food, pulling cops out of elsewhere, and generating tons of trash. While big parts of his city are without food and water, need the cops and have loads of wind and storm trash.
Just waiting for the power to come back. They are very cold because the thermostat that turns on and off the furnace and sets the temps is electric.
Power supposed to be back by 11 PM tomorrow.
Now we're trying to figure out how to deal with getting food.
Though my first big job will be emptying and cleaning the refrigerator.
In the meantime Mayor Billionaire seems to have gotten bit by the Romney 1% Clueless Bug: he's running the NYC Marathon on Sunday, handing out water and food, pulling cops out of elsewhere, and generating tons of trash. While big parts of his city are without food and water, need the cops and have loads of wind and storm trash.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
&^^%$$#@@!$$$$$$ Bloomberg!!!!!!
Slagging off President Obama and the Head of FEMA -- "Go to New Jersey and represent the nation."
The humanitarian crisis in Chinatown is desperate. And getting so everywhere in the Dark Zone. I knew Ned shouldn't have booked those tickets home for Sunday.
e-mails are beginning to trickle in -- and it's awful, and getting worse, but nobody is bothering with us at all.
New Orleans knows all about a mayor who isn't helping.
Everyone is furious with the NY Times and other so-called news media, and particularly WNYC radio and Bloomberg -- who are both politicians and media.
The humanitarian crisis in Chinatown is desperate. And getting so everywhere in the Dark Zone. I knew Ned shouldn't have booked those tickets home for Sunday.
e-mails are beginning to trickle in -- and it's awful, and getting worse, but nobody is bothering with us at all.
New Orleans knows all about a mayor who isn't helping.
Everyone is furious with the NY Times and other so-called news media, and particularly WNYC radio and Bloomberg -- who are both politicians and media.
Home Again?
I got e-mail from the New York Public Library, updating as to what is going on with its online catalog and digital resources, the branches and the research facilities, what is open and available, and what is not (digital and online most not available), but branches uptown generally open, in my neighborhood, definitely not. Still it warmed my heart to have e-mail and news from my intellectual home.
For better or worse, we’ve booked tickets on Delta to LaGuardia on Sunday at 2 PM. I am hoping so hard the power is back on in our part by then. (The prices for the seats -- yikes! JetBlue would have charged us $1200.) We’re starting to see e-mails from people on our block and around our area who evacuated to uptown Manhattan or Brooklyn. They’re asking us, who are in New Orleans, if we know anything about our home area – since we’re always the people with information. This is all we got: The boyfriend of the daughter of a friend of ours drove by our building yesterday, and says from the street it looks fine.
This is what the media's got: Aquagrill, a single veddy upscale restaurant re-opened on Spring and Ave of the Americas, with a generator they rented for thousands a day, they say. People are heartbroken that they didn't get to wear their Halloween costumes and that so many Halloween parties were canceled. The fashion and style section of the NY Times checked in with a breezy piece about how well all those very wealthy bold face names in SoHo and Tribeca are faring – a vacation, doncha know, from their very important and stressful lives! So much fun! With our private generators!
And now I see this:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/dumpster-divers-grab-40-000-worth-food-article-1.1195338
Nothing is going on downtown for help and assistance as far as we can learn. NOTHING. No food coming in, no water. NOTHING. Kinda 9/11 all over again, except without the military. I learn more from the UK Guardian than I do from the NY Times. WNYC, despite being located in my part of the city, is deaf and dumb about us, except for the very wealthy and connected.
Not funny: when I open the tag box for my blog(s) now, and start the tag with 'hurricane' the auto complete provides me with a whole list of hurricanes about which I've dealt with, with deep personal concern, starting with Katrina.
From Da List:
[ ... 24 people are now counted dead from the storm in new york city, and 600,000 still without power in nyc as of this morning.
i still haven't heard from most of my people downtown, and nobody in my building. my nabe is mostly absent from news reports.
it's clear that FEMA is not performing in lower manhattan. i keep hearing about their total lack of visibility downtown. there seems to be a perception that lower manhattan is the home of wealthy boldface names who can take care of themselves. that is certainly true, but there are a lot of poor people as well -- especially on the east side, by where the con ed station blew and where some serious flooding occurred. there's no question that a lot of people are having a hard time.
according to governor cuomo's tweets, they're getting ready to distribute food and water in manhattan, though he doesn't say where. i guess it's supposed to be a mystery.
meanwhile, i keep waiting for the great journalism, and i haven't seen it. if i see one more picture of that goddamn crane . . . ]
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Finally, A Report Of What It's Like Where We Are
And it is every bit as bad as our worst fears. Note this did not come from a newspaper or a city agency office. It is a private person who did a survey on foot and reported.
We're being left to twist in the wind, while uptown people are chirping the good cheer of having the day off and how they are going Christmas shopping.
What are we going to do ....
Annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Cancelled
For the first time in its 39 year history. It steps off at right where we are. On a normal Halloween by now already all kinds of ghoulies and strangeness would be starting to gather on our streets, until by 8 PM it is ruled entirely by denizens of other realms and times.
The theme for 2012 was supposed to be the end of the world as declared by the Mayan calendar.
Mayor B announced he cancelled the parade last night:
Unfortunately, we just cannot spare the manpower from the NYPD and other city agencies to host the annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, so we are postponing it to a later date sometime next week," the mayor said, according to NY1. "We'll work tomorrow and figure out what date makes sense given the resources the city has."
Description of this year's theme, from their website:
“This year, as 2012 ticks away the final year of the Mayan Calendar, and visions apocalyptic or euphoric fill our imaginations; we will explore the many embodiments of Time. The sound of ticking seconds reassures us of the continuity of our universe, a mechanical heartbeat, definite yet infinite. But how well do we know Time? We think of time as immutable, yet we know it to be elastic. Some moments pass with glacial slowness, as others speed past us. It bends and stretches, like Dali's drooping watches and Einstein's speeding trains. We think of time as intangible, yet we can know it only through physical forms: swinging pendulums or orbiting celestial bodies. We think of time as infinite, yet modern physicists tell the story of its beginning, and ancient calendar-makers tell of its end. With all this in mind, this year's Parade will be lead by a host of temporal entities. Clockwork White Rabbits will keep time for the procession, as winged alarm clocks sail overhead, incarnating Virgil's adage "tempus fugit". Other manifestations and analogs will abound, from cuckoos to TARDISes, culminating in a grand horlogical dance, as Time goes by.”
It is the end of time for us, down here, looking for and finding no news for the dead zone below 25th street. All we know still is it is dark and powerless. We have no idea about going home.
el V did his two presentations yesterday. They were very good. The students in the music dept. class were sharp, interested, knowledgable and did not text, eat or sleep. At the evening Angola (long) presentation, some older women from out of town who are not connected with the university at all attended. One of them said, "You know there are so many opportunities to hear something like this. The school should do a better job of letting people know these things are going on. Not all of us come to New Orleans for the usual tourist stuff." One of them had books for Ned to sign. They bought "Kiss You Down South" too. After the reception we were taken to a wonderful dinner with wonderful people and talk at Boucherie. This all took our minds away from that about which we can doing nothing at the moment -- a most excellent thing!
Tonight he'll probably hang with Galactic at Tip's. Thursday -- conference, all day.
The theme for 2012 was supposed to be the end of the world as declared by the Mayan calendar.
Mayor B announced he cancelled the parade last night:
Unfortunately, we just cannot spare the manpower from the NYPD and other city agencies to host the annual Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, so we are postponing it to a later date sometime next week," the mayor said, according to NY1. "We'll work tomorrow and figure out what date makes sense given the resources the city has."
Description of this year's theme, from their website:
“This year, as 2012 ticks away the final year of the Mayan Calendar, and visions apocalyptic or euphoric fill our imaginations; we will explore the many embodiments of Time. The sound of ticking seconds reassures us of the continuity of our universe, a mechanical heartbeat, definite yet infinite. But how well do we know Time? We think of time as immutable, yet we know it to be elastic. Some moments pass with glacial slowness, as others speed past us. It bends and stretches, like Dali's drooping watches and Einstein's speeding trains. We think of time as intangible, yet we can know it only through physical forms: swinging pendulums or orbiting celestial bodies. We think of time as infinite, yet modern physicists tell the story of its beginning, and ancient calendar-makers tell of its end. With all this in mind, this year's Parade will be lead by a host of temporal entities. Clockwork White Rabbits will keep time for the procession, as winged alarm clocks sail overhead, incarnating Virgil's adage "tempus fugit". Other manifestations and analogs will abound, from cuckoos to TARDISes, culminating in a grand horlogical dance, as Time goes by.”
It is the end of time for us, down here, looking for and finding no news for the dead zone below 25th street. All we know still is it is dark and powerless. We have no idea about going home.
el V did his two presentations yesterday. They were very good. The students in the music dept. class were sharp, interested, knowledgable and did not text, eat or sleep. At the evening Angola (long) presentation, some older women from out of town who are not connected with the university at all attended. One of them said, "You know there are so many opportunities to hear something like this. The school should do a better job of letting people know these things are going on. Not all of us come to New Orleans for the usual tourist stuff." One of them had books for Ned to sign. They bought "Kiss You Down South" too. After the reception we were taken to a wonderful dinner with wonderful people and talk at Boucherie. This all took our minds away from that about which we can doing nothing at the moment -- a most excellent thing!
Tonight he'll probably hang with Galactic at Tip's. Thursday -- conference, all day.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Our Manhattan Is Dead
As we know so well, it isn't the storm or the even that is the worst, but what the destruction it leaves behind, and the days afterwards. Here, we are surrounded by the love and understanding from the gut, by so many people. We're very fortunate. Though my freezer back home is stuffed with meat ... though the weather's turning colder now. And since Wall Street is down there, we know all the Powers That Be from corporate to political will do their best to get the power back as fast as possible.
The west side of lower Manhattan -- unlike the east village and below that took the brunt of it -- won't be as much physically damaged from flooding. But the power station at 14th Street blew about 9:30 PM. So there is no electricity, and no cell phone service either in our third of Manhattan.
Our Manhattan, at the very least, is dead. Flooded. No power. Haven’t heard from a soul in Manhattan. Can’t find single photo from our neighborhood. Where will the Halloween Parade go?
Harlem and Brooklyn are fine, thank goodness.
"The damage across our city is massive. It will not recover quickly.... The power grid and transit will take a long time." Mayor Bloomberg, speaking about an hour ago.
At the very earliest power won't be restored for at least three days, and likely longer than that. Buses will run sooner though the airports won't open for some while. A number of the hospitals and health care facilities are without power or even had to be evacuated. But two thirds of Manhattan are OK. I can watch the local NYC television stations via streaming on my laptop -- our local public radio station's AM band transmitter got knocked out, which is usually the best source of local information. They are located a few blocks away from our building.
Right now I'm feeling like I felt on 9/11 -- not the gut-wrenching fear and horror of Katrina down into my bones, knowing how people were suffering -- and dying. What I've got is that detatched shock of non-recognition of everything, that kind of alitude sickness because the normal anchors of reality gravity are gone. Hopefully we'll get our normal back fairly soon, though full recovery will take a very long time -- and maybe climate change won't ever allow full recovery, before another massive storm hits.
Ned has to visit a class t Tulane this afternoon, and this evening he's doing a presentation on Angola (Africa) and the spiritual and musical world of the past that impacts the culture of Louisiana.
It's unreal. This whole time I've not felt we're in New Orleans at all. My mind is up north. Just as duing that disaster of the Failure, my mind wasn't in NYC, but down here.
The Stock Exchange is opening tomorrow.
The west side of lower Manhattan -- unlike the east village and below that took the brunt of it -- won't be as much physically damaged from flooding. But the power station at 14th Street blew about 9:30 PM. So there is no electricity, and no cell phone service either in our third of Manhattan.
Our Manhattan, at the very least, is dead. Flooded. No power. Haven’t heard from a soul in Manhattan. Can’t find single photo from our neighborhood. Where will the Halloween Parade go?
Harlem and Brooklyn are fine, thank goodness.
"The damage across our city is massive. It will not recover quickly.... The power grid and transit will take a long time." Mayor Bloomberg, speaking about an hour ago.
At the very earliest power won't be restored for at least three days, and likely longer than that. Buses will run sooner though the airports won't open for some while. A number of the hospitals and health care facilities are without power or even had to be evacuated. But two thirds of Manhattan are OK. I can watch the local NYC television stations via streaming on my laptop -- our local public radio station's AM band transmitter got knocked out, which is usually the best source of local information. They are located a few blocks away from our building.
Right now I'm feeling like I felt on 9/11 -- not the gut-wrenching fear and horror of Katrina down into my bones, knowing how people were suffering -- and dying. What I've got is that detatched shock of non-recognition of everything, that kind of alitude sickness because the normal anchors of reality gravity are gone. Hopefully we'll get our normal back fairly soon, though full recovery will take a very long time -- and maybe climate change won't ever allow full recovery, before another massive storm hits.
Ned has to visit a class t Tulane this afternoon, and this evening he's doing a presentation on Angola (Africa) and the spiritual and musical world of the past that impacts the culture of Louisiana.
It's unreal. This whole time I've not felt we're in New Orleans at all. My mind is up north. Just as duing that disaster of the Failure, my mind wasn't in NYC, but down here.
The Stock Exchange is opening tomorrow.
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