AUTHOR ANNE RICE ON LOSING NEW ORLEANS
A Reflection by Victor Lana
In yesterday's New York Times I read Anne Rice's piece: "Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?" The title alone swings and sways, never mind that it rhymes, and it sounds like it could have been a line from an old jazz song being played by some musician stuck in a cold northern city missing his beloved Big Easy. Instead, it is the title of a beautifully written op-ed piece by a person who is intimately connected to a city that has been ostensibly washed away.
My interest in Ms. Rice started during my days in the doctoral program at St. John's University in New York. After reading Interview With the Vampire, I spoke with my mentor and decided to use Ms. Rice's vampire books as the focus of my dissertation, which would eventually be entitled Gothic Feminism in Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles.
As I got started working on my research, I took a trip to Key West to attend a writing conference and met a friend of Ms. Rice who gave me her address in New Orleans. I wrote to Ms. Rice, in essence asking for her ideas about my project, but honestly thinking I would not get a response. I was wrong, for she sent me a three-page handwritten letter condoning my work and giving me a most amazing feeling of euphoria. To this day I keep Ms. Rice's letter in a secure place as one of my special treasures. As I think of it now, the fact that she was born, raised, and lived in New Orleans was probably part of the reason why she responded to my letter, for its citizens are inherently inclined to be genteel and accommodating.
Anyone who has read her vampire books knows the importance of New Orleans in the storyline. It is the city where vampires Lestat and Louis come to escape their fellow vampires in Paris to start over. She captures the flavors of the colonial city, precariously positioned on the Mississippi River, the lifeblood of the continent stretching out in all its vastness to the north, where her vampires find lifeblood of their own in its spicy medley of human beings.
In the Times piece she writes of the history of New Orleans that it was not only a great white city but "a great black city" in which culture blended and churned and became something unique and lasting. She explains that "the first literary magazine published in Louisiana was the work of black men" and this was in the 1840s when New Orleans "had a prosperous class of free black artisans, sculptors, businessmen, property owners, skilled laborers in all fields." These independent blacks lived alongside "thousands of slaves" who were sent to the city by their white owners to work and send home money. This was an intriguing time indeed considering the way slaves were treated throughout the rest of the South.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - loretta
So, what is the incredibly wealthy and now California resident Ann Rice doing about the victims?
What did she do for New Orleans when she lived there to help with the levee rebuilding?
These celebrities need to put their money where their mouths are.
2 - Carson
Loretta needs to get a bit of compassion herself. After reading her three lines about Ann Rice I'm appauled. Maybe if she knew anything about what people from around the country are doing to help victims, what people are donating, etc....she wouldn't seem so ignorant. I do believe that help from the Feds. came too little, too late, but I know that private citizens (some celebrities) have given and given, and will continue to give. In a time of unspeakable horror and emotion, can't we understand that in addition to acts of kindness from strangers, acts of emotional outbreak will come from many people?
Carson
3 - Nicolette Rivers
Loretta--
Do you have any reason -- any reason at all -- to believe that Anne Rice is not giving support?
Anyhow, I've always wanted to visit there, and much had to do with the lyrical descriptions by Ms Rice. I know I'm not alone in this and can only assume that countless tourist dollars over the years were as a direct result of her writings.
4 - Dave Nalle
>>Do you have any reason -- any reason at all<<
Based on her prior postings I would have to say that indeed, Loretta has no reason at all.
Dave
5 - John Bil
She has no mention of donating anything on her website. This doesn't mean she isn't, but if she were really concerned wouldn't she have blurb or a donate link.
6 - Dave Nalle
Perhaps she should walk around carrying a banner with the exact cash amount she donated? Or we could all get the amounts we donated tattooed on our foreheads, and people with too low a number would be fair game for beatings and rapes?
Or maybe people should just be allowed to keep their choices private if they want to.
Dave
7 - Clark Baker
Although The Big Easy has branded jazz houses, boats, and airplanes since 1900, it was columnist Betty Guillaud of the Times-Picayune who is most credited for making New Orleans’ nickname a household word. In response to the I Love New York hype of the 1970s, Guillaud compared The Big Apple to The Big Easy, where she described everything as slower, simpler, and easy-going.
Like many tourists, I was drawn to the careless fantasy that was New Orleans, reveling in the booze, food, and jazz without a second thought for tomorrow. But tomorrow always came, and once the throbbing haze of Pat O’Brien’s finally subsided, I thankfully returned to my family, career, and responsibilities.
The problem with binge fantasies is that the devil eventually shows up like a back alley loan shark to collect his fee. For some it’s monetary, while others are crippled by something akin to metal pipe across the knees. For New Orleans, the devil came in the form of Katrina, who in her own big easy form, pirouetted lazily across the Caribbean and Florida to a city where today’s troubles could always wait for tomorrow. Striking an area the size of Great Britain, Katrina displaced or drowned a population long overdue for a cold shower.
Predictably, the dysfunctional Louisiana leadership (elected by corruption and people too lazy to vote) blamed everyone else. While liberals and the media blamed racism and George Bush for the disaster, the illiterate gangs they coddled for decades were raping, ransacking, and murdering survivors as they awakened to reality.
For the first time since the Civil War, New Orleans has become one of America’s most important national landmarks: A place where procrastination was finally ravaged by reality. With their FEMA and insurance settlements, survivors should decide whether to build elsewhere, or drown.
To me, New Orleans offers more to humanity as a national park and wildlife refuge. Their evolution is long overdue.
8 - Victor Lana
Clark, your comment about a cold shower is not funny but instead painfully incisive. It indicates what is probably America's predominant view of New Orleans (and the Gulf Area in general). Miss Rice also wrote in the TIMES article "you called us "Sin City" and turned your back on us" (meaning America).
As for what she has donated, isn't that her business. In my community dozens of church and school groups are holding clothing drives, food drives, and kids are even selling lemonade with big banners with "Hurricane Relief" posted over their little stands. I have given more than once in a variety of ways. I bet many have, yet I wouldn't go posting the amount on my blog.
Thanks to all for the comments thus far.
9 - Sabrina
In your post you said,
Ms. Rice asks most pertinently, "Why did America ask a city cherished by millions and excoriated by some, but ignored by no one, to fight for its own life so long? That's my question."
It's a question we should ALL be asking...along with why did it take a hurricane to make some people open up their eyes to things that have been problems for years?
Brava to Ms Anne Rice for asking the hard questions the other "Rice" seem to be afraid to ask!
Isn't it interesting that this Ms Rice, a white woman seems to be more in touch with the plight of black people of America than a certain Dr Rice, a black woman sequestered in DC with Bush and Co? She claims race isn't an issue. Isn't it? HUMPH. Makes you wonder if you can see strings move when she opens her mouth.
hmmm....
10 - Triniman
Just going a bit off topic, I wonder how the new book, "Christ the Lord Out og Egypt", will be received?
Apparently, it's inspired by Rice's return to Catholicism. And it's being distributed by a Christian imprint of Knopf publishing. Is this the sort of book that Christians will have an interest in or will they avoid it?
11 - Victor Lana
Thanks to Sabrina and Triniman for excellent posts. Let's address them:
Sabrina, you are on the money. Dr. Rice needs to have a conference with Ms. Rice. Remember, Anne was brought up in New O and I believe people brought up there (of all colors) are predisposed to an openness and tolerance lacking elsewhere in America.
Triniman, you bring up a good point. Recall Anne Rice's almost anti-catholic fervor in the vampire books. Remember when Lestat goes into the church, embraces the host, and says he feels NOTHING?
Well, everyone has a right to change. It will indeed be interesting to see how this new book will be received.
12 - The Duke
"In yesterday's New York Times I read Anne Rice's piece: "Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?" The title alone swings and sways, never mind that it rhymes, and it sounds like it could have been a line from an old jazz song being played by some musician stuck in a cold northern city missing his beloved Big Easy. Instead, it is the title of a beautifully written op-ed piece by a person who is intimately connected to a city that has been ostensibly washed away."
Good Gravy Victor...
it is a title to an old Jazz standard... Louis Armstrong sang the living daylights out of it and well as every other Traditional (Dixieland) Jazz band!
13 - The Duke
Just in case you were wonderin'
Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans
------Louis Armstrong
Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
And miss it each night and day
I know I'm not wrong... this feeling's gettin' stronger
The longer, I stay away
Miss them moss covered vines...the tall sugar pines
Where mockin' birds used to sing
And I'd like to see that lazy Mississippi...hurryin' into spring
The moonlight on the bayou.......a Creole tune.... that fills the air
I dream... about Magnolias in bloom......and I'm wishin' I was there
Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
When that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more...I miss the one I care for
More than I miss New Orleans
(instrumental break)
The moonlight on the bayou.......a Creole tune.... that fills the air
I dream... about Magnolias in bloom......and I'm wishin' I was there
Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans
When that's where you left your heart
And there's one thing more...I miss the one I care for
More.....more than I miss.......New Orleans
14 - Anonymous
""Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?" The title alone swings and sways, never mind that it rhymes"
Only if "Orleans" is vulgarly mispronounced.
15 - Victor Lana
Thanks to The Duke for the words and lyrics to that wonderful song sung by Louis Armstrong. It's just beautiful.
Oh, Anonymous, I'll bet most Americans mispronounce New Orleans (myself included). Am I right in assuming it should be said like the French would say it?
16 - why bother?
While you quote song lyrics and debate pronunciations, consider this.
burn it. burn it all down.
YOUR New Orleans PEOPLE killed and raped CHILDREN in that Convention Center. In that Dome. YOUR New Orleans POLITICIANS have reaped MILLIONS and MILLIONS from the lifestyle attributed to the city. HOW MUCH OF THAT MADE IT TO THE PEOPLE? TO THE INFRASTRUCTURE? TO A DECENT EVAC PLAN? The poor STAYED POOR, during BUSH... during CLINTON, during EVERYBODY! Your LOVING CITY has been bled for years! AND YOU'LL BLAME EVERYBODY ELSE BUT YOURSELVES!
No doubt about it, the response was FATALLY slow... but. You PEOPLE are so IGNORANT that you will blame our PRESIDENT, who approved EMERGENCY AID BEFORE THE STORM HIT, you will BLAME HIM for the death and destruction. ALL OF YOU CAN GO TO NEW ORLEANS AND STICK YOUR HEADS UNDER WATER. YOU KILLED YOUR CITY AND YOU KILLED YOUR CHILDREN, AND NOW YOUR TRASH IS SPREADING ACROSS THE LAND.
Your wake up call is coming.
BLAME EVERYONE BUT YOURSELF!
You, Anne Rice, want to inject HISTORY into this situation. Look at all that's LOST, all the CULTURE, POETRY. Just where did you live when you were down there ANNE? Did you not realize generations of children were victims of poverty and abuse around you? Or, maybe I'm mistaken. There's really no sex trade in the Big Easy. no. No it's all LOVING JOY.
I don't CARE about TVs, or shoes or clothes being stolen. I don't care about looters, or stray animals. I AM shaken to my CORE by the fact that HUNDREDS of the faces I watched go into that Dome will NEVER walk out, thanks to NO ONE BUT YOUR OWN!!! WHITE AMERICA DIDN'T SLASH THE THROAT OF A 7 YEAR OLD GIRL! WHITE AMERICA DIDN'T GANG RAPE A 5 YEAR OLD! WHITE AMERICA DIDN'T BASH AN OLD MAN'S HEAD IN! How GENTLE the good people of NEW ORLEANS are.
Harry Connick Jr. should haul bodies out of the convention center. Pierce Brosnan and Sean "whatever hurts Bush" Penn can make friends with the sweet spirited people of LA while they create analogies to Iraq. Your wasteland is a TOOL for politicians, for activists, for trouble makers and for fools. These mindless, valueless weasels will vault themseves into the limelight using the dead bodies of YOUR PEOPLE.
Give them all a big round of applause, and please accept my sincere apology, Anne Rice, for letting your city down, but you are not me, and I pray your "hometown" isn't my America.
17 - Dana
Shame on you, Ms. Rice! Where is your criticism for the rapists, the murderers, looters and the snipers? Where is your criticism for the mayor and the govorner, who were told for years that this would happen and did NOTHING???? How dare you lash out at the very America who is pouring billions of dollars into aid and taking vicitms into their very homes? The Federal goverment dispatched aid TWO DAYS before the hurricane and the only reason Nagin ordered an evacuation was because Bush TOLD HIM TO!! The blame for this tragedy lies squarely on the shoulders of the very city you defend.
Shame on you, Ms. Rice. Place your anger where it belongs.
18 - Dana
Shame on you, Ms. Rice! Where is your criticism for the rapists, the murderers, looters and the snipers? Where is your criticism for the mayor and the govorner, who were told for years that this would happen and did NOTHING???? How dare you lash out at the very America who is pouring billions of dollars into aid and taking vicitms into their very homes? The Federal goverment dispatched aid TWO DAYS before the hurricane and the only reason Nagin ordered an evacuation was because Bush TOLD HIM TO!! The blame for this tragedy lies squarely on the shoulders of the very city you defend.
Shame on you, Ms. Rice. Place your anger where it belongs.
19 - Dana
Shame on you, Ms. Rice! Where is your criticism for the rapists, the murderers, looters and the snipers? Where is your criticism for the mayor and the govorner, who were told for years that this would happen and did NOTHING???? How dare you lash out at the very America who is pouring billions of dollars into aid and taking vicitms into their very homes? The Federal goverment dispatched aid TWO DAYS before the hurricane and the only reason Nagin ordered an evacuation was because Bush TOLD HIM TO!! The blame for this tragedy lies squarely on the shoulders of the very city you defend.
Shame on you, Ms. Rice. Place your anger where it belongs.
20 - Dana
Shame on you, Ms. Rice! Where is your criticism for the rapists, the murderers, looters and the snipers? Where is your criticism for the mayor and the govorner, who were told for years that this would happen and did NOTHING???? How dare you lash out at the very America who is pouring billions of dollars into aid and taking vicitms into their very homes? The Federal goverment dispatched aid TWO DAYS before the hurricane and the only reason Nagin ordered an evacuation was because Bush TOLD HIM TO!! The blame for this tragedy lies squarely on the shoulders of the very city you defend.
Shame on you, Ms. Rice. Place your anger where it belongs.
21 - Victor Lana
To Why Bother:
I disagree 100% with what you are saying, but
I agree 100% that you have a right to say it.
22 - why bother?
You disagree 100%? wow.
So you don't AGREE with ANYTHING I said?
Seriously?
Your tolerance and open-mindedness is quite far-reaching indeed. You'd make Anne Rice proud.
Your post is brilliant in its simplicity.
But the money WAS there Vic. 48 hours of warning WAS there Vic. A parking lot full of school busses WAS there Vic. But the poor were poor, and the old were old, and the black were black, and it's always, ALWAYS someone else's fault. That will explain EVERYTHING to the last dead person on that sun-baked overpass. Not only is it someone ELSE'S fault, it's usually the organization you like the LEAST that is at fault the MOST.
It's ALWAYS someone else's fault.
It's ALWAYS someone else's fault.
23 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Victor! Very sweet and pungent and sad, just like the city, which will be rebuilt - how can it not be? Matters of chance and geography cannot overcome such a concentration of human culture.
I think the matter of those who stayed behind out by choice or lack thereof is something different and I think ultimately we aer talking about the tyranny of demographics and statistics: the poor always suffer most and have the fewest options. Is it their "fault," the government's, no one's, God's? I don't know
24 - JR
Matters of chance and geography cannot overcome such a concentration of human culture.
Tell it to Troy.
25 - Eric Olsen
New Orleans wasn't sacked and destroyed by humans - much of it remains