Beautiful children, marching around my neighborhood in Brooklyn, under a pale sky, beating drums, faces painted in black and white like skulls with baby fat, and a banner taking me home again. They followed carrying umbrellas, like the second line in a New Orleans jazz funeral, and I felt sadness, pride, and hope in this show of respect from another world.
11 comments:
You are amazing. I wish I could walk with you through Brooklyn and see things through your eyes as you take pictures.
Stumbled across your blog via a friends...
stunning and gut wrenching...
i donated $$ to a few different organizations early on and sent clothing with a truck that was going... now i know it wasn't enough...
Are there still people in Pearlington in need of the basics? toiletries and the like?
These are beautiful.
Its so touching to see people reaching out.
I will miss your reports from post-Katrina Land.
Thank you for being such the clear voice out of the devastation caused by Kat-Rita. The Gulf South is beginning to return to life. Come back soon to chronicle our progress. It ought to be interesting.
Lucius- I'm guessing by your name you're a fellow coonass? I have to filter everything through my camera or I can't handle it. It's like looking at the sun during an eclipse.
Ivy- Yes, basics are still sadly needed. Read this post:
http://operationeden.blogspot.com/2005/10/help-pearlington-mississippi.html
Slidell- I'm still in and out of the K-hole. I was back in NYC for a few days, as I write this I'm in North Carolina checking on my mom and little brother, in a couple of weeks I'll be back to the Gulf for Thanksgiving, if not sooner.
All my roots are there, my family's there, my land is there, I'll always be there. You can take the boy out of the bayou but you can't take the bayou out of the boy. This isn't, and never has been, news coverage. It's a diary and a family scrapbook.
I've always wished that our society would honor death rather than making it horrible (well, more horrible than it is) and morbid. I like Day of the Dead. I don't think it's macabre. I think it acknowledges something that we eventually have to face and lets us confront the mysterious face of death. Thanks for posting these.
Peace,
Cie
great blog.
There are few holidays in this world and all of its many cultures that are as interesting as the Day of the Dead.
Nice pics.
Touching blog that I just happened to read about in our local paper this morning. As we fly into New Orleans Saturday I will be thinking of your amazing posts. Also I will check out what is still needed. Having grown up with parents who never made it beyond the poverty income but I never felt poor I can truly sympathize with all the people in the gulf coast. Forget the government coming to the rescue, they just aren't capable sometimes at helping their own.
Hi,
One of the readers of a blog I do with a buddy out of Biloxi mentioned your blog, and it was a joy to peruse it. Well, a joy only in the sense that it was very interesting. As an ex-New Yorker and current Katrina survivor, it is always good and enriching to see and feel other people's experiences.
Your portraits are wonderful and you are obviously a master in photoshop. I am intensely jealous that you had good photographic equipment with you. All I had was a point and shoot at the beginning and then a slightly better point and shoot now.
I am sure you are entreated constantly to view other blogs, as I am too.
I must say though, when finding blogs like yours, it is often worth it.
Regardless, I will post the link to mine below. Most of our best photos were taken right after the storm.
www.dancingwithkatrina.blogspot.com
it was a pleasure.
-Josh
This is a nice Blog man, I'll Try to keep up with it. I'm a Katrina Survivor Myself Man.
Who Takes the Photos? Those are great.
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