Postcard from New Orleans (sent from Berkeley)
It is hot.
So miserably hot.
One of the reasons I fled the South for cooler Pacific maritime climes over a decade ago.
Thoroughly enjoying a stroll through the farmer's market in New Orleans, my reverie is interrupted by the eyes. Men leering at me. The energy is disgusting and I remember more of my childhood, more of why I celebrated my escape from the South. I briefly compare the more cosmopolitan (?) leering of the West Coast cities with this kind of degrading stare. I don't always appreciate such looks at all, but here, I can feel myself so objectified, so reduced to a soulless mannequin, a projection screen for men's illicit desires. The more the repression of sexuality, the more ugly and twisted becomes its shadow, although I am impressed that I did not wallow in victimhood this time around. But the differences with this encounter with "Christianity" form another long and joyful story.
The dis-ease between the sexes is apparent, e.g., men and women cannot be "just friends," either it's a sexual relationship or one heavily circumscribed by social conventions and rules on comportment, any violation of which is grounds for rumors and public abasement. I am getting a new perspective on the origins of my analysis of war and social strife, the primacy I allot to the alienation and subsequent perversion of the "feminine" and the "masculine."
And New Orleans is beautiful. It is beautiful and surrounded by sadness. The twinge of Saturn-Neptune filled me more than once, as I lamented in the strangulating humidity. A resident said to me that the city was finally looking up, feeling some kind of hope or upsurge after Katrina (August 2005, five years ago!!) when the BP oil disaster happened. Toxic, unprocessed grief flowing forth....it comes in many guises. I wonder about the level of anti-depressant chemicals in the fish and other wildlife closely connected to the aquatic food chain.
(Back in Berkeley, I smile at the beer selection in the local grocery store even as I inwardly grimace at the prices. Two weeks of "Oh look, they've got both kinds of beer! Bud AND Bud Light!" reaffirmed my belief that if I cannot afford it, I shouldn't drink it.)
So miserably hot.
One of the reasons I fled the South for cooler Pacific maritime climes over a decade ago.
Thoroughly enjoying a stroll through the farmer's market in New Orleans, my reverie is interrupted by the eyes. Men leering at me. The energy is disgusting and I remember more of my childhood, more of why I celebrated my escape from the South. I briefly compare the more cosmopolitan (?) leering of the West Coast cities with this kind of degrading stare. I don't always appreciate such looks at all, but here, I can feel myself so objectified, so reduced to a soulless mannequin, a projection screen for men's illicit desires. The more the repression of sexuality, the more ugly and twisted becomes its shadow, although I am impressed that I did not wallow in victimhood this time around. But the differences with this encounter with "Christianity" form another long and joyful story.
The dis-ease between the sexes is apparent, e.g., men and women cannot be "just friends," either it's a sexual relationship or one heavily circumscribed by social conventions and rules on comportment, any violation of which is grounds for rumors and public abasement. I am getting a new perspective on the origins of my analysis of war and social strife, the primacy I allot to the alienation and subsequent perversion of the "feminine" and the "masculine."
And New Orleans is beautiful. It is beautiful and surrounded by sadness. The twinge of Saturn-Neptune filled me more than once, as I lamented in the strangulating humidity. A resident said to me that the city was finally looking up, feeling some kind of hope or upsurge after Katrina (August 2005, five years ago!!) when the BP oil disaster happened. Toxic, unprocessed grief flowing forth....it comes in many guises. I wonder about the level of anti-depressant chemicals in the fish and other wildlife closely connected to the aquatic food chain.
(Back in Berkeley, I smile at the beer selection in the local grocery store even as I inwardly grimace at the prices. Two weeks of "Oh look, they've got both kinds of beer! Bud AND Bud Light!" reaffirmed my belief that if I cannot afford it, I shouldn't drink it.)