A Tiny Flower of Beauty Survives In The NOLA Gulag
This is an excerpt from an article about this week's fight for life against disease, rape, murder (and according to CNN, now a massive chemical fire) among evacuees in Louisiana's Superdome and the heavily-armed National Guards who share their danger and miserable conditions as they hold them prisoner behind the fences. Ubiquitous feces and urine and corpses, heat and stench and squalor and abject destitution are an unlikely setting for a concert. In the middle of a gulag that threatens to become an abattoir, beauty will sometimes take a fragile hold...
Suddenly, incongruously, the first notes of Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, the Adagio, pierced the desperation.
Samuel Thompson, 34, is trying to make it as a professional violinist. He had grabbed his instrument - made in 1996 by a Boston woman - as he fled the youth hostel Sunday where he had been staying in New Orleans for the past two months.
"It's the most important thing I own," he said.
He had guarded it carefully and hadn't taken it out until yesterday afternoon, when he was able to move from the Superdome into the New Orleans Arena, far safer accommodations. He rested the black case on a table next to a man with no legs in a wheelchair and a pile of trash and boxes, and gingerly popped open the two locks. He lifted the violin out of the red velvet encasement and held it to his neck.
Thompson closed his eyes and leaned into each stretch of the bow as he played mournfully. A woman eating crackers and sitting where a vendor typically sells pizza watched him intently. A National Guard soldier applauded quietly when the song ended, and Thompson nodded his head and began another piece, the Andante from Bach's Sonata in A Minor.
Like most in the shelter, Thompson's family in Charleston, S.C., has no idea where he is and whether he is alive. Thompson figures he is safe for now and will get in touch when he can. Meanwhile, he will play, and, once in a while, someone at the sports complex will manage a smile.
"These people have nothing," he said. "I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something."
Suddenly, incongruously, the first notes of Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, the Adagio, pierced the desperation.
Samuel Thompson, 34, is trying to make it as a professional violinist. He had grabbed his instrument - made in 1996 by a Boston woman - as he fled the youth hostel Sunday where he had been staying in New Orleans for the past two months.
"It's the most important thing I own," he said.
He had guarded it carefully and hadn't taken it out until yesterday afternoon, when he was able to move from the Superdome into the New Orleans Arena, far safer accommodations. He rested the black case on a table next to a man with no legs in a wheelchair and a pile of trash and boxes, and gingerly popped open the two locks. He lifted the violin out of the red velvet encasement and held it to his neck.
Thompson closed his eyes and leaned into each stretch of the bow as he played mournfully. A woman eating crackers and sitting where a vendor typically sells pizza watched him intently. A National Guard soldier applauded quietly when the song ended, and Thompson nodded his head and began another piece, the Andante from Bach's Sonata in A Minor.
Like most in the shelter, Thompson's family in Charleston, S.C., has no idea where he is and whether he is alive. Thompson figures he is safe for now and will get in touch when he can. Meanwhile, he will play, and, once in a while, someone at the sports complex will manage a smile.
"These people have nothing," he said. "I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something."