It is the weekend, so we will sing. This appears to have been filmed in Nice in 1978. But Booker fairly shouts New Orleans.
I have received an interesting question, am I in New Orleans or not? If I do not say where I am, how can it be known whether anything else I say is true? How, oh how, can it all fit together? Like the role model for my writing voice here, the Subcomandante Marcos, I am from many places, and there are things I love and have loved about them all.
But I have only ever fallen in love with two cities: Madrid and New Orleans. When I am there, I am happy, and when I am not, I long to see them again. Madrid, even now, with its modern veneer, and New Orleans also, no matter how tattered and torn.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I was advised not to visit Noo Orlinns on my recent visit to the States. ‘They’ said it is too violent and degraded.
Yes but as I said, I think, in a comment thread on your blog: when white people say ‘violent’, they often just mean ‘Black’. Indeed, since the hurricanes, much is not the same to say the least. But I went back for the first time since the storms on Thanksgiving, 2005, when things were in TERRIBLE shape. I expected to find NOTHING. But then, even rising from the poisoned wasteland, there still was THAT FEELING. You know how they say that if you love someone, you will find you still do even when they are old, ill and ugly? Well, that’s what I mean. It may be in bad shape, but I can still see it. –Z
I read this post with intense interest, as I lived in Spain for more than a year, and Madrid was one of the cities that I favored the least. Perhaps because I lived in Sagunto, outside of Valencia, it seemed that the southeastern coastline called to me. Las rubias y yo, we used to take the train to Calpe for the weekends and gorge ourselves on cheap Chinese food.
But I am a girl who is from a small town, and the size of Madrid always used to overwhelm me. Or maybe I am biased because a man once tried to steal my wallet while I was riding the city train. I felt him fumbling inside the pocket of my baggy jeans (they were the rage at that time). He was unsuccessful. I told him, in perfect Spanish and in a conversational tone of voice, that it would be wise for him to remove his hand from my pants, before I severed his penis with the knife I had in my other pocket.
Actually, I smile at the memory, because of the pacifist that I was then and that I continue to be, and because of all the memories that are envoked as I type these lines.
And my mind has now moved on to the breathtaking scenery of the autobus that took the younger version of me to the countryside that surrounds that glorious city of Madrid…to Segovia, and Toledo…to those wet, narrow, cobblestone streets that I had never seen in story books.
Yes, the Spanish countryside is great. I may only be in love with Madrid and New Orleans as cities, but in terms of whole countries, I am in love with Mexico.