This song is for that Spanish Professor and Clarissa. It is truly American, and it explains a great deal.
*
I hope, but cannot promise, to be at Rising Tide today. This year August 29 falls again on a Monday, as it did in 2005. Classes had just started and things were hectic, and we were keeping our back eye on the storm. Saturday morning things seemed cosy and bright, and I was not thinking about it at all when the phone rang from New Orleans, can we come up? Everyone was packing all Saturday and securing houses, and we were shopping for supplies.
Sunday people drove up and in some cases through in slow contraflow, with the sky darkening, and we went to one of the afternoon dances. Monday we felt the outer bands and tried to aim Google Earth at New Orleans streets. By night it appeared not to have been so bad.
Tuesday I went in to work, where we soon heard that the levees were breaking. I did not get to New Orleans until Thanksgiving and when I got there, it looked — no, was worse than San Salvador. I had the foolish idea of going to Managua at Christmas and it was as New Orleans is now: settled into disaster. Later that winter, moving toward spring, I started this post-Apocalyptic weblog.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I hope you can make it to Rising Tide.
My husband lived in New Orleans for 10 years (including one working off-shore out of Cameron, LA). He also has a good friend who lives in New Iberia. He left a year before Katrina. Only went back once. He couldn’t go back again, but it is still in his soul, and it will ever be. He is going back for three weeks in late October, finally.
I understand you more than you imagine, at least as far as living conditions go. I read you and picture all the stories my husband told me.
*Hughs*
I’m really disappointed not to be there right now. It’s due to a combination of factors but I’m too ill (and overworked) to make it and so on — yet had I gotten there, I’d have been cured of this week.
I have to dump my self destructive ways, I say, and my neighbor across the hall in the offices says it’s not our self destructive ways, it’s their obstruction of us.
The only new films I have for my film course are the ones you brought and the ones another friend brought. I was pilloried for weeks about wanting to buy anything, with textbook royalty money dedicated to materials for Spanish classes, then finally allowed to order, and nothing is here … it is just not fucken civilized and I am not sure what to do about it.
Not exactly “legal”, but Netflix has many of the Contemporary movies. Just saying… What if you start with a few of the manifestos, maybe an article about Latin American cinema in the 60s (even if you don’t have books, I’m sure there are articles out there), and then The Hour of the Furnaces…?
Yes – we’ll use Netflix if we must.
What we did: start with your Pino things. We watched Memoria del Saqueo on Day 1 because I decided we should see something recentish by an originator, and thought people should see something about history / something relevant to current debt meltdowns.
Homework over weekend is, everyone has a Pino movie to watch, and manifestos to read. And, we do have some books. Next week we discuss manifestos and the movies, and have a presentation on La hora de los hornos. And the mail just came: the things I’d ordered from Facets in late July haven’t arrived yet, but the things I ordered from Amazon with late arriving money got here. 10 films. So, we have materials, I just haven’t been able to prepare the course ahead as I would have liked. And, it is now one of 5 not one of 3.5. Thence my pain.
But, you have been saving my a** on 2 fronts.