taradactyl24's review against another edition
5.0
I loved this book immensely. The author paints a beautiful, sad, and poignant portrait of life in New Orleans, pre and post-Katrina, and makes the reader understand the value of the city of New Orleans. At one point, I had to take a break from reading because it was so heartbreaking to think of the turmoil that so many people lived through, (and are still going through in some cases) losing their homes and culture, possessions, pets and friends. My heart aches at the losses but still I smiled at the end with the author's description of how he feels that New Orleans will be great again as long as the spirit of the people is not broken.
katrinky's review against another edition
4.0
Naturally, I picked this book up to read while being swallowed whole on my first trip to "The River Region," which clearly no one calls it, but is written inexplicably on the airport sign. The Crescent City, The Big Easy, The City That Will Never Drown. Not if the people of New Orleans, Tom Piazza included, have anything to say about it. Piazza's passionate, knee-jerk reaction of a book, written just weeks after Katrina, is split into two halves: first, snapshots of what makes NOLA unique and irreplaceable among American (or global) cities. Second, what happens when the nation collectively cringes and averts its eyes when the city that birthed jazz, that offered Louis Armstrong to the world, gets hit from behind the knees. "Should we even BOTHER rebuilding?" news anchors asked, a question I still find so offensive I can barely write it. Or, to quote Barbara Bush, again, making me so angry I want to spit in her face, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
Piazza offers both of these quotes as (blood-pressure-raising) food for thought. And he writes about them better than I would, were my city, my home, my neighbors being spoken of that way.
But here's the thing. THEY ARE. And, no matter where we are, that IS our city. That IS our home, those ARE our neighbors, if we can still possibly be called United States. Why does New Orleans matter? Why on earth WOULDN'T it matter? It is a city unlike any other city in the world, for better and for worse, but really, really mostly for the better. And it's ours. Should we rebuild it. HA! If you're asking the question, kindly get out the damn way. Satch is playing our song down in Congo Square, and we've got a dance to do.
Piazza offers both of these quotes as (blood-pressure-raising) food for thought. And he writes about them better than I would, were my city, my home, my neighbors being spoken of that way.
But here's the thing. THEY ARE. And, no matter where we are, that IS our city. That IS our home, those ARE our neighbors, if we can still possibly be called United States. Why does New Orleans matter? Why on earth WOULDN'T it matter? It is a city unlike any other city in the world, for better and for worse, but really, really mostly for the better. And it's ours. Should we rebuild it. HA! If you're asking the question, kindly get out the damn way. Satch is playing our song down in Congo Square, and we've got a dance to do.
rubyduby's review against another edition
4.0
A well-written book about a one of a kind, beautiful city, written by a person who adopted New Orleans as his home. It's a sad and terrible fact of history that Tom Piazza wrote this after Katrina when some were questioning whether New Orleans should be re-built. This eloquent book is a love story to the Crescent City and makes me want to visit again.
mkat303's review against another edition
4.0
I picked up Tom Piazza's book "Why New Orleans Matters" a few weeks ago, but couldn't read it until now. I can't read anything about Hurricane Katrina without feeling it in the pit of my stomach and, well, I've been depressed enough lately. However, I brought the book to court the other day for the time spent waiting in line, and there I was, standing in line at the clerk's office, overwhelmed again at the beauty and the sadness and the joy of life that is New Orleans, and remembering why that city touched me so deeply, and why, in the midst of feeding lost kitties in a devastated land of toxic dust and mold, I fell in love.
Here's an excerpt by Piazza about jazz funerals in New Orleans:
... They (the pallbearers and ushers) wear officially sorrowful expressions, and some of them are no doubt sorrowful inside as well, but in the most profound sense it is a masque of grief that is being staged here, in which the fact of mortality is being given its due, and yet is also undercut by what is about to happen.
In the real old times they would continue this way all the way to the graveyard before the next stage of the funeral ritual took place, but even New Orleans isn't totally immune to the Worldwide Attention Deficit, and today this part of the procession will last for a block or two at most before the band stops playing the dirge (in the old times the snare drummer would, at this point, remove the handerchief from the head of the snare drum) and the snare drum beats out a familiar sharp tattoo, the band launches into a jubilant, life-affirming stomp, and the entire crowd explodes into dance.
The procession keeps rolling, followed now by some of the greatest dancing you have ever seen. Some follow the parade, smiling and holding up their cans of beer, waving to friends, or with their arms around their friends, some executing incredibly intricate steps by themselves as they move along, up onto the sidewalk, around cars, back onto the street, or in duet with someone else, trying to outdo each other, never for very long until they split up and find someone else; people are dancing on porches and steps as the parade passes; members of the parade will climb up on light poles and dumpsters and even the roofs of cars... dancing to the music in celebration of the fact that, cold as it may sound, it isn't their time yet to be inside that carriage. They know it is coming, and that is a large part of why they dance. The parade will wind through the streets of the neighborhood, usually passing by beloved watering holes known or unknown to the deceased, where all may partake of a little liquid sacrament, wish the departed a good journey to the land of the shades, and then continue rolling, sometimes for hours.
So which is real, the grief or the celebration? Both, simultaneously, and that is why it is profound. You might sometimes see a mother dancing behind a casket containing the body of her own dead son, with tears of grief running down her face. Most funeral traditions in our society are there to remind us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. In New Orleans the funerals remind us that Life is bigger than any individual life, and it will roll on, and for the short time that your individual life joins the big stream of Life, cut some decent steps, for God's sake. No individual life lasts forever, and it is the responsibility of those left outside the walls of the boneyard to keep life going. This isn't escapism, or denial of grief; it is acceptance of the facts of life, the map of a profound relationship to the grief that is part of life, and it will tell you something about why the real New Orleans spirit is never silly, or never just silly, in celebration, and never maudlin in grief.
...
New Orleanians, poor, rich, and in-between, white and black and in-between, take their cooking and their eating seriously, just as they take their music seriously, and their dancing, and their masks and costumes, and their celebratory rituals, because it is not mere entertainment to them. It is all part of a ritual in which the finiteness, the specificity and fragility and durability and richness and earthiness and sadness and laughter of life, are all mixed together, honored, and given tangible form in sound, movement and communal cuisine.
Here's an excerpt by Piazza about jazz funerals in New Orleans:
... They (the pallbearers and ushers) wear officially sorrowful expressions, and some of them are no doubt sorrowful inside as well, but in the most profound sense it is a masque of grief that is being staged here, in which the fact of mortality is being given its due, and yet is also undercut by what is about to happen.
In the real old times they would continue this way all the way to the graveyard before the next stage of the funeral ritual took place, but even New Orleans isn't totally immune to the Worldwide Attention Deficit, and today this part of the procession will last for a block or two at most before the band stops playing the dirge (in the old times the snare drummer would, at this point, remove the handerchief from the head of the snare drum) and the snare drum beats out a familiar sharp tattoo, the band launches into a jubilant, life-affirming stomp, and the entire crowd explodes into dance.
The procession keeps rolling, followed now by some of the greatest dancing you have ever seen. Some follow the parade, smiling and holding up their cans of beer, waving to friends, or with their arms around their friends, some executing incredibly intricate steps by themselves as they move along, up onto the sidewalk, around cars, back onto the street, or in duet with someone else, trying to outdo each other, never for very long until they split up and find someone else; people are dancing on porches and steps as the parade passes; members of the parade will climb up on light poles and dumpsters and even the roofs of cars... dancing to the music in celebration of the fact that, cold as it may sound, it isn't their time yet to be inside that carriage. They know it is coming, and that is a large part of why they dance. The parade will wind through the streets of the neighborhood, usually passing by beloved watering holes known or unknown to the deceased, where all may partake of a little liquid sacrament, wish the departed a good journey to the land of the shades, and then continue rolling, sometimes for hours.
So which is real, the grief or the celebration? Both, simultaneously, and that is why it is profound. You might sometimes see a mother dancing behind a casket containing the body of her own dead son, with tears of grief running down her face. Most funeral traditions in our society are there to remind us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return. In New Orleans the funerals remind us that Life is bigger than any individual life, and it will roll on, and for the short time that your individual life joins the big stream of Life, cut some decent steps, for God's sake. No individual life lasts forever, and it is the responsibility of those left outside the walls of the boneyard to keep life going. This isn't escapism, or denial of grief; it is acceptance of the facts of life, the map of a profound relationship to the grief that is part of life, and it will tell you something about why the real New Orleans spirit is never silly, or never just silly, in celebration, and never maudlin in grief.
...
New Orleanians, poor, rich, and in-between, white and black and in-between, take their cooking and their eating seriously, just as they take their music seriously, and their dancing, and their masks and costumes, and their celebratory rituals, because it is not mere entertainment to them. It is all part of a ritual in which the finiteness, the specificity and fragility and durability and richness and earthiness and sadness and laughter of life, are all mixed together, honored, and given tangible form in sound, movement and communal cuisine.
nwillsonbmore's review against another edition
4.0
This book is both a love letter and a personal post-mortem of New Orleans after Katrina and the consequent flooding. Now over 15 years since it was written, the book is screaming for a part three (next up will be for me to see if the author has written something in follow up). Heartbreaking and hopeful about the historical and cultural backbone of this important American city.
ironi's review
4.0
Birthdays are always hard for me. It took me quite a few years to realize that I don't use birthdays to celebrate my existence or whatever, I end up using them as a prime time to beat myself up. If I don't finish the day in tears and also convince myself that my life is entirely pointless, is it even my birthday?
Today's really no different, I will say that uneven birthdays are easier than even ones. There are still a few hours left until this day ends and I can stop feeling miserable but so far, I've managed to drown out a lot of bad things by drinking lots of coffee.
Anyway, this book. I'm in New Orleans right now. I'll admit it, I came here because the flights were the cheapest. That's it, no other good reason. Maybe the princess and the frog was one but really, the flights were the reason.
And I don't entirely get this city. True, this period of time has been weird but I don't feel like I understand how NOLA ticks. It seems almost like a suburb, like a specific shade of existence. It's not colorful or vibrant but it's still very alive, in a way that I'm not used to.
This book is beautifully written. Seriously, when it comes to non-fiction, this might be the best written book I've read yet. This guy could write about anything and I'd feel it reflects humanity in the best way.
I loved knowing where things are, loved getting context for the streets around me. I loved how I read most of this in a Turkish coffee shop in Treme.
New Orleans has such a poverty and racism problem that really, it's hard to see beyond. Like, it reminds me of Budapest and really, I'm not sad about leaving. If anything, this city just bleeds into each other and that makes its deepest crisis be prominent, you can't escape the homeless and the drunk.
Honestly, I feel so shitty today and generally, this week. New Orleans isn't getting the best version of me which leads to me not getting the best version of it. But if you're looking for a book to read about it, I think this one is great!
what I'm taking with me:
- My reviews are not even about books at this point.
- Although honestly, have they ever been?
- I want to come back to this city with friends. This isn't a good city for solo-travel.
Today's really no different, I will say that uneven birthdays are easier than even ones. There are still a few hours left until this day ends and I can stop feeling miserable but so far, I've managed to drown out a lot of bad things by drinking lots of coffee.
Anyway, this book. I'm in New Orleans right now. I'll admit it, I came here because the flights were the cheapest. That's it, no other good reason. Maybe the princess and the frog was one but really, the flights were the reason.
And I don't entirely get this city. True, this period of time has been weird but I don't feel like I understand how NOLA ticks. It seems almost like a suburb, like a specific shade of existence. It's not colorful or vibrant but it's still very alive, in a way that I'm not used to.
This book is beautifully written. Seriously, when it comes to non-fiction, this might be the best written book I've read yet. This guy could write about anything and I'd feel it reflects humanity in the best way.
I loved knowing where things are, loved getting context for the streets around me. I loved how I read most of this in a Turkish coffee shop in Treme.
New Orleans has such a poverty and racism problem that really, it's hard to see beyond. Like, it reminds me of Budapest and really, I'm not sad about leaving. If anything, this city just bleeds into each other and that makes its deepest crisis be prominent, you can't escape the homeless and the drunk.
Honestly, I feel so shitty today and generally, this week. New Orleans isn't getting the best version of me which leads to me not getting the best version of it. But if you're looking for a book to read about it, I think this one is great!
what I'm taking with me:
- My reviews are not even about books at this point.
- Although honestly, have they ever been?
- I want to come back to this city with friends. This isn't a good city for solo-travel.
jlizhep's review
4.0
Definitely had some slow points at the start because I couldn’t relate but it showed humanity in a beautiful diverse way. So glad I picked it up from the local bookshop while vacationing there.
sdoire's review
4.0
A sweet plea for a responsible reconstruction of New Orleans; meaning no "Las Vegas of the South" projects. Reading Piazza's stories of the Zulu parades, neighborhood parties, and Jazz Fest made me want to visit again...
More...