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Sep. 16th, 2004 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wickedfleaSo I guess New Orleans made it through Ivan in pretty good shape. It always seems to somehow. It's bound to sink one day, and when it does, that's when I check out. I don't want to live in a world with no New Orleans. Even if I've only been there once in the last eight years or so, it's still just about my favorite place on earth. Even as fond as I've grown of NYC in the last three years, it's hard to put it above the Big Easy.
It's a weird place. Maybe that inevitable-sinking thing has something to do with the decadent mood of the city. Like, yeah, we could all go down at any moment, but right now we're here, so fuck it--let's get it on.
I once read an interview with some rock star--I think it was either Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson, or that guy from Pantera--where the guy said something like, "Florida is where old people go to die. New Orleans is where young people go to die." I thought that was right on. I remember seeing all those gutterpunks down there--kids under 20 who were basically already homeless drunks. If I'd ever gotten the balls to move to New Orleans, I'd probably have ended up like those kids. I used to think about New Orleans all the time when all I was doing was drinking, trying to figure out some way that I could get down there and . . . well, who knows what I thought I was gonna do besides drink. Obviously, I never figured out anything that seemed like a workable plan. Good thing, for if I was hopeless in Pulaski, VA, I woulda been pathetically hopeless in New Orleans. From what I've heard, it's not an easy place to live. The two close friends I had who moved to New Orleans both moved out within a couple of years because the crime and everything else was just too much. Anyway.
Speaking of New Orleans, I re-read A Confederacy of Dunces for about the twentieth time a couple of weeks ago. What an awesome book. I was reading it with an eye toward how it would come across as a movie (I'd just read that the planned production starring Will Ferrell has been canned), and really I just don't think it would work. A good portion of the book is Ignatius's journal entries, and that would be a big loss. And while some of the dialogue would go to the screen perfectly, Ignatius's speech just wouldn't work. It's genius on the page, but I just cannot imagine anyone getting the delivery right, even someone as good as Philip Seymour Hoffman. Least of all Will Ferrell--who's funny, but come on, we're talking about one of the greatest characters in literature, not the cowbell player from Blue Oyster Cult.
If they do ever film it, though, I want to be Jones, the janitor at the Night of Joy. I can totally do him.
It's a weird place. Maybe that inevitable-sinking thing has something to do with the decadent mood of the city. Like, yeah, we could all go down at any moment, but right now we're here, so fuck it--let's get it on.
I once read an interview with some rock star--I think it was either Trent Reznor, Marilyn Manson, or that guy from Pantera--where the guy said something like, "Florida is where old people go to die. New Orleans is where young people go to die." I thought that was right on. I remember seeing all those gutterpunks down there--kids under 20 who were basically already homeless drunks. If I'd ever gotten the balls to move to New Orleans, I'd probably have ended up like those kids. I used to think about New Orleans all the time when all I was doing was drinking, trying to figure out some way that I could get down there and . . . well, who knows what I thought I was gonna do besides drink. Obviously, I never figured out anything that seemed like a workable plan. Good thing, for if I was hopeless in Pulaski, VA, I woulda been pathetically hopeless in New Orleans. From what I've heard, it's not an easy place to live. The two close friends I had who moved to New Orleans both moved out within a couple of years because the crime and everything else was just too much. Anyway.
Speaking of New Orleans, I re-read A Confederacy of Dunces for about the twentieth time a couple of weeks ago. What an awesome book. I was reading it with an eye toward how it would come across as a movie (I'd just read that the planned production starring Will Ferrell has been canned), and really I just don't think it would work. A good portion of the book is Ignatius's journal entries, and that would be a big loss. And while some of the dialogue would go to the screen perfectly, Ignatius's speech just wouldn't work. It's genius on the page, but I just cannot imagine anyone getting the delivery right, even someone as good as Philip Seymour Hoffman. Least of all Will Ferrell--who's funny, but come on, we're talking about one of the greatest characters in literature, not the cowbell player from Blue Oyster Cult.
If they do ever film it, though, I want to be Jones, the janitor at the Night of Joy. I can totally do him.
