Homecoming

Well, I'm back from a week on Oregon's North Coast, having had the great fortune to experience no greater horrors than maxing out my self-imposed US$25 spending limit at the greatest book store on the planet, facing down the Tilt-A-Whirl at Seaside, and choosing which beach we would go to that day... We were not entirely disengaged from reality, and our horror was real at the devastation wrought by Katrina and the all-too-slow response of the government. NOLA is a place that has been special for lovers of horror and the mysterious for much longer than Anne Rice's creations have been around. New Orleans is houdoun and swamp magic, illicit loves and affairs, torrid heat and imagination alike. Her heat and humidity rots your brain as surely as it does the now truly besieged French Quarter, but you don't care - the decay is as beautiful as it is inevitable. You can't ignore the tourist traps (and with a toddler in tow, it gets even harder), but if you could slip away from those areas with some knowlegeable advice, you could discover mystery and wonder beyond your expectations. This is not the death she deserves. Hopefully she will survive this disaster as she has survived others in her history.