T. Middy, who fancies himself a wit, wanted me to call this post Karma Camellia, but I refused. Yesterday we drove along Carrollton Avenue to see if the Camellia Grill had re-opened yet, and it certainly has.
It's eighteen months since Katrina. Every re-opening makes us feel more optimistic about the city, this one especially. The diner's a New Orleans institution, and one of the first places I ate here on my first visit, in 1989.
On Friday night we saw The Namesake, a film about love and loneliness and exile, all my favorite subjects. I liked the book, but the film was more moving, somehow. I also like going to Canal Place to see movies. From the parking garage you get a grand view of the Mississippi river. It's usually hidden from view by levees; you can forget the way the river snakes around the city unless you spot the top of a ship sailing past.
Yesterday the Times-Picayune reported that, contrary to popular belief, half of New Orleans is at or above sea level. (Another myth: Monkey Hill in the zoo is not the highest point in the city. Our grand peak is a hill in Couturie Forest in City Park - it's 27-5 feet.) T. Middy and I live at the cusp of sea level, in what Richard Campanella, the author of the new topographic study, calls a classic New Orleans 1920s house - a ground floor used for storage, and an upper floor for living. A ground floor that, to me, still smells of the flood.
You should always listen to T. Middy.
Posted by: Brando | April 23, 2007 at 05:13 AM