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Why New Orleans Matters
Every place has its history. But what is it about New Orleans that makes it more than just the sum of the events that have happened there? What is it about the spirit of the people who live there that could produce a music, a cuisine, an architecture, a total environment, the mere mention of which can bring a smile to the face of someone who has never even set foot there?
What is the meaning of a place like that, and what is lost if it is lost?
The winds of Hurricane Katrina, and the national disaster that followed, brought with them a moment of shared cultural awareness: Thousands were killed and many more displaced; promises were made, forgotten, and renewed; the city of New Orleans was engulfed by floodwaters of biblical proportions—all in a wrenching drama that captured international attention. Yet the passing of that moment has left too many questions.
What will become of New Orleans in the months and years to come? What of its people, who fled the city on a rising tide of panic, trading all they knew and loved for a dim hope of shelter and rest? And, ultimately, what do those people and their city mean to America and the world?
In Why New Orleans Matters, award-winning author and New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and most neglected of American cities. With wisdom and affection, he explores the hidden contours of familiar traditions like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, and evokes the sensory rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking. He writes, too, of the city's deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice, and of how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world—grace and beauty, resilience and soul. "That spirit is in terrible jeopardy right now," he writes. "If it dies, something precious and profound will go out of the world forever."
Why New Orleans Matters is a gift from one of our most talented writers to the beloved and important city he calls home—and to a nation to whom that city's survival has been entrusted.
What is the meaning of a place like that, and what is lost if it is lost?
The winds of Hurricane Katrina, and the national disaster that followed, brought with them a moment of shared cultural awareness: Thousands were killed and many more displaced; promises were made, forgotten, and renewed; the city of New Orleans was engulfed by floodwaters of biblical proportions—all in a wrenching drama that captured international attention. Yet the passing of that moment has left too many questions.
What will become of New Orleans in the months and years to come? What of its people, who fled the city on a rising tide of panic, trading all they knew and loved for a dim hope of shelter and rest? And, ultimately, what do those people and their city mean to America and the world?
In Why New Orleans Matters, award-winning author and New Orleans resident Tom Piazza illuminates the storied culture and uncertain future of this great and most neglected of American cities. With wisdom and affection, he explores the hidden contours of familiar traditions like Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, and evokes the sensory rapture of the city that gave us jazz music and Creole cooking. He writes, too, of the city's deep undercurrents of corruption, racism, and injustice, and of how its people endure and transcend those conditions. And, perhaps most important, he asks us all to consider the spirit of this place and all the things it has shared with the world—grace and beauty, resilience and soul. "That spirit is in terrible jeopardy right now," he writes. "If it dies, something precious and profound will go out of the world forever."
Why New Orleans Matters is a gift from one of our most talented writers to the beloved and important city he calls home—and to a nation to whom that city's survival has been entrusted.
167 pages, Hardcover
First published November 22, 2005
68 people are currently reading
1658 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 144 reviews
October 17, 2012
Having lived in New Orleans for two years, I learned very quickly that there's a certain je ne sais quoi about the place. Certain aspects of the Crescent City are beyond description. Despite the crime, the corruption, and the inconvenient (to say the least) location, something about New Orleans makes you fall deeply in love with it. To miss New Orleans is like missing an absent lover. It's like voodoo magic floats through the streets, working its way under your skin and inhabiting your soul. This is not something easily explained to those who have not been there--it's something that's felt instead. I have never heard someone put this unique emotional attachment into words quite so well as Tom did. It read like a plaintive love letter to the city. I cannot begin to imagine what it was like to live through Katrina. Written in the wake of the disaster, this book was for all those who thought New Orleans wasn't worth saving. Tom is here to tell you, in beautiful language, why that's such a terrible thing to think.
Also, I loved this book so much that I e-mailed him. He responded and was so, SO nice. Found out we had lived on the same street, too. Only wish I'd have known about this book sooner, before I moved back home, so I could have bumped into him on a walk and told him how great it was.
Also, I loved this book so much that I e-mailed him. He responded and was so, SO nice. Found out we had lived on the same street, too. Only wish I'd have known about this book sooner, before I moved back home, so I could have bumped into him on a walk and told him how great it was.
February 4, 2009
Music critic and novelist Piazza has written a sensitive, deeply sympathetic portrait of New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina. The first part of the short book tells of the character of the city, particularly through its festivals and events as experienced by Piazza (N.O. is his adopted home). The second, blistering, part tells of the emotional destruction of that character, again through a first-person eyewitness account.
Piazza makes his case well: New Orleans, which has contributed to most of the country's great cultural achievements, matters because it's unique, alive, and most of all beloved. He stops short of lecturing, and makes implicit this question: if we let New Orleans die (via developers or neglect), what good are we? What's the point of anything if our nation can't sustain one of our most vibrant and life-affirming cities? He lays out the facts but mostly proves this by example: has any writer confessed his feelings for a city in such a love letter? There is probably a tradition of this too, and Piazza's account must stand among the most empassioned.
My two quibbles are these: the traditions he describes in Part One are, at the youngest, 40 years old. The artists he names are practically all old-age, and the traditions tilting towards re-enactments rather than new and living expressions. It's no wonder certain forces want to turn the city into a museum/caricature. On the other hand, it seems clear enough that Piazza feels these are still vital and living traditions, and I suppose that he would cite numerous younger artists and participants if pressed. I wish he addressed this issue more completely.
The other quibble is that throughout, he refers to the people of the city as "they." It's an odd perspective for someone so proud and passionate about the city. I wonder what are the racial and social boundaries are that he implicitly describes himself as an outsider. Unless he is putting the reader in a certain point of view: we (readers) are the outsiders to the "they" of the residents.
Those misgivings aside, this is still a remarkable and gorgeous and harrowing short book that reminds us of some of the vital things about humans, cities, and the possibility of our nation.
Piazza makes his case well: New Orleans, which has contributed to most of the country's great cultural achievements, matters because it's unique, alive, and most of all beloved. He stops short of lecturing, and makes implicit this question: if we let New Orleans die (via developers or neglect), what good are we? What's the point of anything if our nation can't sustain one of our most vibrant and life-affirming cities? He lays out the facts but mostly proves this by example: has any writer confessed his feelings for a city in such a love letter? There is probably a tradition of this too, and Piazza's account must stand among the most empassioned.
My two quibbles are these: the traditions he describes in Part One are, at the youngest, 40 years old. The artists he names are practically all old-age, and the traditions tilting towards re-enactments rather than new and living expressions. It's no wonder certain forces want to turn the city into a museum/caricature. On the other hand, it seems clear enough that Piazza feels these are still vital and living traditions, and I suppose that he would cite numerous younger artists and participants if pressed. I wish he addressed this issue more completely.
The other quibble is that throughout, he refers to the people of the city as "they." It's an odd perspective for someone so proud and passionate about the city. I wonder what are the racial and social boundaries are that he implicitly describes himself as an outsider. Unless he is putting the reader in a certain point of view: we (readers) are the outsiders to the "they" of the residents.
Those misgivings aside, this is still a remarkable and gorgeous and harrowing short book that reminds us of some of the vital things about humans, cities, and the possibility of our nation.
September 24, 2020
Piazza caught the New Orleans Fever and communicates it well. So well that I listen to at least two selections of all the jazz musicians he names--even the ones of which he says:
[S]o many are unknown outside of New Orleans except by dyed-in-the-wool music freaks.. Among these serious artists, Piazza names
Smiley Lewis
Big Boy Myles
Eddie Bo
Sugar Boy Crawford
Snooks Eaglin.
Well, that proved to me--definitively--I have rather pedestrian tastes. However, Piazza has also hooked me up with how to find some rather serious (not too serious) jazz at www.WWOZ.org
Other than the music, the food, Madrid Gras, funerals, the Treme, French Quarter, Mid-City and more, Piazza also undertook the serious work of describing what happened during and after Hurricane Katrina (2005) and saying how if New Orleans is not worth saving neither are other important cities such as New York or San Francisco or Paris or maybe Venice. These are our great cities of the West. Fail New Orleans, and it becomes easier to fail the other cities.
My heart remembered New Orleans. But my mind had forgotten somewhat. I am glad to be reminded.
[S]o many are unknown outside of New Orleans except by dyed-in-the-wool music freaks.. Among these serious artists, Piazza names
Smiley Lewis
Big Boy Myles
Eddie Bo
Sugar Boy Crawford
Snooks Eaglin.
Well, that proved to me--definitively--I have rather pedestrian tastes. However, Piazza has also hooked me up with how to find some rather serious (not too serious) jazz at www.WWOZ.org
Other than the music, the food, Madrid Gras, funerals, the Treme, French Quarter, Mid-City and more, Piazza also undertook the serious work of describing what happened during and after Hurricane Katrina (2005) and saying how if New Orleans is not worth saving neither are other important cities such as New York or San Francisco or Paris or maybe Venice. These are our great cities of the West. Fail New Orleans, and it becomes easier to fail the other cities.
My heart remembered New Orleans. But my mind had forgotten somewhat. I am glad to be reminded.
January 27, 2013
Je suis monomaniaque. Tout ce qui touche à la Nouvelle Orléans... J'ai lu et vu pas mal de fiction sur la ville, dans la ville, pas loin de la ville... Pas mal de non-fiction aussi, en majorité sur la musique... Ah, la musique. Ou plutôt LES musiques. Je ne parle même pas de la cuisine, de ses mélanges, couleurs, sauces...
Mais jamais je n'avais lu une telle déclaration d'amour, inconditionnelle, entière, sans concession. À la Nouvelle Orléans, à son Âme, que nous ne pouvons que deviner à travers son histoire, sa musique, sa cuisine, sa culture, sa chaleur humaine, sa violence et sa pauvreté aussi, et l'interaction de chacun de ces éléments et de bien d'autres qui lui sont propres...
Ce livre a été écrit comme un cri du coeur dans la détresse et la peur de l'auteur (et sans aucun doute de chacun des habitants ou simples amoureux, visiteurs ou pas, de la ville) de voir cette Âme disparaître au lendemain des ravages de Katrina.
Tom Piazza, principalement journaliste musical spécialisé dans le jazz mais également auteur de fiction, nous présente la Nouvelle Orléans, à travers ses propres rencontres, d'abord au cours de visites pour l'incontournable Jazz Fest, puis en tant qu'habitant, après avoir décidé de ne pas quitter la ville. La manière dont il parle de la nourriture est à pleurer... Et son expérience de la chaleur humaine, de la positivité et de la créativité de tant de gens qui vivent dans une misère qui parait surréaliste dans un tel pays, ou simplement du petit coup de pouce d'une inconnue dans des lieux et à des moments inattendus... Sans parler des Mardi Gras Indians et des vieux bluesmen et jazzeux... tellement de chose...
La deuxième moitié du livre est un très très lourd contre-poids à tant de lumière et de chaleur. Un court rappel des évènements puis témoignage de la traversée de la ville 15 jours après l'ouragan... incroyable et déchirant. Mais l'espoir qui semble caractéristique de chaque particule de la culture de la Nouvelle Orléans n'est jamais loin.
Un petit ajout quelques années plus tard par l'auteur, un point quelques années plus tard et une prise de position pour la rénovation "bottom-up", avec tout ce qui est déjà-là, plutôt que "top-down" avec une dénaturation d'une ville à la culture et l'histoire aussi riches.
Vous avez été pris dans l'excellent "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" de Spike Lee ou la suite 4 ans plus tard, "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"? Vous êtes fan de Treme? Vous lisez en anglais? N'hésitez pas!
Mais jamais je n'avais lu une telle déclaration d'amour, inconditionnelle, entière, sans concession. À la Nouvelle Orléans, à son Âme, que nous ne pouvons que deviner à travers son histoire, sa musique, sa cuisine, sa culture, sa chaleur humaine, sa violence et sa pauvreté aussi, et l'interaction de chacun de ces éléments et de bien d'autres qui lui sont propres...
Ce livre a été écrit comme un cri du coeur dans la détresse et la peur de l'auteur (et sans aucun doute de chacun des habitants ou simples amoureux, visiteurs ou pas, de la ville) de voir cette Âme disparaître au lendemain des ravages de Katrina.
Tom Piazza, principalement journaliste musical spécialisé dans le jazz mais également auteur de fiction, nous présente la Nouvelle Orléans, à travers ses propres rencontres, d'abord au cours de visites pour l'incontournable Jazz Fest, puis en tant qu'habitant, après avoir décidé de ne pas quitter la ville. La manière dont il parle de la nourriture est à pleurer... Et son expérience de la chaleur humaine, de la positivité et de la créativité de tant de gens qui vivent dans une misère qui parait surréaliste dans un tel pays, ou simplement du petit coup de pouce d'une inconnue dans des lieux et à des moments inattendus... Sans parler des Mardi Gras Indians et des vieux bluesmen et jazzeux... tellement de chose...
La deuxième moitié du livre est un très très lourd contre-poids à tant de lumière et de chaleur. Un court rappel des évènements puis témoignage de la traversée de la ville 15 jours après l'ouragan... incroyable et déchirant. Mais l'espoir qui semble caractéristique de chaque particule de la culture de la Nouvelle Orléans n'est jamais loin.
Un petit ajout quelques années plus tard par l'auteur, un point quelques années plus tard et une prise de position pour la rénovation "bottom-up", avec tout ce qui est déjà-là, plutôt que "top-down" avec une dénaturation d'une ville à la culture et l'histoire aussi riches.
Vous avez été pris dans l'excellent "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" de Spike Lee ou la suite 4 ans plus tard, "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"? Vous êtes fan de Treme? Vous lisez en anglais? N'hésitez pas!
January 2, 2016
I read this after hearing Guy Gonzalez mention it on Reading Lives, a Book Riot podcast. Gonzalez made me want to go on an irresponsible New Orleans reading tear--irresponsible because I have plenty of other books to read right now, and there's no good reason for New Orleans to leapfrog to the top of my TBR list. But I'm glad it did.
New Orleans is an amazing city, and Piazza makes a surprisingly fresh, humanist case for it. That might sound callous, but there's plenty of careless, lazy rhetoric around how "Nawlins" is a special place that must be preserved because of its quirkiness, its climate, its eccentric residents, etc. It's all true--there is no other city in America like New Orleans, for lots of reasons (many of them horrible and heartwrenching, having to do with slavery and colonialism as much as moonlight and magnolias.) But that superficial, dumbed-down, touristified idea of New Orleans as a kind of wacky adult playground is profoundly off-putting--it takes more than day-glo plastic Hurricane cups and reams of cheap shiny beads to make a place significant.
Piazza spends almost no time on the history of the city--as he points out, there are plenty of other books that will give you that history, including The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, which is also on my night stand right now. Instead, he delivers an extended personal essay about his very personal love for the city, and his grief at the damage that Katrina caused. He name-checks restaurants, clubs, streets, and individuals both renowned and obscure, at least to non-New-Orleansians. (My wife is from Baton Rouge, and didn't recognize all of Piazza's references.) He writes vividly about the phenomenon of the jazz funeral, about the Indian krewes of Mardi Gras--their music as well as their costumes and floats--about second-lining and jazz music and the kinds of wonderful meals you can get in small delis and bars around the city.
A lot of what he writes is wonderfully personal, like the time that he broke his glasses dancing in a bar and a woman working at an all-night gas station fixed them for him with her fingernail glue, no cost. Or the day he finagled his way back into the city after Katrina to check on his house, and after a few horrible, traumatic hours of seeing dead bodies and ruined homes and armed National Guardsmen, he fell in with a group of people giving out free soda, beer, and burgers from their storefront to anyone who wanted them, as long as their supplies held out.
Piazza touches on the awful unfairness of the city, the cheek-by-jowl of rich and poor, white and black, and the way that the haves stay willfully blind and ignorant to the needs of the have-nots. He doesn't gloss over the bad stuff, or try to paint New Orleans as any kind of paradise. But what he returns to, again, and again, is the hospitality, community, roots, and joy that make New Orleans distinct from, say, Seattle or Houston. If New Orleans has a spirit, that's what defines it. Piazza argues that, above everything else, makes it worth preserving--and after reading this book, I agree.
New Orleans is an amazing city, and Piazza makes a surprisingly fresh, humanist case for it. That might sound callous, but there's plenty of careless, lazy rhetoric around how "Nawlins" is a special place that must be preserved because of its quirkiness, its climate, its eccentric residents, etc. It's all true--there is no other city in America like New Orleans, for lots of reasons (many of them horrible and heartwrenching, having to do with slavery and colonialism as much as moonlight and magnolias.) But that superficial, dumbed-down, touristified idea of New Orleans as a kind of wacky adult playground is profoundly off-putting--it takes more than day-glo plastic Hurricane cups and reams of cheap shiny beads to make a place significant.
Piazza spends almost no time on the history of the city--as he points out, there are plenty of other books that will give you that history, including The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, which is also on my night stand right now. Instead, he delivers an extended personal essay about his very personal love for the city, and his grief at the damage that Katrina caused. He name-checks restaurants, clubs, streets, and individuals both renowned and obscure, at least to non-New-Orleansians. (My wife is from Baton Rouge, and didn't recognize all of Piazza's references.) He writes vividly about the phenomenon of the jazz funeral, about the Indian krewes of Mardi Gras--their music as well as their costumes and floats--about second-lining and jazz music and the kinds of wonderful meals you can get in small delis and bars around the city.
A lot of what he writes is wonderfully personal, like the time that he broke his glasses dancing in a bar and a woman working at an all-night gas station fixed them for him with her fingernail glue, no cost. Or the day he finagled his way back into the city after Katrina to check on his house, and after a few horrible, traumatic hours of seeing dead bodies and ruined homes and armed National Guardsmen, he fell in with a group of people giving out free soda, beer, and burgers from their storefront to anyone who wanted them, as long as their supplies held out.
Piazza touches on the awful unfairness of the city, the cheek-by-jowl of rich and poor, white and black, and the way that the haves stay willfully blind and ignorant to the needs of the have-nots. He doesn't gloss over the bad stuff, or try to paint New Orleans as any kind of paradise. But what he returns to, again, and again, is the hospitality, community, roots, and joy that make New Orleans distinct from, say, Seattle or Houston. If New Orleans has a spirit, that's what defines it. Piazza argues that, above everything else, makes it worth preserving--and after reading this book, I agree.
August 27, 2019
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.
May 12, 2018
While this is a very readable little book, it's just that: a LITTLE book. It has a feel like someone took a post-Katrina editorial and pumped it full of steroids. This means that, although it tries to cover a lot of ground, it perforce has to do it without a great degree of depth. It's more of the personal impressions of the author rather than a history of the city, or even the Storm itself. That being said, I do agree with 90% of what he has to say. On the positive side, it's a decently written piece on the city, good and bad, as well as the effects of the Storm and various ideas about how to go about rebuilding it. There are some places where he comes off a bit touristy, and others where he seems to be berating tourists, which is not totally out of place when you consider NOLA's ambivalent relationships with the free-spending (we hope) hoards that visit our city. His history is also a bit spotty in places, and he ends up repeating a number of the false stories (people shooting at rescue workers from their rooftops, gang rapes in evacuation centers, etc.) from Katrina, but I'll give him a pass on those since he's writing shortly after the hurricane, while these "facts" were still being reported on the national news. If you want a quick read on the things that make New Orleans, New Orleans and the Storm and its aftermath, this is a good place to start. However, if you're looking for a more in-depth account of the disaster, I recommend Jed Horne's BREACH OF FAITH. I also recommend ONE DEAD IN ATTIC, a series of articles written in the aftermath of Katrina by local columnist Chris Rose. I give WHY NEW ORLEANS MATTERS 3.5 stars.
November 21, 2011
For New Orleans residents, both past and present, the first third of Piazza's book is filled with the sights, sounds, tastes and smells (for better or for worse) of the city we love so much. It is rich and emotional, but at times repetitive. He waxes poetic about New Orleans, and it's like a free trip to all the wonderful places you see in your dreams.
Piazza then spends the second third of the book explaining how the true spirit of New Orleans was born from the efforts, struggles and mere daily existence of the city's poorest residents. He strongly criticizes those who might be bold enough to suggest that the "underprivileged" somehow got a second chance at life because of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. In the last third, Piazza worries over the future of New Orleans, post-Katrina. Would those who hold the purse strings allow it to become another Las Vegas? Would the spirit of New Orleans be lost, and simply remain a chapter in history? Six years later, it's still hard to say. There are elements of both going on in NOLA, but I think it's safe to say that the spirit of that place is alive and well. It can never be lost, as long as people exist who love the old New Orleans and are willing to fight for it.
Piazza then spends the second third of the book explaining how the true spirit of New Orleans was born from the efforts, struggles and mere daily existence of the city's poorest residents. He strongly criticizes those who might be bold enough to suggest that the "underprivileged" somehow got a second chance at life because of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. In the last third, Piazza worries over the future of New Orleans, post-Katrina. Would those who hold the purse strings allow it to become another Las Vegas? Would the spirit of New Orleans be lost, and simply remain a chapter in history? Six years later, it's still hard to say. There are elements of both going on in NOLA, but I think it's safe to say that the spirit of that place is alive and well. It can never be lost, as long as people exist who love the old New Orleans and are willing to fight for it.
Read
June 19, 2009Read the STOP SMILING interview with author Tom Piazza
Setting the Tempo: TOM PIAZZA
By JC Gabel
(This interview originally appeared in the STOP SMILING Ode to the South Issue)
Tom Piazza grew up on Long Island, New York, but has lived in New Orleans for the last 14 years. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as an ardent jazz fan and historian, Piazza fell in love with the Crescent City, which spawned not only jazz itself, but also some of the most unforgettable works of American literature.
In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, Piazza wrote his ode to the city, Why New Orleans Matters, which was published by HarperCollins just three months after the storm. He is the author of eight other books, including the short story collection Blues and Trouble, the novel My Cold War, several collections of jazz writings (Understanding Jazz, The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz and Blues Up and Down: Jazz in Our Time) and a portrait of bluegrass music great Jimmy Martin (True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass). He is currently at work on two new novels, one of which is set in New Orleans.
Piazza spoke with STOP SMILING this past spring about what has become of his favorite American city.
Read the complete interview...
Setting the Tempo: TOM PIAZZA
By JC Gabel
(This interview originally appeared in the STOP SMILING Ode to the South Issue)
Tom Piazza grew up on Long Island, New York, but has lived in New Orleans for the last 14 years. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, as well as an ardent jazz fan and historian, Piazza fell in love with the Crescent City, which spawned not only jazz itself, but also some of the most unforgettable works of American literature.
In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, Piazza wrote his ode to the city, Why New Orleans Matters, which was published by HarperCollins just three months after the storm. He is the author of eight other books, including the short story collection Blues and Trouble, the novel My Cold War, several collections of jazz writings (Understanding Jazz, The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz and Blues Up and Down: Jazz in Our Time) and a portrait of bluegrass music great Jimmy Martin (True Adventures with the King of Bluegrass). He is currently at work on two new novels, one of which is set in New Orleans.
Piazza spoke with STOP SMILING this past spring about what has become of his favorite American city.
Read the complete interview...
April 3, 2008
Before going to Jamaica, I read two books that greatly amplified my experience there: Catch a Fire; the Life of Bob Marley and The History of the Jamaican People. (Yeah, I know, there’s something obliquely offensive about the title, but the content was good.) This travel time, before going to New Orleans, I’m reading Why New Orleans Matters and one other book that I will only admit to in person, but not in writing on the Internet. Piazza’s book, which is really just a travel memoir, (even though he lived in New Orleans for many years) doesn’t give a great deal of history. It’s more like his impressions, feelings, and introspections on a city he came to love as a dear friend. It reminds me mildly of Eat, Pray, and Love, although, as one might expect, it has less to say on emotions and more to say on sensory details. I might not find it too interesting if I were not going there in a few weeks, but, as it is, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. I only have about 90 minutes left to go on it, but I’m intrigued about how he’s going to wrap it up, as he wrote it both before and after Katrina.
Wow -- this sounds sooooooooo bad, but the last chapter was a real killer. It was like reading someone's therapy journal after major post-traumatic stress syndrome. Obviously, it's well-earned, but, whew! hard to read!
Wow -- this sounds sooooooooo bad, but the last chapter was a real killer. It was like reading someone's therapy journal after major post-traumatic stress syndrome. Obviously, it's well-earned, but, whew! hard to read!
December 11, 2012
This is an interesting book, in two parts. The first is an attempt by Piazza to capture the spirit, the soul of New Orleans in words. The second is about the aftereffects of Katrina. Both are interesting. And I have to say it is odd, perhaps, that I am not more enamored of New Orleans than I am. In a lot of ways, I am pursuing the mysticism that makes America what it is. There is a lot of that in New Orleans, I have to admit. Perhaps I need to make a road trip. Perhaps. Anyway, what drew me to this work is one of my perennial concerns, how the peculiar relation between location and the people in it gives a place a soul, so to speak. I am a pretty firm believer that everywhere has such an anima. Well, everywhere that has been inhabited for any length of time. Sometime it is difficult to get in touch with it, and sometimes familiarity builds blindness to what is there, but I've been lucky enough to find a way to get in touch with some part of it wherever I've been. Anyway, an interesting book. Recommended.
July 30, 2011
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.
April 18, 2018
Don't know that I've ever bought a book from an airport bookstore but after a recent, quick trip to New Orleans, I found myself morbidly drawn to the Katrina story, which I knew in a sort of way. Essentially, this book is an extended essay, as the title suggests, on New Orleans and its charms and its troubles. Very readable if a little preachy (but who can blame him, given that he wrote it during the George W. Bush years?). And though the city seems far from those tenuous days of 2005 when there was debate about whether or not to save it, this book's a nice little primer on our most unique--and fun--town.
April 30, 2020
More of a cry from the heart than an ‘argument’ proper (though it gets that way more towards the end) but given that he wrote this a couple of months after Katrina ravaged his home, with the love he has for it being plain and palpable and plaintive, it doesn’t need to be.
This is as good a response as anybody needs to answer the question, rhetorical or not, posed by the title. And the fact that it’s largely consisting of loving and sensitive references to oak trees, restaurants, bars, music clubs, Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras, is sort of the whole point.
Jockomo fee na nay!
This is as good a response as anybody needs to answer the question, rhetorical or not, posed by the title. And the fact that it’s largely consisting of loving and sensitive references to oak trees, restaurants, bars, music clubs, Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras, is sort of the whole point.
Jockomo fee na nay!
May 20, 2018
Written just after Katrina this small book thoughtfully considers the characteristics that make NOLA unique and woothwhile. Even-handedly detailiing both the good and bad, the author makes a good case for the city, with contagious affection that maKes me want to visit again. At the time of publication the future of the city was not assured but it seems to be recovering somewhat. I wonder about the author's view of post-Katrina progress.
April 24, 2010
A treacly, maudlin travelogue, and in some parts insulting to native New Orleanians (this one, anyway).
July 1, 2025
Lowkey - the first part of this book was really unnecessary but kudos to the Dr. John and Jazz Fest descriptions - what realy was moving was the second half of the book that really moved me - I think taking the time to unpack what Katrina meant for an transplant was a really unique and I hadn't really heard that perspective yet in the retellings of Katrina
October 20, 2022
This is kind of a Fodor’s travel guide, but with more passion. Why the author fell in love with New Orleans pre-Katrina, and his experiences and thoughts afterwards. Piazza truly loves NOLA and it’s people. Really enjoyed his insight.
January 6, 2025
Really wanting to understand New Orleans better after our recent trip. This book was a really good start. Piazza is a gifted writer / observer.
January 2, 2022
I think New Orleans is just too unique, diverse and special in so many different ways to try to capture it within one book. There is no box big enough to encompass the spirit of the city, neither there should be. Mr. Piazza did a pretty good job of attempting it, but it will always be just an attempt, an aspiration, never a fully realized objective. Worth reading for tourists and people wanting to visit New Orleans, not so much for the residents of the Big Easy themselves.
The three stars are for the author’s vivid description of the jazz music and its omnipresent influence over the people in all neighborhoods throughout New Orleans.
The three stars are for the author’s vivid description of the jazz music and its omnipresent influence over the people in all neighborhoods throughout New Orleans.
March 3, 2020
Great little book, full of passion and insight.
December 30, 2021
This was a book I started in hopes of taking another trip to New Orleans, which unfortunately had to be canceled. While this book discusses a lot of cultural importance of New Orleans and the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, I found a lot of parallels to issues we are seeing today. I was especially impressed about the conversations around racism. For a book that was published in 2005, I can say for myself at least that I was
not thinking about those topics at much at this time.
not thinking about those topics at much at this time.
August 29, 2008
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.
August 22, 2011
A very quick read, if for no other reason than the entire book, including introduction, is fewer than 200 pages long. I saw this book in a great bookshop while on vacation in New Orleans and tracked it down when we got back to Baltimore. I took it with me this weekend when I flew up to Boston and back and easily got through it thanks in no small part to a 3 hour delay coming back to Baltimore.
The book is well-written and is generally a meditation on New Orleans culture. It's broken up into two parts. The first, which makes up the majority of the book, dwells on the author's deep love for his adopted home town (he's originally from New York) and you feel almost as if he is leading you through a tour of his own memories of a city that he fears is gone forever. Maybe that's the bias of hindsight coming into play, though, for now the reader knows how the story goes in the years immediately after the disaster, but this book was written in a few short weeks in the early fall of 2005...when the wounds of Katrina were still open for Piazza and many other NOLA and Gulf Coast residents. In Part 1 you'll learn about the author's first visit to New Orleans, what drew him there and what kept him there. Much of his affection for NOLA stems from his love of jazz, and much of the book is suffused with that love, just as anyone who has gone to New Orleans can attest to how the city itself is linked with music of all kinds. My favorite part of this section was his description of visiting Jazz Fest for the first time.
The second part talks about his return to New Orleans immediately after the storm, although it is shorter than Part 1. The first half of this part is some of the strongest writing in the book, even as it becomes stream-of-consciousness...I'd have to imagine that at some point this book became more cathartic than memorial and you get that feeling when you hit this part of the book. At one point he says he became very aware of how much emotional turmoil was going on inside him, even as he maintained calm on the surface, which I very much liked...the book feels like a physical manifestation of that juxtaposition to me.
Overall, I recommend reading this book. It's a fast read, but it is a personal account of what makes New Orleans great, the pain its residents felt and still feel after Katrina, and the hope that the city would someday be able to recover. It's wistful in the beginning, heartbreaking in the middle, but hopeful at the end...a nice mix of emotions just about everyone who has been or lived in New Orleans feels when they're in NOLA.
The book is well-written and is generally a meditation on New Orleans culture. It's broken up into two parts. The first, which makes up the majority of the book, dwells on the author's deep love for his adopted home town (he's originally from New York) and you feel almost as if he is leading you through a tour of his own memories of a city that he fears is gone forever. Maybe that's the bias of hindsight coming into play, though, for now the reader knows how the story goes in the years immediately after the disaster, but this book was written in a few short weeks in the early fall of 2005...when the wounds of Katrina were still open for Piazza and many other NOLA and Gulf Coast residents. In Part 1 you'll learn about the author's first visit to New Orleans, what drew him there and what kept him there. Much of his affection for NOLA stems from his love of jazz, and much of the book is suffused with that love, just as anyone who has gone to New Orleans can attest to how the city itself is linked with music of all kinds. My favorite part of this section was his description of visiting Jazz Fest for the first time.
The second part talks about his return to New Orleans immediately after the storm, although it is shorter than Part 1. The first half of this part is some of the strongest writing in the book, even as it becomes stream-of-consciousness...I'd have to imagine that at some point this book became more cathartic than memorial and you get that feeling when you hit this part of the book. At one point he says he became very aware of how much emotional turmoil was going on inside him, even as he maintained calm on the surface, which I very much liked...the book feels like a physical manifestation of that juxtaposition to me.
Overall, I recommend reading this book. It's a fast read, but it is a personal account of what makes New Orleans great, the pain its residents felt and still feel after Katrina, and the hope that the city would someday be able to recover. It's wistful in the beginning, heartbreaking in the middle, but hopeful at the end...a nice mix of emotions just about everyone who has been or lived in New Orleans feels when they're in NOLA.
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February 8, 2015The book I've been looking for for years....
I rarely give a book 5 stars. 4, often, but 5 is for those life changing/affirming pieces that are rare. I wish I could give this book 6. As a "Creole" (a term of some ambiguity) who wasn't born or raised in NOLA but had family in Louisiana, NOLA has always been a cultural touchstone. A "Mecca or Jerusalem" for me, living in a place where no one understood (in fact berated) my culture. I first went as an adult in 2000 & discovered that there was indeed a place "for me"... My tastes, my heritage, even as simple as people being able to pronounce my surname. Then Katrina happened & my "place in the universe" suddenly was threatened with extinction. It took me about 8 years to return, but when we did, it was a reunion...the cultural prodigal son returning to his "home". I've struggled for years to find the words to explain the importance of this city to me & I believe to the world at large (whether they know it or not). In all the music, cooking, captured images, and writing I've done while living physically in New York but culturally in NOLA I've never hit on it exactly.
That is what Piazza does in this book. He captures "it" - all of it. I read it and it was as if I found the sermon that spoke to me, the person who said, with open arms, I get it, I feel that way too, here's how I describe it. NOLA continues to be a major piece of my life. A city I love "as you do a person" (for me she's like that crazy auntie we all have & love more than life itself). A city as I live where I was raised in Hoboken, NJ that parallels my physical hometown as a cultural one (J Kennedy Toole called NOLA "Hoboken on the Gulf"). Tom manages to address much of the best, and the worst, & the worth fighting for in both of those places. Thank you Mr. Piazza for writing my "manifesto" & putting on paper the thoughts, emotions, & feelings that have haunted, lifted, & saddened me for years.
I rarely give a book 5 stars. 4, often, but 5 is for those life changing/affirming pieces that are rare. I wish I could give this book 6. As a "Creole" (a term of some ambiguity) who wasn't born or raised in NOLA but had family in Louisiana, NOLA has always been a cultural touchstone. A "Mecca or Jerusalem" for me, living in a place where no one understood (in fact berated) my culture. I first went as an adult in 2000 & discovered that there was indeed a place "for me"... My tastes, my heritage, even as simple as people being able to pronounce my surname. Then Katrina happened & my "place in the universe" suddenly was threatened with extinction. It took me about 8 years to return, but when we did, it was a reunion...the cultural prodigal son returning to his "home". I've struggled for years to find the words to explain the importance of this city to me & I believe to the world at large (whether they know it or not). In all the music, cooking, captured images, and writing I've done while living physically in New York but culturally in NOLA I've never hit on it exactly.
That is what Piazza does in this book. He captures "it" - all of it. I read it and it was as if I found the sermon that spoke to me, the person who said, with open arms, I get it, I feel that way too, here's how I describe it. NOLA continues to be a major piece of my life. A city I love "as you do a person" (for me she's like that crazy auntie we all have & love more than life itself). A city as I live where I was raised in Hoboken, NJ that parallels my physical hometown as a cultural one (J Kennedy Toole called NOLA "Hoboken on the Gulf"). Tom manages to address much of the best, and the worst, & the worth fighting for in both of those places. Thank you Mr. Piazza for writing my "manifesto" & putting on paper the thoughts, emotions, & feelings that have haunted, lifted, & saddened me for years.
August 11, 2014
This ended up being a wonderful book. First written as a love letter to the city post-Katrina as well as a plea for the world to step up and take care of the ailing and devastated city back when no one had decided what was to be done with New Orleans but many had ideas. Piazza was primarily concerned that the city would be rebranded and rebuilt as a Las Vegas of the South. Of course, this was a more effective plea back in 2005 when no one knew what was going to happen.
Piazza adds an afterword three years later, so tenderly written that it gave me goosebumps (and I know it did, because I was outside in 80 degree weather) and made me tear up. He praises all those organizations and individuals who generously contributed their time and money to help the city return to a semblance of its former glory but admits that New Orleans still had a long ways to go and that it now suffers from many setbacks, including a spike in the crime rate. He mainly criticizes the federal government and the Bush administration. Things have improved since then, and it would be interesting to see what Piazza would say now.
He makes a really great point to those who say, why should we rebuild a damaged city? His point: "The disaster that happened in New Orleans was not, and is not, a local problem. It is a national problem, and we have to face it as a nation. Otherwise we may as well write off the "United" part of the United States."
Though this book was intended to be read immediately after Katrina hit, it is still a valuable (and quick) read, especially for those interested in New Orleans. I personally love reading the words of anyone who loves his or her subject with such passion as Piazza for New Orleans.
Piazza adds an afterword three years later, so tenderly written that it gave me goosebumps (and I know it did, because I was outside in 80 degree weather) and made me tear up. He praises all those organizations and individuals who generously contributed their time and money to help the city return to a semblance of its former glory but admits that New Orleans still had a long ways to go and that it now suffers from many setbacks, including a spike in the crime rate. He mainly criticizes the federal government and the Bush administration. Things have improved since then, and it would be interesting to see what Piazza would say now.
He makes a really great point to those who say, why should we rebuild a damaged city? His point: "The disaster that happened in New Orleans was not, and is not, a local problem. It is a national problem, and we have to face it as a nation. Otherwise we may as well write off the "United" part of the United States."
Though this book was intended to be read immediately after Katrina hit, it is still a valuable (and quick) read, especially for those interested in New Orleans. I personally love reading the words of anyone who loves his or her subject with such passion as Piazza for New Orleans.
October 28, 2016
This is a short book that could be read very quickly. The author, a native New Yorker and adopted New Orleanian, wrote the book in the weeks after Hurricane Katrina. He describes the city's being/essence/culture, his love affair with it, as well as the devastation post-Katrina and, to a small extent, the different paths the city could take in being rebuilt. This last part was especially interesting, and I was glad to determine, albeit only based on one short trip taken there, that it has taken the path he hoped it would - celebrating and building on its long and complicated history and culture, as opposed to starting with a "clean slate" (as some officials referred to the city post-Katrina) and creating a "Las Vegas of the South" based solely on commercial interests, vapid and devoid of the spirit of the city. He argued that such a New Orleans would never thrive long-term since tourists are such an important part of the economy and would recognize the cultural emptiness. There were some very moving "philosophical" passages, some very jarring (but important) descriptions of the destruction, and some really interesting stories about his time in the city pre-Katrina (exploring the city by bike, jazz funerals and the unspoken but understood need to appreciate what a gift it is to be alive). There were also some chapters (mostly on jazz music) I could have done without but others may find interesting.
"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" (p. 31).
"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" (p. 31).
August 23, 2016
Unfortunately, I was disappointed by this book. My biggest problem is that the targeted audience is unclear. It seems as though it must have been written for people who have never been to this city, as it was largely a compilation of all the touristy aspects of New Orleans, and didn't contribute much novelty in terms of places or sentiments commonly shared by those who have lived in this culture. A further piece leading to the audience confusion is that it seems as though it would've been hard for an outsider to create a picture in their mind of Piazza's New Orleans if they didn't have prior exposure with the city's geography (due to all the references). Truthfully, I would've preferred if he had just made a list of favorite musicians and restaurants, as he undeniably has a background in the arts and an appreciation of food. I found his dealings with corruption, racism, crime, Katrina etc. to be way over-simplified, and much of the language pushed boundaries of narcissism, ignorance and insensitivity. In writing about Katrina, he said it wasn't even worth it to write about the experience; his final proposition for reviving New Orleans was far from developed. I was hoping for a book that pinned down "that thing" that no one seems to be able to describe, leaving the tourism behind and narrowing in on the reality and reasonings of the people who live here and the soul of this city. I'm sorry to say that this book failed to deliver such an experience.
April 5, 2015
Written by a NOLA native in the months immediately follow Katrina, this book has renewed my love for New Orleans.
I'll admit that I was one of the people that said, it would be stupid to rebuild New Orleans. I love the culture but in the battle between man and nature, the latter has a way of coming out on top. Mr. Piazza pointed out that ALL cities are hard at work keeping nature at bay. Think of trees and grass, without lawn care they too would overrun a city. It's not New Orleans fault that their battle is so dramatic.
And what a culture they're battling for! The music is magical, the food is fantastic, the architecture is awesome, the outlook on life a special mix of moroseness and mirth. Crime and corruption are rampant in the city and that's detestable. But the philosophy that makes the culture so famous is inextricably linked to the hardships of life. Sure, that culture is so developed that you could take a New Orleanian out of New Orleans and still keep it. But all cultures change and grow over time. If we forced New Orleans underwater, we would be robbing ourselves of the experience of whatever came next for that culture. And since the culture is so very special now, I shudder to think of what we'd be missing out if we didn't give it a chance to evolve.
I'll admit that I was one of the people that said, it would be stupid to rebuild New Orleans. I love the culture but in the battle between man and nature, the latter has a way of coming out on top. Mr. Piazza pointed out that ALL cities are hard at work keeping nature at bay. Think of trees and grass, without lawn care they too would overrun a city. It's not New Orleans fault that their battle is so dramatic.
And what a culture they're battling for! The music is magical, the food is fantastic, the architecture is awesome, the outlook on life a special mix of moroseness and mirth. Crime and corruption are rampant in the city and that's detestable. But the philosophy that makes the culture so famous is inextricably linked to the hardships of life. Sure, that culture is so developed that you could take a New Orleanian out of New Orleans and still keep it. But all cultures change and grow over time. If we forced New Orleans underwater, we would be robbing ourselves of the experience of whatever came next for that culture. And since the culture is so very special now, I shudder to think of what we'd be missing out if we didn't give it a chance to evolve.
December 11, 2010
I came to this book via a recommendation on the New Orleans Times-Picayune's excellent blog about the HBO series "Treme." I suspect one's appreciation of the book will be directly proportional to one's appreciation of the city. The author's passion for his adopted hometown is clearly evident, although Piazza's lists of the restaurants and musicians he loves is unlikely to inspire the uninitiated. To his credit, Piazza doesn't romanticize New Orleans, exploring, if briefly, the complicated city's dysfunctions as well as its appeal. The book is a little uneven and repetitive (did we really need two anecdotes about how a stranger fixed the author's glasses as evidence of the city's humanity?) but there is genuine emotion here. The book ends shortly after Hurricane Katrina, so I'm curious to see what Piazza has since written about New Orleans and its recovery. A quick but important read.
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