Back From JazzFest
Back from New Orleans Jazz Fest. Food? Good. Dylan? Incomprehensible, but good. Huge ass beers? Still huge ass.
The initial line for tickets at Jazz Fest was insane (see diagram). I've never seen such chaos, with the line spontaneously snaking into crazy, fractalesque spirals. The dazed looks on people's faces as they tried to find the end of the line were priceless. The festival workers seemed more interested in chatting with each other than trying to get the situation under control. Disorganization and poor planning seems to be a common theme in New Orleans. But once we got in, all was well.
On a depressing note, we saw the hurricane devastation first hand. I'm surprised how completely destroyed parts of New Orleans still are, eight months after Katrina. Some neighborhoods looked, to borrow an overused media phrase, like a war zone. Blue tarps and caved in roofs everywhere. Entire buildings gutted from fires. Giant piles of debris in the streets (well, other than the usual French Quarter debris of discarded hand grenade cups and party-soaked clothing). One of the most chilling sights were the x's painted on some of the houses, indicating that they'd been inspected for survivors or bodies. Spray-painted messages on houses like '2 dogs dead' were not uncommon.
But, now we're back in Tallahassee. Next weekend, we're staying in a beach house on St. George Island, which should be the perfect cooldown after a weekend in New Orleans.