Doctor Daisy

I thought I had been keeping up a good reading and writing pace, but having just graded 20+ papers I realize that still I have a lot to accomplish this month:

Sheesh…

Now I feel guilty for having watched 2 movies and countless Sex and the City episodes this week so I am going to go bury my head in the books. And speaking of books, it seems everyone I mention Douglas Brinkley to these days says his book ain’t all that. Here are some other Katrina texts I’ll have to look at, eventually.

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Recently reported, in “Stress building in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina anniversary could spark more problems,” was the story of a Times-Picayune photographer who “was seen driving wildly through the city Tuesday, attracting the attention of police. He eventually was arrested, but not before he was subdued with a Taser and an officer fired twice at his vehicle. During the melee, he begged police to kill him.” According to a friend of the photographer and NOLA Metroblogger, “Police quoted the photographer during the first attempt to stop him as saying ‘Just kill me, get it over with, kill me.’ John’s home in Lakeview was destroyed and he was under-insured. He is one of the thousands of people in New Orleans who’s financial life has been flipped and flopped to where he saw no way out.”

As the numbers suggested in “Blues are rampant; too few helping,” the number of therapists in NOLA is scant; however, this man had gone to therapy sessions three times a week. What else could he have done to recover from the horror of Katrina? Was talking not enough?

Leader in the field of psychological trauma, Bessel Van der Kolk, would say “yes.” The traditional “talking cure” of Freud’s time is not enough; the body is connected to the mind. In brief, Van der Kolk reasons the connection here [PDF] as follows:

When people get close to reexperiencing their trauma, they get so upset that they can no longer speak. It seemed to me that then we needed to find some way to access their trauma, but help them stay physiologically quiet enough to tolerate it; so they didn’t freak out or shut down in treatment. It was pretty obvious that as long as people just sat and moved their tongues around, there wasn’t enough real change.

That’s a snippit from my lit review…here is the link to Trauma Pages, a recent find I’ll have to explore later…

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OK I know that the Today Show is hardly the place to turn for hard news, but I’ve often listened to the first 15 minutes or so to get the headlines since I don’t have cable. Sometimes when I sleep late, I turn it on only to find that last hour of fluff (concerts, cookouts, etc) and no news at all. So imagine my surprise this morning when I saw in the first fifteen minutes of “top stories” a report on Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn being engaged. And the key source of this news: an editor or reporter from US Weekly. What the hell?????? Sure, I can see why some might find that story to be vital to the start of one’s day, and I love me some Vince, but since when are gossip rags called in as credible sources? I even read something the other day on MSNBC that referenced another gossip site TMZ.com. Sad sad sad…

I’m going back to my academic reading and pretend none of this happened…

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Blogathon for Pearlington was successful and I really recommend checking out the posts they made every half hour for 24 hours. They plan to maintain the blog even now. Two of their posts stick out to me: the one promoting The Katrina Collection, in which the artist “used fragments of old paintings, keys to my home, clocks which stopped when the storm reached Clermont Harbor, and many other pieces of rubble to represent this journey.” The other post is on Katrina and the media. In it they write:

The media used the graphic nature of tragedies in New Orleans to run its own self-serving campaign against the government. They did this at the expense of the storm victims. That’s not to say the government didn’t make its share of mistakes. It is only to say that the media was so focused on sensationalizing government culpability that it failed to tell the whole story.

I couldn’t have said it better, and again I have to tell you that Douglas Brinkley’s book The Great Deluge is amazing on this front of being a factual representation of what went on [on so many levels] that week of the storm. I’m learning so much even about how much damage the actual storm/Mother Nature did. I think I’d been forgetting how much wind damage was done to certain neighborhoods in the area even before the levees broke. Guess that proves we all need to learn more and keep the story alive rather than let it be brushed under the rug.

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In addition to Rudy telling his tale in “Fleeing Katrina,” numerous film documentaries have been/are being made in NOLA, which I find extremely important. Two are discussed in the Times Picayune here.
I’ll have to find someone with HBO to tape the Spike Lee one for me.

I haven’t returned to the difficult book I mentioned 2 posts ago, but instead returned to Trauma and the Teaching of Writing where I found Peter N. Goggin and Maureen Daly Goggin’s essay, “Presence in Absence: Discourses (In, On, and About) Trauma” to be helpful, straightforward and quite applicable to my work, especially in how I think about and define my role as a first and second-degree witness to Katrina.

With that said, these documentaries are another venue for all such witnesses to tell their stories and share their “infinitely diverse reactions–grief, anger, ambivalence, hatred, silence” (Goggin & Goggin 38).

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Looks like I am not the only one thinking about the post traumatic stress in NOLA.

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Photographer: Charlie Riedel/AP

When I was reading Douglas Brinkley’s The Great Deluge last night, I decided to check out the photo section in the back. While I felt numb when I read about people tying bodies to trees in Anderson Cooper’s book, when I saw this photo and realized that something like this happened with my neighborhood church and elementary school, St. Raphael the Archangel on Elysian Fields Avenue, in the background, I freaked out. It all came back…walking the 3 blocks between my house and that school with my friend Adrianna, attending midnight masses at Christmas, singing in the choir during our weekly school masses on Thursdays, and all of my teachers. As much as I try to think about the future and try to feel optimistic about the New Orleans spirit, here I am traumatized all over again. I am reminded that “it” happened…the storm we all knew would come one day but brushed it off saying, “Those hurricanes always turn and head to Alabama or Florida or Texas. I’m not going to evacuate this time.” Death was everywhere, water was everywhere, and we’re a long way from feeling normal again.

To be able to apply theory to what I feel when moments like this happen, I’m also pushing myself through the book Trauma: A Genealogy, but it’s been difficult. So far, the first chapter on Freud summarizes his work and what is often not grasped in his work, namely that “anxiety is both cure and cause of psychic trauma” (28); however, once all the psychoanalytic talk of ego, libido, mimetic and antimimetic identification comes in, I’m lost. I think too that my frustration stems from many of the examples in this chapter referring to traumatized soldiers of war and not victims of natural/man-made disasters. I can see how “The response of the traumatized solider thus at one and the same time represents the achievement of defense and the failure of defense, the success of protection and the breaching of the protective shield…” (35), but how can that detachment and impressionability apply to victims of Katrina where there was nothing but failure?

Typically, if I am reading a difficult text and cannot see a way of applying the work to my topic of interest, then I skim or close the book. With my comprehensive exams coming up, though, I’m plugging along through this one until something makes sense or becomes applicable!

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Performing in this year’s Midtown International Theatre Festival is my favorite fabulous friend Rudy. The show is Fleeing Katrina, “A collection of monologues which tracks astounding journeys spawned by America’s most epic natural/manmade disaster.” And if you recall, I blogged about his evacuation story a lot last year.

It opened this week and the reviews are out! Here is one from NYTheatre.com but the one from TalkinBroadway.com is more in depth (and a rave!)

I don’t know if their links die or not, so I am gonna go ahead and paste in the 3 paragraphs devoted to Rudy:

The portraits the actors paint, if never riveting, are all at least sensitively detailed. But only Rudy Rasmussen transcends the ordinary to achieve something more: He’s telling his own story, of all but forcibly evacuating his parents from their home, of experiencing firsthand the unnecessary anarchy that erupted in public places and hospitals alike, of the ineffectuality of public figures such as Geraldo Rivera, Al Gore, and even President Bush.

While Rasmussen’s program bio cites acting credits, his work is the evening’s most casual and least polished, suggesting - can it be? - that his words are being delivered extemporaneously. That kind of informality in a piece as delicate as this one - which already struggles under the weight of Kellerman’s awkward staging - could prove highly volatile. But Rasmussen’s corny jokes, silly digressions, and wide-eyed disbelief at the occurrences he describes make even the better of the other monologues seem overly mannered and actory.

It’s possible they might better capture their subjects’ inner spirits, but only Rasmussen achieves the true goal of Fleeing Katrina: finding reason in escalating randomness. However ragged his delivery, he’s the shot of adrenaline capable of making the pedestrian profound. Without it, the show is merely a theatrical exercise that tries too hard to approximate the heart and soul of the city and people it claims to be celebrating.

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I finished an annotated bibliography today and have one more to go. This second one is the more serious of the 2 and will be the heart of my trauma theory lit review. All summer I’ve been jazzed about reading the stuff, then kept letting myself be distracted by examples [most recently the Douglas Brinkley book I bought months ago] to apply the theory to, even though I haven’t read the cold, hard theory yet! Talk about belated immediacy…

In other news about texts and what people need to understand about NOLA, here is an excerpt from Poppy Z Brite’s post:

Something you need to understand, if you’re not in New Orleans or in unwilling exile from here: This is probably the worst, scariest, most unstable time for us since the immediate aftermath of the storm. It feels like we’ve reached an unsatisfactory plateau of progress, especially with Nagin back in office and not talking to us, and many of us are still waiting on insurance/FEMA/LRA while our homes sit and rot, and the one-year anniversary is coming up and we’ve all got to argue about how it should be observed the same way we had to argue about whether or not we should have Mardi Gras. Things are just going to get rawer and rawer and crazier and crazier in this town until August 29. I don’t know what’s going to happen after that, but until then, we don’t need people who don’t know what it’s like to be here SAYING SHIT TO US.

I haven’t read anyone as feisty, and legitimately so, since BitchPhD, and do I love it! I also cannot wait to read Brite’s new book, the third in the Rickey and G-man series,
.

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I was just forwarded this via email. It was filmed pre-Katrina and is beautiful. Go here for the info on it although the main thing you need to know is that it “features exclusively local New Orleans talent.”

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Thanks to Meez.com, here I am in NOLA, at Mardi Gras, just blogging away!

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Once again, another great blog conference way far away in north California…

All the sessions look informative and offer the blog basics, still I reviewed the schedules for days 1 and 2 for anything trauma-related [remember BloggerCon had that Emotional Life of weblogs?] and finally saw this:

Closing Keynote - Creating Your Platform: Chris Nolan leads a discussion with four powerhouse women: Hurricane Katrina Direct Relief founder and professional blogger Grace Davis, Huffington Post founder and author Arianna Huffington, WashingtonPost.com/Newsweek Interactive CEO and Publisher Caroline Little and SixApart founder and President Mena Trott. These women have used the web to create and control their agenda…and give a voice to others. Whether your agenda is transforming your life, your business or the world, this closing session should send you back to your lives (or on to the cocktail party) inspired, energized and ready to make things happen!

I’ll update this post later with links to summaries/reactions to their session.

Speaking of conferences and before I sign off from the local Panera where I’ve been working on a lit review, here is a link to an update on the Rising Tide Conference happening in August in NOLA.

I booked my flight earlier this week so let’s hope the weather holds up!!!

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Yes, you read that correctly…

I’d like to preface this by saying I am a sophisticated Minnesota Twins fan, but I had to blog about what happens across the state at the Milwaukee Brewers’ Miller baseball park: weenie races.

And it looks like another sausage has joined the group, previously comprised of Italian, bratwurst, Polish and hot dog. He’s Chorizo, also known as “El Picante.”

I cannot stop laughing at the text of this article, but the pic is even better! Ole!

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Via Jim Moore, Damien Mulley’s blog post on “How to use Google to get a girl and get laid.”

What a piece of visual rhetoric!

P.S. Also from Jim, this tool: Top 10 Sources. I created an account about a month ago but wasn’t sure what I should make a list of, personal or academic. I guess I can do both but will make you aware of what I choose later this weekend.

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Sharon is participating in this Blogathon [see FAQ here] and I thought I should give it a plug. I wish I had heard about it sooner, otherwise I’d join her but I think it’s a little late to ask for sponsors. Also, starting Friday I have a goal of writing 2 pages a day of lit review material so I don’t think blogging every half hour for 24 hours on Saturday is a good idea right now.

Anyway, go sponsor her if you can!

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Which Sondheim show are you?

You are INTO THE WOODS! You have big dreams and are determined to make them come true, but be careful what you wish for. Dreams really do come true and definitiely not without a price. You need to face the giants in your life and confront them before they smash you underfoot.
Take this quiz!

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While the Madonna concert was the highlight of the Miami trip, we did go to the beach a couple of times. Let’s just say it wasn’t all picture perfect…

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Girls weekend in Miami–me, my friends Sarah and Desi, and Madonna!

The concert was fabulous, yet political at times. I liked the images she used during Live to Tell and Sorry but felt that her accusation of people only “talking the talk and not walking the walk” was totally contradicted when she later yelled to a screaming fan, “Can you speak English?!?!?” Um, hello, you’re in Miami and you just preached about world politics…Well at least she didn’t sound all posh with that fake British accent of hers.

I think I’d rather have seen her have the whole tour as a big party like the last several songs felt: Lucky Star, La Isla Bonita, and Hung Up.

All I can really say is that this concert pumped me up for seeing the Pet Shop Boys in October, especially when I heard Neil Tennant’s voice in “Sorry.”

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Had an awesome weekend in Miami and will blog about that later. Right now I have more cabinet replacement people in my apt. so I am gonna keep this short and take refuge in my bedroom!

Via a comment from Wet Bank Guide, I’ve just been informed of a BloggerCon-like conference to take place in NOLA in August. Here is the link to the conference wiki and I’ve already added my name to the impressive list of bloggers.

I am so excited about this and can see it helping my dissertation so much! I wish I didn’t have those pesky comprehensive exams to worry about but, as with every return trip I make to NOLA, these meetings will inspire me to write, write, write! And as has been suggested to me in the past, perhaps I will also incorporate some audio and visual…

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I have to get on the road for a 4+ hour drive to Miami, but wanted to share the link to the PDF of the newest Pew Internet and American Life Project report: Bloggers: A portrait of the internet’s new storytellers

I think it is most interesting that “most bloggers are primarily interested in creative, personal expression – documenting individual experiences, sharing practical knowledge, or just keeping in touch with friends and family.” This is similar to my students responses for why they keep a MySpace account (compared to the Vanity Fair sexing it up and news media reports scaring you off).

Having just found links to a slew of New Orleanian bloggers this past week too, I think it exemplifies their reasons for blogging as well.

Blog on!

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There was such an event and I missed it! I read about it here on SophMom and on Editor B’s blog.

Here is the link/description of the dinner, which sounds very much like the Friday night dinners at BloggerCon, and which is all the more reason I am kicking myself for not knowing about it sooner!

I hope to make it to the next one! Let’s hope Think NOLA responds to my comment.

EDITED to include the link to this blog post which links to many other NOLA bloggers. How I wish I were home to meet up with them, but at least they are documenting their rebuilding efforts!

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We went to NOLA this past weekend and it was a wonderful trip. Lots of restaurants reopening, musicians performing and other signs of normalcy all around, but this time I saw more of the vacant neighborhoods and gutted houses. Streets and streets are completely desolate and you wonder where all these people are. Every place I ever rode my bike has changed and it’s hard to imagine the changes that will continue to come as buildings are bulldozed away.

I went to the Katrina exhibit at NOMA and have to say I did not like it. There were way too many pictures on the dozen or so walls and no real organization to them. Some were obviously professionally taken and others were by children; some were closeups of moldy items from a flooded home and others were street shots, but with no caption telling you what street. It seems the curator wanted to show all of the pictures submitted, but sometimes I think such images are more powerful with some white space around them. This way it was hard to even concentrate on one picture without other onlookers peering above or below you. Even if you were to purchase the catalogue, you still would not be given much of a context other than the photographer’s name. I want to hear their stories.

Which brings me to a purchase I am very glad to have made: 1 Dead in Attic which is described as “a collection of stories by Times-Picayune columnist Chris Rose, recounting the first four harrowing months of life in New Orleans after Katrina.” This is journalism at its finest and most honest and true. He was there and he wasn’t working for a network who mispronounced street names. I highly recommend you buy it, if not for the honesty than to help ARTDOCS and the Tipitina’s Foundation who are “rebuilding New Orleans, one song at a time.”

Speaking of songs, when I wasn’t listening the fabulous Panorama Jazz Band at the Spotted Cat, I was eating po’ boys, thai food, fried chicken from Praline Connection and beignets from Cafe Du Monde. No holds barred…

Finally, there are more pics to share and videos to upload, but they will have to wait until tomorrow from my Mac. Before signing off I have to mention that we went to mass at St Peter Claver and I cannot wait to join that parish. It seems Mayor Nagin has taken to that church too, the gospel choir is fantastic, and I can only hope that the rebuilding continues. The mass was so moving and there is such a strong sense of community there. I cried throughout the opening songs because of how welcome newcomers and returning residents were made to feel. More on this later…I need to catch some zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzs

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I’ve just added more categories to my blog, finally, and hope to make use of them when I return on Monday. Til then, here are a few more links regarding social software and pending legislation:

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I’ve seen the name Carolyn Ellis on various articles (most likely during my research methods courses) and knew she was at USF, but now that I’m researching and reading more trauma theory-related stuff, I have come across her work on autoethnography and want to meet with her, talk to her, work with her! Her recent essay in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography reads as a conversation with her husband, Arthur Bochner, and is titled “Analyzing Analytic Autoethnography.” It opens with the two of them watching victims of Hurricane Katrina tell their stories on CNN, and then segues into a discussion about an article she is to be writing but naturally is distracted by the footage. She is to respond to a work by Leon Anderson and for the rest of the essay, she and her husband go back and forth about how Anderson defines autoethnography and how they wish to see it the label used for those stories that cause readers to empathize rather than theorize. They prefer a work that lets readers “see the presence of the author” and posit the following:

If you turn a story told into a story analyzed, as Leon wants to do, you sacrifice the story at the altar of traditional sociological rigor. You transform the story into another language, the language of generalization and analysis, and thus you lose the very qualities that make a story a story.

While I don’t know how much storytelling I can get away with in my dissertation, I hope that I do not have to sacrifice the unfinished stories told on the New Orleans-based blogs I plan to pull from in favor of “generalization and analysis.” Just as Ellis and Bochner admit early on in their essay, “Disasters…shake you loose from ordinary time and you find yourself concentrating on the moment at hand rather than worrying about the past and future,” I want my story of dealing with, learning about the storm and finding friends and family online to be immediate, engaged, and embodied.

I could go on and on about how much I enjoyed this piece, but I’m going to try and read another one by Ellis published in the JCE, “Shattered Lives: Making Sense of September 11th and its Aftermath,” before hitting the sack. We’re off to New Orleans for the weekend early in the morning and I cannot wait to be THERE, the place where all of my energy for my academic work comes from!

P.S. Here is another related piece from Harpers Magazine: “The Uses of Disaster: Notes on bad weather and good government.”

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dayz’s pollock,

Via Bitch PhD, a fun time with a mouse!

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