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New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City (edición 2006)

por Andrei Codrescu

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Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML: *A "lovely collection" of essays by the NPR commentator about his beloved adopted city, both before and after Hurricane Katrina (Publishers Weekly).* NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu has long written about the unique city he calls home. How apt that a refugee born in Transylvania found his place where vampires roam the streets and voodoo queens live around the corner; where cemeteries are the most popular picnic spots; the ghosts of poets, prostitutes, and pirates are palpable; and in the French Quarter, no one ever sleeps. Codrescu's essays have been called "satirical gems," "subversive," "funny," "gonzo," and "wittily poignant"�??here is a writer who perfectly mirrors the wild, voluptuous character of New Orleans itself. This retrospective follows him from newcomer to near native: first seduced by the lush banana trees in his backyard and the sensual aroma of coffee at the café down the block, Codrescu soon becomes a Window Gang regular at the infamous bar Molly's on Decatur; does a stint as King of Krewe de Vieux Carré at Mardi Gras; befriends artists, musicians, and eccentrics; and exposes the city's underbelly of corruption, warning presciently about the lack of planning for floods in a city high on its own insouciance. Alas, as we all now know, Paradise is lost, but here Codrescu also writes about how the city's heart still beats even after 2005's devastating hurricane. New Orleans, Mon Amour is a portrait of an incomparable place, from a writer who "manages to be brilliant and insightful, tough and seductive about American culture" (The New York Times Book Review). "Finely honed portraits of a fabled city and its equally fabled inhabitants. The author, who has called the Big Easy home for two decades, shows how, like some gigantic bohemian magnet, New Orleans attracts some of the world's most talented, self-indulgent freaks. Codrescu finds himself quite at home there. He expertly weaves pages of New Orleans history through his stories of personal discovery and debauchery. . . . Readers can't help coming away from reading it without an abiding hope in the ability of ordinary people, under the worst circumstances, rising to whatever challenges they face." �??Publishers Weekl… (más)

▾Información del libro

Miembro:	Willow1972
Título:	New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City
Autores:	Andrei Codrescu
Información:	Algonquin Books (2006), Paperback, 288 pages
Colecciones:	Actualmente leyendo
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Etiquetas:	to-read

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New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings from the City por Andrei Codrescu (Author)

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"New Orleans is different, I think, if only because the locals have had a long time to elaborate a style of living and a modus viviendi that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Everybody in New Orleans loves the food, the music, and our sense of time (slow time) that's peculiar to us and to us only. There is a velvety sensuality here at the mouth of the Mississippi that you won't find anywhere else. Tell me what the air feels like 3 a.m. on a Thursday night in late August in Shaker Heights and I bet you won't be able to say because nobody stays up that late. But in New Orleans, I tell you, it's ink and honey passed through silver moonlight. Accuse me of poetry, go ahead. But prove that it isn't so. You can't, because New Orleans is made of a tissue of poetries that wove each other together over time."

From 1985 to 2005 (and then an afterword post-Katrina), Codrescu shares some of his writing from New Orleans. It's beautiful and sometimes gritty, reflecting both the light and dark of the city of dreams. He writes a few times of the parallels between New Orleans and Venice, which I had not previously considered, but having visited both, I get it. Venice had a similar effect on me- like walking into a magical city, out of real life and into a fantasy. Lovely. (

)

amaryann21 | Aug 13, 2016 |

New Orleans is Catholic, pagan, poor, and Bohemian. The music is the Devil's music and we are a cesspool of sin.

The Crescent City. If you ever visit New Orleans you will never forget the time you spent there. If I had never visited New Orleans prior to reading New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings From the City, I would have made my way there as soon as I finished. I'm listening to Second Line music as I type these words.

Codrescu, a Louisiana State University professor, introduced us to the city at ground level. He didn't try to glamorize the city nor did he try to take us on a tour of its most popular places. These essays ranged from the details and familiar faces at the local bar scene to the history of the city's cemeteries and its burying rituals. With each essay, Codrescu takes the reader on a daily walk through the city revealing a hidden treasure each time.

Katrina found us dreaming.

The world watched New Orleans drown when the levees broke. Codrescu put it this way:

We already knew who's going to pay for all this: the poor. They always do. The whole country's garbage flows down the Mississippi to them. Until now, they turned all that waste into song; they took the sins of American unto themselves. But this blues now is just too big

New Orleans is my favorite city to visit in literature. New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writings From the City reminded me why New Orleans is and always will be my favorite city. (

)

pinkcrayon99 | Dec 31, 2013 |

I've been a fan of Codrescu for years through his spoken word bits he's done on National Public Radio (NPR). This is a collection of essays that he's written over a twenty year period about his adopted city of New Orleans, and it is a marvelous read. Codrescu's humor and insight are always sharp, and ordering this collection in this way allows the reader to follow his love affair with the city as it evolves from an initial infatuation to a deep and abiding love (the good and the bad), with the dark, unhappy moments that come with the package. Codrescu sees more from a coffee shop window than most of us can see in a year of observing our own neighborhood. Knowing about hurricane Katrina and post-Katrina New Orleans only serves to make many of his early observations even more relevant and powerful. Codrescu's essays reveal an ever-present awareness, likely shared by his neighbors, that the City was living on the edge of disaster.

I normally recommend reading collections like this in bits and pieces, and, certainly, one could do that, but the coherency of this anthology is so striking that I'd suggest taking it all in as you would a memoir or biography - a memoir is what this anthology turns out to be. (

)

Osbaldistone | Jan 29, 2011 |

In 1947 Louis Armstrong posited the musical question, “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” Sixty years later, this chestnut has taken on a whole new meaning, and (if you have any kind of heart at all) has a tendency to stick in the throat. This collection of mostly short musings in, around, and about the Crescent City finds Transylvanian transplant Andrei Codrescu in his cups and in his element and shows us exactly what it should mean.

You might think that the Deep South would be an odd choice of pot for a former Eastern Bloc no-goodnik to replant himself in, but with further contemplation, it does make sense. First of all, there is the vampire connection, a Bohemian sense of empire gone to dangerous seed, and a certain resigned patience that someone familiar with Soviet-style can-do attitude might recognize and respond to (eventually) in the low-gear stifling heat.

Arriving in town in 1985, Codrescu wasted no time in surrounding himself with like-minded writers, artists, and miscreants which all make for an entertaining read as they play out their fantastical roles on a rotting, vibrantly-colored stage. There is a bracingly abrupt pause between Codrescu’s description of a burgeoning art scene and the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Most of this book is concerned with the years between 1985 and 2005, but there is an epilogue chillingly entitled, poetry will not end with the world.

“It’s heartbreaking watching my city sink,” Codrescu writes. “New Orleans will be rebuilt, but it will never again be the city I know and love.” After an entire book taken up showing us what we were missing, Codrescu unwittingly showed the world exactly what it should miss. (

)

railarson | Nov 28, 2010 |

http://libdrone.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-orleans-mon-amour.html (

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outofit | Jun 21, 2007 |

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▾Descripciones del libro

Fiction. Literature. Short Stories. HTML:

A "lovely collection" of essays by the NPR commentator about his beloved adopted city, both before and after Hurricane Katrina (Publishers Weekly).

NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu has long written about the unique city he calls home. How apt that a refugee born in Transylvania found his place where vampires roam the streets and voodoo queens live around the corner; where cemeteries are the most popular picnic spots; the ghosts of poets, prostitutes, and pirates are palpable; and in the French Quarter, no one ever sleeps.

Codrescu's essays have been called "satirical gems," "subversive," "funny," "gonzo," and "wittily poignant"�??here is a writer who perfectly mirrors the wild, voluptuous character of New Orleans itself. This retrospective follows him from newcomer to near native: first seduced by the lush banana trees in his backyard and the sensual aroma of coffee at the café down the block, Codrescu soon becomes a Window Gang regular at the infamous bar Molly's on Decatur; does a stint as King of Krewe de Vieux Carré at Mardi Gras; befriends artists, musicians, and eccentrics; and exposes the city's underbelly of corruption, warning presciently about the lack of planning for floods in a city high on its own insouciance. Alas, as we all now know, Paradise is lost, but here Codrescu also writes about how the city's heart still beats even after 2005's devastating hurricane.

New Orleans, Mon Amour is a portrait of an incomparable place, from a writer who "manages to be brilliant and insightful, tough and seductive about American culture" (The New York Times Book Review).

"Finely honed portraits of a fabled city and its equally fabled inhabitants. The author, who has called the Big Easy home for two decades, shows how, like some gigantic bohemian magnet, New Orleans attracts some of the world's most talented, self-indulgent freaks. Codrescu finds himself quite at home there. He expertly weaves pages of New Orleans history through his stories of personal discovery and debauchery. . . . Readers can't help coming away from reading it without an abiding hope in the ability of ordinary people, under the worst circumstances, rising to whatever challenges they face." �??Publishers Weekl

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