New Orleans: City of Feel-Good Music and Feel-Bad History (PBS/Documentary)
It’s “the only place I’ve ever been where if you listen, the sidewalks will speak to you,” the artist John T. Scott says in tonight’s “American Experience” on PBS . Ah, yes, dear old Chicago. Er, wait, it must be Brooklyn. Or maybe Boston? Philadelphia? San Francisco?
No, it’s New Orleans, and tonight’s program is full of statements like Mr. Scott’s from historians, writers, artists and others determined to oversell the city, as if somehow to compensate for Hurricane Katrina’s destruction. The platitudes fly, and they sound great, but most could apply to many other cities as well; the incessant suggestion that New Orleans is somehow pre-eminent grows annoying. A cultural melting pot? A place that produced some notable writers and musicians? Join the club.
The program suffers, of course, from being late to the guilt party. One effect of Hurricane Katrina was that the world quickly “discovered” New Orleans, and the television coverage, feature articles, fund-raising concerts and so on have been inescapable ever since. By now a New Orleans overload may have taken hold. Certainly by the end of this program you feel that you could do without seeing another film clip of a street parade for a very long time.
Read entire article at NYT
No, it’s New Orleans, and tonight’s program is full of statements like Mr. Scott’s from historians, writers, artists and others determined to oversell the city, as if somehow to compensate for Hurricane Katrina’s destruction. The platitudes fly, and they sound great, but most could apply to many other cities as well; the incessant suggestion that New Orleans is somehow pre-eminent grows annoying. A cultural melting pot? A place that produced some notable writers and musicians? Join the club.
The program suffers, of course, from being late to the guilt party. One effect of Hurricane Katrina was that the world quickly “discovered” New Orleans, and the television coverage, feature articles, fund-raising concerts and so on have been inescapable ever since. By now a New Orleans overload may have taken hold. Certainly by the end of this program you feel that you could do without seeing another film clip of a street parade for a very long time.