Fresh Loaf

November 5 may have been either the most or the least opportune night for the Atlanta premiere of True Colors Theatre’s Swimming Upstream, a star-studded evening of stories, songs and spoken-word poetry about Hurricane Katrina and the women of New Orleans.

Everyone in the 14^th Street Playhouse seemed charged with excitement over the previous day’s election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. In the curtain speech, True Colors artistic director Kenny Leon said “I’m glad we’re all here the night after we’ve elected a new president” before adding, of Swimming Upstream, “This is probably the most important, best written show I’ve ever worked on.”

The way was developed by African-American theater True Colors in partnership with New Orleans’ Ashé Cultural Arts Center and the V-Day movement opposed to violence against women, organized by The Vagina Monologues‘ Eve Ensler. Ensler teared up during her introductory remarks and said, “Welcome to the New World. I can’t believe we’re opening this play on this night. It’s too perfect.”

Despite the thrill over the prospect of the new White House, Swimming Upstream demands the audience shift some emotional gears to revisit arguably the lowest moment of the current administration.

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OK, so maybe “wave” is a bit of an exaggeration. But there’s at least some anecdotal evidence that evacuees of Louisiana’s two most frightening hurricanes are stirring up trouble in Georgia.

Most recently, there were the alleged blue-jean-bandit copycats who struck in Buckhead after being displaced by Gustav. And earlier this week, a Katrina evacuee was sentenced to life in prison for a murder in Athens.

Hopefully, the crimes won’t eclipse the contributions and hardships of the evacuees who’ve worked to make a new life here.

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This week’s Don’t Panic explains why Cyclone Nargis has killed and will continue to kill so many Burmese.

I compare Nargis to Hurricane Katrina in the story, sticking to the geographic and meteorological similarities.

Yesterday New Orleans Times-Picayune columnist Lolis Eric Elie noted the similarity between the Burmese junta’s reaction to Nargis and the Bush Administration’s reaction to Katrina:

A snippet:

Of course our federal government neither offered nor accepted much relief for victims of the federal levee failures.

As the journal “Foreign Policy” put it, “When France and dozens of other countries pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and supplies to the relief effort, their donations should have helped ease the crisis. Instead, one year after Katrina battered the Gulf Coast, none of the money given to the federal government has made its way to evacuees.”

Read the whole column if you have two minutes.

(photo illustration by me and NASA. mostly NASA)

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(Photo by David Lee Simmons)

A year ago this time, CL presented coverage of the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, in which I contributed an essay about my move to Atlanta after spending six months in New Orleans after the storm. I also supplied some names of other folks who had moved here, mainly evacuees who stayed, including some friends of mine.

The status of my friends might be microcosmic of New Orleanians as a whole. Three of us have decided to stay in Atlanta, impressed by professional opportunities here. Three decided to return home, while another capitalized on a professional opportunity here to move onward to New York City. And yet another one is still torn between both New Orleans and Atlanta.

In some ways, we all have been, over the past two years, torn between remaining in the city to stay and fight the good fight, others knowing they need to move on with their lives or that living in New Orleans is just too tough an existence. I remember a phone conversation the other night with an old friend in New Orleans, one of those die-hard types who, like me, was gung-ho in coming back from the evacuation, ready to rebuild. His voice on the phone was shaky now. “I just don’t know if I can take it much longer,” he sighed. “The crime, the lack of progress … it’s just so frustrating.” And this from a guy who really was making a difference.

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