Harry Shearer concludes his latest dispatch from New Orleans with:
It was an amazing springtime in New Orleans; at one of my last dinners in town, the Formosan termites finally started swarming around the streetlights just outside the window, and, when I got home, the dreaded phrase “first named storm” was all over the local news.
And still less than half of the members of Congress have deigned to visit New Orleans to see the scale of the damage Federal engineers have wrought.
I’d somehow forgotten that the blondalicious and talented Judith Owen is Harry’s wife. Lisa mentioned it to me a while back, but so many authors, musicians and celebrities run in and out of this town that it’s hard to keep track.
So, that’s what New Orleanians do in the embryonic days of a hot summer: chase termites and track the winds over the Ethiopian highlands. This season, however, we also wait for Godot — it’s hard to explain to most people that 20 months after the flood, this city continues to experience trauma and that the post-traumatic stress is still 3-5 years away. That creature shows up when you are “happy” and least expect it.
