New contact info is as follows:
4002 Avenue B
Austin, TX 78751
512.466.5124
Shoe size: 8 to 9
Clothes size: pretty wee with childbearin’ hips
Needs most:
Winter clothes that aren’t hideous.
Lamps.
Boots.
Dollies.
Blankies.
Books.
Music.
Treasures.
Everything.
Everything.
Everything.
My sanity.
Things that make rainbows.

Hey look! It’s another fucking eulogy!


I’ve gone this last month trying valiantly to keep
an optimistic attitude intact- and for awhile,
it really worked. I believed it would all be okay.
So many people I knew returned to their homes
dreading the possibility of utter ruin only to find
everything surprisingly intact. I had convinced
myself that I was one of those lucky ones.
That because my neighborhood didn’t flood
or catch on fire, because it was on higher ground
and I was on the second floor,
that maybe I had nothing to worry about.



I was wrong.
My friend Myrtle got into my house
the other day and gave me the bad news.
The ceilings fell in, raining
rubble and plaster and insulation.
Water poured in, mold covering everything.
Furniture ruined, clothes moldy, anything
organic shot to hell, meaning all taxidermy-
peacock, two-headed duck, mummified cat
all gone.



Every letter I ever received.
Every piece of art I ever made.
Everything my mother left me
when she died, the dresses she sewed.
My great-grandmother’s quilt.



All treasures, all memories, all belongings,
all altars, all heirlooms, all history
shit on by this fucking storm.



My identity wiped away in one fell swoop,
my whole life’s work, collection, artifacts..
All gone.



It’s not just stuff, either.
I don’t want to hear another
single goddamn zen koan parable
about impermanence and objects.
I will come to my own understanding in time.
But it’s going to take a long while,
and right now I’m just utterly broken.



I’ve had nearly everything I held dear
torn away from me this year.
Things are not okay, I am not okay.
I am strong and will survive this
along with everything else I’ve survived,
but it’s going to take a lot to rebuild myself.
And the horror is far from over.



I’m going back in the next few days to slog
through the filth and try to salvage whatever
non-porous items I can.
Anyone who will be down there and can help
will be sainted and knighted immediately.
The physical, mental and emotional strain
of this will is as of yet unimaginable for me.



I feel sick already, and I have yet to inhale
or absorb a single toxic mold spore.
Any other help or support is also much needed
at this time- I’m at the bottom of the rock-bottom,
my hope is shattered, and I don’t think I’ll ever
be the same after this.



These are the last images I have
of my home the way I remember it,
though I’m sure there might
be others out there somewhere-
and this is really only my bedroom and bathroom,
but I think you get the idea that
I was a celebrated packrat,
that my home and my things
were an extension of myself,
and expression of who I was,
a magical act of everyday living
in beauty, in rarity, in memory
of another world.
Now I just want to go back there,
to lay on my bed in the sun,
sit on my balcony and daydream.
I can never go home again,
because what I will return to
will be my worst nightmare,
and I am the absolute worst
person for this to happen to,
because that’s all I had.
It’s cold and raining suddenly here,
and I don’t have anything warm
to wear or even a damn blanket yet.
I know that I’m lucky to be alive,
and yet, right now- I’m just not feeling it.



P.S. – If you really want to help, stop giving money to Red Cross
because you might as well just burn it.
FEMA re-imburses them for everything anyway.
There are better grassroots, community-minded relief organizations
to donate to that don’t spend charity money
on war bonds or mercenary security.
Educate people who don’t know.
Write me letters, send me treasures,
come distract me, come hold me, and go read this story.

Perhaps you’ve seen this already, or perhaps
everyone’s already sick of hearing about it,
looking at it, just the thought of the smell of it
creeping under conversations in crowded bars,
everybody’s opinions, a foul odor pours in from
the gulf, from the delta, that tattered fertile crescent..

I’m living a truncated, abbreviated version of a life-
something happened in between the ages of 20 and 26
when I didn’t live here, a had another life somewhere else.
Like in a dream you wake from wondering-
where’s the wormhole, the wrinkle in time?
The only film I’ve distracted myself with through all this
is Želary – to which I could relate excessively.
A woman moved from one life to another,
forced on a new identity- where is love in survival?

I’ve been in hiding, holed-up and barricaded in my
mind much of the time- I peep antennae out or am
dragged by them by well-meaning and loving friends
who I am so lucky to be surrounded by.
The fact is, I’m having trouble processing all of this.
To many, it’s a horrible tragedy that happened
last month- but it’s still happening to me,
to everyone else that called New Orleans their home.
I’m kept busy by bread lines, bank lines, food stamps-
by trying to piece together a new blank home
out of old memories and my dead mother’s knick-knacks.
It’s very beautiful here, and I feel guilty for having
access to such peacefulness, even though I still
can’t sleep, nerves a-jangle, dreams where I open
my mouth to scream and nothing comes out.

Survivor’s guilt, a hint of post-traumatic stress,
unable to return so many phonecalls, letters.
Start over in strange new skin, riddled with old scars.
Oif alle poste palder
Oif alle viste valder
(A calamity in the empty fields
and in the empty woods..)

This isn’t going to go away-
put the pieces together for yourself.
This changed my life, and ended so many others.
It destroyed not only homes and communities,
but fully eradicated any faith and trust
in an inhuman regime, in the idea that
everything could ever be okay again.
That stank isn’t going to stay down South
when all the stagnant muddy water recedes.
It’s gonna slither into your little house too,
And what are you going to do when it does?

Keep talking about it, keep yourself informed-
I’ll bust my ass to help you if you’ll just look
instead of looking away:

We somehow try to retain a sense of humor

I distract myself from it, don’t get me wrong-
I go see my girlfriend play and dance and laugh..
But, when you’re sitting here looking at this
and this, take a minute to check out the following:

This made my skin crawl –
Storm Survivors Told To ‘Expose Themselves’

Malik Rahim and Amy Goodman – read it:
New Orleans Activist Points to Neglected Corpse as U.S. Military Passes Off Blame

Blackwater Mercenaries Deploy in New Orleans

Back Inside New Orleans –
by Jordan Flaherty– he gets in there to tell you about it,
includes an interview with dear Okra P. Dingle

This Modern World – always good and useful

New Orleans: A Geopolitical Prize

New Orleans Network – If you’re far away from home, check this out.

GET YOUR ACT ON
Grassroots NOLA relief

Food Not Bombs – feeding Katrina survivors

Hurricane Katrina Mutual Aid Relief a la Indymedia

A eulogy I didn’t have the heart to write – thank you

As well as this from

More coming sooner than you think.
I’ve got new contact info, phone number,
address et al. Let me know if you need it.

A few weeks ago, I was in the Prado-
standing in front of the apocalyptic juggernaut
that is Brueghel’s The Triumph of Death:

Little did I know when gazing upon it then that it would become
an illustration of the city I knew as my home.
The shock is ebbing slightly and being replaced by
rage and insurmountable grief.
I can’t seem to stop crying for my beautiful city,
and all of her inhabitants, now lost, scattered,
scarred and broken.
Trying to start over, but the entire process
is abhorrent to me right now.
I can’t sleep for bad dreams..
Never had a problem with insomnia
or nightmares before..
When you read a letter from a dear friend
who was stuck in New Orleans until a few days
ago, you’ll understand..
To anyone who believes that the
media portrayal of this is overblown..

“Just a note to say I’m alive.
I am extremely traumatized.
The anarchy, storm, flood water
and the smell of rot in the city
can not be put into words.
I am healthy except my stomach
is sick and my feet are
slightly infected from contaminated water.
My house is perfectly intact
and all the trees fell away from it.
The French Quarter from Canal
to Burgundy up to Poland Avenue is an island.
It is starting to smell like bodies
and birds are starting to flock.
We didn’t get water
in our neighborhood until yesterday.
I’ve become a pro at looting for food
and all the neighbors get together.
I am now outside Baton Rouge.
We had to siphon gas to leave and it was stressful
with all the down trees and lines, military and gangs.
People in our neighborhood are walking on the streets
with shotguns, axes, bats.
Houses are getting robbed
and buildings are getting blown up.
People are hot-wiring city buses
and running them into houses
People are getting shot over gasoline and water.
I don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead.
People from the neighborhood are taking canoes over
St. Claude and France area to pull people out of water.
There are dead Children on Canal Street.
Dog Packs are forming.
I am mentally having some problems.
People are getting raped.
New Orleans is the most scariest place on the planet
The cops are looting and drinking beer
riding on the back of cars with rifles
It’s under a police state.
They are shooting people and taking away our weapons.
We had a gun, ax, hooks, a staff, cleaver
and a few knives.
I will be able to respond but please don’t expect too
much from me right now.
I’m having a hard time in society.
I hope we can all return.
I may have more stories later when I can.
The government are idiots. They left us to die.
No-one ever take anything for granted.
I am grateful for a flushing toilet
We had to use buckets and
go to neighborhood pools to gather water.
I am grateful for ice
And for life.
there are still children there!
There are old people
People with their limbs rotting
people lying on the street on mattresses.
Yes this is the Bywater.
This was our home.
xxxx”

Meanwhile, here are some more choice
locations for real information, resources and musings:

Extremely Worthwhile Commentary:
From the Empire Burlesque

New Orleans Diaspora Contact List

She says what I don’t have words for:
Thank you for seeing and saying,

Shocking and Awful: An Excellent Newsource

There’s this for those that haven’t read it yet..

New Orleans Independent Media Center

And some good news..
Antoinette K-Doe made it out okay, thank heaven..

As did many other New Orleans musicians..
Most everyone we know and love got out, bit by bit-
although there’s a few that are still missing..
Miss Jane and Okra! Where are you?

Tomorrow night, if you find yourself in Austin
come to the Carousel Lounge (1110 E. 52nd St.)
to see A Particularly Vicious Rumor.

Beautiful Miss O.

Jai Bird (aka. Kid Twist)

These are the friends who saved my life when they
chose me (and a few other lucky ones) over their
music equipment. Go see them play on tour-
Their music will save your soul.

In Brueghel’s panorama of smoke and slaughter
Two people only are blind to the carrion army:
He, afloat in the sea of her blue satin
Skirts, sings in the direction
Of her bare shoulder, while she bends,
Finger a leaflet of music, over him,
Both of them deaf to the fiddle in the hands
Of the death’s-head shadowing their song.
These Flemish lovers flourish; not for long.

Thank you all for your kind wishes and thoughts,
and offers of help and lodgings- I’m still in Houston
for another day or so, until I can get to Austin
where I have numerous people who will put me up.
I will probably be staying with my Grandfather,
possibly permanently. I don’t know what there will
be to go back to, in terms of the city we loved,
and a means of survival and shattered community.
I heard today that my house looked relatively intact:
Trees down, balcony railing torn off, roof probably
quite damaged, but the windows looked amazingly
unbroken. All the same, who can say what will
become of it in the next few months until we can
get back there- best case scenario is that everything
will stay dry enough not to be covered in a thick
pelt of mold. O my library. O my paper ephemera.
O my whole world, my archives, my prodigious collections..
O well.
The reality of the situation is that I am so fucking lucky.
I’m alive. I have incredible friends and family
who are alive, and who are willing to help me out.
I am not drowned.
I am not thirsty, hungry, hot,
poisoned, ill, injured, poor.
The thousands who are right now need help,
and they are not getting it- they are being ignored.
If you want to help- help them.
Don’t take me in- take in a family that has nowhere else to go:
Hurricane Housing Aid
or here’s a list of legitimate organizations
accepting donations:
Addresses and locations for aid

I’ve been working all day to compile an accurate list
of the NOLA refugees lost and found-
There are many forums for this popping up,
I’m these two, primarily
http://groups.myspace.com/nolarefugees
and
http://www.nola.com/forums/searching/
Any information on those still missing
would be greatly appreciated..

(compiled from a variety of
concerned souces- hence the disjointedness..)

PERSONS UNACCOUNTED FOR – WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN
John and Anne Burr
Mac Taylor – last seen in NOLA on Monday
Vanessa King
Lisa Donovan and Jake
Kevin and David
Jimmy Cousins
Peter Nu
Speck and Raz
John Guidry and his elderly mother
Deb’s boyfriend Jurgen (who was seemingly on a ship in the gulf at the time.)
Sissy and Ikea
Eric Wilkerson
Canadian Shaun
Rene Bierre
Sebastian
John Calhoun
Effie Michout (although she may have not been in town)
David Park
Jordan Blanton
Robb Romershauser
Andy Antippas
Daniel Hammer
Jennifer Schumaker
Princess Ramona
Guenevere
Juan Martinez

PERSONS KNOWN TO HAVE STAYED IN THE CITY – M.I.A.
Okra P. Dingle
Miss Jane Lennon (Pierre Pressure’s mama)
Ali (owner of Flora Cafe)
Sid Snow
Victor Stimson
Jeff Mattson
Jeremy Bronner – okay, looking for a way out.
Michele Baker and Eric – okay
Lefty Parker – Someone says they heard Lefty (Circle Bar) being interviewed on WCBS radio this morning….
Jay Pogee – stayed at his house

NOTES: emily h saw victor riding his bike (?) around uptown during her hike/swim from the Hilton to her home uptown.
she said he’s ok, but that she didn’t know where he was going or what his plans were. it’s good to know he’s ok… and buoyant. – ak

Kevin and Colleen were going to hold down the fort at Z’otz and haven’t been heard from.

MK is stuck in an apartment in Metairie with 30
people, sending out a plea for help. One person is
diabetic, and needs help quickly. they are at 3512 n.
Arnoult rd. apt. # 205, if anyone can get them help.

STILL IN NOLA LAST WE HEARD (BUT ALIVE!):
Doc Otis – seen on FOX news yesterday riding a bicycle on Canal Street
Alison from France St. is OK
Jeremy Bronner is in NOLA, and looking for a way out.
Scully is ok
Christy is also ok.

EVACUATED:
Saelok and Zwaznu – headed to Tulsa
Raven Hinojosa – Houston, TX (en route to Chicago)
Jayme Kalal – Houston, TX (en route to Chicago)
Lorelei + Chris – Houston, TX
Mack Henson – Granbury, Texas
Roberto – Granbury, Texas
Chesley Allen – Granbury, Texas
Sarah King – Granbury, Texas
Jonathan Elliot – Granbury, Texas
Myrtle Von Damitz – Granbury, Texas
Moose and Georgia – Georgia
Ratty Scurvics and Mo Lappin – Austin
Stumpz the Clown – on the west coast.
Ed and Rose – in Arizona.
Quintron and Panacea – in VA
Julien and Elizabeth – in Arkansas
Misha – with John Gerkin and Patrick somewhere up country safe,
Tallulah Elvis – with Big Josh Gass and okay in Virginia.
Jason Toupsi and Flynn DeMarco – in Cummings, Georgia
Amzie – Lafayette
Drew – Asheville
Bailey and Emily – Lafayette
Robert Starnes (et. al) – Memphis
John Henry + Heather – Memphis
Alison Bauserman and Martha Woods – At a Motel 6, elsewhere
Lorraine
Jay Pennington
Olivia Klein
little Paulie Lingerfeldt – Tampa, FL
little Andy Raney- Jasper, TX
Angie and John Raney – Jasper, TX
Angela Roberts – Houston, TX
Billy Schultz – Asheville
Will
Kate
Pandora Gastelum – Asheville
Doc Boyle
Kelly
Jess
Andrea
Altercation
Jeri Cain Rossi
CJ
Nina Nichols – Asheville
Nathan Cy-Clyde – Asheville
Thomas Little – Asheville
Deb and her Mom – Austin, TX
Dan and Kelly Dann – Austin, TX
Brian and Carrin Welch – Austin, TX
Jenn and Andy – Austin, TX
Ryan Rossi and Claire – Austin, TX
Miss Led (Sherry) and Feron – Austin, TX
Lauren Dinkler
Laura and Eric from clouet st
Nate Tabor and his mom
Ammi Keller (Ammi Emergency)
joel brotherton and casey (asheville)
jon lutz, rosanna, and reynaldo
ben schenck and ama rogan
drew and matt himes

mitchell powers, liberty eggink and hansford dove

Nowe Miasto kids, John Gerken, brice white, shana griffin, matt knowles, thea
patterson, misha heil, karly, cassandra, luette, patrick farrel, are at andy
allen’s parents house in southwestern LA (Baton Rouge?) (verified by email from
John Gerken);

Emilyn Nelson, who used to work at Flora, got out (via her sister Elissa);

Abram Himmelstein from New Mouth from the Dirty South and his wife Shana are in
Houston (via Jamie Schweser);

Wendy Subzero Permafrost is in Berlin and her folks got out to Arkansas (via
email from Wendy herself);

Scotty Heron (ex-Circus Amok; lived on St. Roche) is safe somewhere else in a
van (via Ben Meyers);

Paul Gailiunas and Helen Hill got out to North Carolina with their 10-month-old
son Francis Pop and their pig Rosie (via Yoni);

Don (sometimes plays with Panorama) is in NYC, and Effie is in Portland, OR –
I’m trying to get more specific info on both of these people (via Matt
Crowley).

JR Hankinfrom Panorama is in NYC

andy neubauer and kristen myers- (memphis)
dan beckman was in mpls
amy moon and rose’s mom
rose and jimmy cousins
michelle and brother clit were both in st. louis visiting families
mayaba leibenthal and caleb (western louisiana)
shanna owen, laura, chet, and kids went to central louisiana
erin belle (asheville)
andy and isabel
pea jay was in s.f.
lorraine monseau
Tanya solomon
dan nelson
hope amico (chattanooga)
vi landry (went to texas, now in nyc)
Shelley Jackson (aka, shelley chainbreaker)
[above list confirmed safe by John Gerken]

Kyle Bravo, Jenny LeBlanc, “almost everyone” from Nowe Miasto (Andy Allen,
Cassandra, Brice White, and Shaena), Bryan Funck, Kate (from the Iron Rail)
and her partner, Abram Himelstein, Shana Sassoon, Brice White, Shana
Griffin, Rachel Breunlin, Dan (? Rachel’s fiance), Eve Troeh, Darin
[above list confirmed okay by hotironpress]

Erin Benson and her boyfriend (via email from Erin)

Ada (formerly of Extra Action Marching Band) is safe on a family farm. (verified
by phone through Ena via Lily Rose Love)

Aura [Fist?] was in the superdome, probably now in Houston. (via Patrick (Pierre
Pressure’s dad), via Lily Rose Love)

I believe that Pierre Pressure and some of circus mutante are at burning man,
but have not verified that. (via Lily Rose Love)

Additionally, here’s some links to more information:
(Thanks to everyone I nabbed these from or linked to..)
A Collection of Newspaper Front Pages – just something to take in..

Guess who FEMA is directing Katrina relief donations to?

The Weather Channel Has The Answers! – thanks

Looka – The Gumbo Pages

Another sad song or two,
because words alone just can’t tell you..
And also a few things:

Some heartrending photographs of New Orleans
I hadn’t seen these anywhere before-
Thank you in advance to mlle.

And this is just fucked.
Thanks for pointing it out, ..

Also, tonight I was listening to Jay and Olivia *
(otherwise known as A Particularly Vicious Rumor)
re-work a song written by Ratty Scurvics (),
who is still M.I.A. – if anyone knows his whereabouts, please inform-
I’m very worried about him.

Hopefully I succeeded in making it available to you.. here.
It’s a beautiful song about a shipwreck.
It’s one of my favorites, and describes very well
where we are at right now..

* These guys are my dear friends, fellow refugees and rescuers,
who will be touring around the country now
that they have nowhere to go home to.
All of their musical equipment was left behind so that they
could fill their van instead with people who needed to evacuate.
Sweet Walter of Crooks and Nannies is also touring with them-
They are all incredible musicians, and amazing people.
Please, please go see them play- you will not regret it,
and you will dance and be happy and be doing a good deed.
Tour dates are linked above. Thank you.

When it rains five days and the skies turn dark as night
Then trouble’s takin’ place in the lowlands at night
I woke up this mornin’, can’t even get out of my door
There’s been enough trouble to make
a poor girl wonder where she want to go
Then they rowed a little boat about five miles ‘cross the pond
I packed all my clothes, throwed them in and they rowed me along
When it thunders and lightnin’ and when the wind begins to blow
There’s thousands of people ain’t got no place to go
Then I went and stood upon some high old lonesome hill
Then looked down on the house were I used to live
Backwater blues done call me to pack my things and go
Backwater blues done call me to pack my things and go
‘Cause my house fell down and I can’t live there no more
Mmm, I can’t move no more
There ain’t no place for a poor old girl to go

-Bessie Smith, Backwater Blues (Thank you mlle.)
*EDIT – For some reason, some of the links above
are out of order- so here you are once more:
www.myspace.com/rattyscurvicssingularity
www.myspace.com/crooksandnannies

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break..
If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break..
When the levee breaks I’ll have no place to stay.
Mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Lord, mean old levee taught me to weep and moan,
Got what it takes to make a mountain man leave his home,
Oh well, oh well, oh well.
Don’t it make you feel bad
When you’re tryin’ to find your way home,
You don’t know which way to go?
If you’re goin’ down south
They got no work to do,
If you don’t know about Chicago.
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
All last night sat on the levee and moaned,
Thinkin’ ’bout my baby and my happy home.
Going, goin’ to Chicago,
Goin’ to Chicago,
Sorry but I can’t take you.
Going down, going down now, going down..

Mary, grab the baby, the river’s rising
Muddy water taking back the land
The old-frame house, she can’t take-a one more beating
Ain’t no use to stay and make a stand
Well the morning light shows water in the valley
Daddy’s grave just went below the line
Things to say, you just can’t take em with ya
This flood will swallow all you’ve left behind
Won’t be back to start all over
Cause what I felt before is gone
Mary, take the child, the river’s rising
Muddy water taking back my home
The road is gone, there’s just one way to leave here
Turn my back on what I’ve left below
Shifting land, broken farms around me
Muddy water’s changing all I know
It’s hard to say just what I’m losing
Ain’t never felt so all alone
Mary, take the child, the river’s rising
Muddy water taking back my home
Won’t be back to start all over
Cause what I felt before is gone
Mary, take the child, the river’s rising
Muddy water’s changing all I know
Muddy water’s changing all I know
Lord, this muddy water is taking back my home…

To any Houston kittens-
I’ll be here for a couple of days, at least.
If you want to get together, ring me: 504.810.3100
I’ll be at Brazil at some point working on stuff,
and there’s talk of going to see the Herzog documentary
about grizzly bears. Anything to distract us from worrying.
And I forgot my komboloi.

I am leaving in the night like a refugee-
packing the heirlooms, the jewels,
the silver teaspoon, the samovar, the violin.
The tiny objects I pick up and put down,
leaving behind a lock of whitened hair,
curled in a velvet box around a ring
hammered into two hands clasping.

A night and a half ago I was stepping off
my seventh plane back into the hellish
New Orleans swelter. Finally home after
more than 24 hours of travel except I had
no keys, and no one home to let me in..
I climbed up on top of my friend’s
big lug of a van, and then onto his shoulders-
clambering over the balcony railing and inside.

All the plants brought in from the verandah
have transformed our parlour into
an enclosed jungle, a hothouse for
taxidermy and broken glass.
Minute green anoles leap from leaf
to leaf, shocked at finding themselves
suddenly in a strange and stuffy new world.

I leave at midnight. I am packed, the faulty
shutters bolted- little good that it will do.
I distract myself with this, and that- or I will
go on packing my treasures, irreplaceable
and beckoning from every shelf. Six bodies
in one car and I’m far over my baggage limit.

I wonder if I am looking on my home for the last time.
I know I can’t do this anymore- fleeing from
tempestuous juggernauts out of a crumbling teacup.
Please let this be melodrama, please spare my
obstinate and resolute loved ones who won’t leave.
Please don’t obliterate my city. Swerve, damn you.

“Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy la qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d’usage & raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son aage !”
-Joachim du Bellay


So begins the prologue to a book that served as my
guide to the country that was once called Jugoslavije..
Black Lamb, Grey Falcon, written by Dame Rebecca West
in 1940 holds more essential truths in it today then any
Lonely Planet. Not that any travel guides to this region are
very abundant- tourism having never been more than a trickle.
This weighty two-volume tome, and my severely outdated pocket dictionary
titled “Just Enough…Serbo-Croat!” were indispensible to me.
It is difficult for me to begin to tell the story of traveling there,
and how deeply it affected me- though I know it affected Mme. West
in a similar way, and so I will adopt her passage for my purposes:



“I saw the blue lake of Ochrid,
the mosques of Sarajevo, the walled town of Korchula,
and it appeared possible that I was unable to find words
for what I wanted to say because it was not true.
I am never sure of the reality of what I see, if I have seen it only once;
I know that until it has firmly established its objective existence
by impressing my senses and my memory,
I am capable of conscripting it into the service of a private dream.
In a panic I said, “I must go back to Yugoslavia,
this time next year, in the spring, for Easter.”

As soon as I had left it, I was struck with the same panic and longing-
I must get back there sometime soon. What can I do until then but try
to recount the details bit by bit, from end to beginning-
as circuitous and snakelike as the twisty mountain roads
that led us into Dragačevo..



Those dangerous byways took us from the absurdly luxurious hotel
hung with perplexingly beautiful artwork, where we dined on
paprikash soup, monkfish, and blueberry nectar
to the bombed-out governmental buildings in downtown Belgrade-
and finally to a truly idyllic village in the green mountains: GUČA!



We stayed with a wonderful family who lived (unfortunately)
on a hill up a dirt road. We arrived in the late afternoon rain,
which has turned that little road into to rutted drainage ditch-
making navigation in a wheelchair nearly impossible.
However, our hosts were so warm and lovely that we
felt very welcome, and in the morning things had dried up some.
The home of Dragic and Gordana, and their grown children
Dragana and Nikola was extremely cozy- and the garden!
An earthly paradise wound with grapevines and flowers..



Every morning, we woke to the sound of cows lowing, roosters crowing,
crows cawing and trumpets sawing. Gordana made a traditional breakfast
feast for all of her eight lodgers- with ‘kacamak’ and ‘kajmak’,
authentic Serbian ‘gibanica’ (breakfast pie), raspberries from the garden,
freshly baked bread, and kava, Turkish- style coffee. It was so wholesome,
I even found myself drinking tall glasses of milk- something I haven’t done for years.



Not all the food in the village was so appetizing-
I watched this gory spectacle of spit pig and lamb over and over,
transfixed in mute horror. As the mechanism turning the lamb round
spun, something came out of whack and made the dead beast rotate
with a jittery vibration and harsh squeals. The eye turned to silver,
then to stone mercury in the rising flames.



More soon, I’m afraid-
Now is nigh time to attempt a jet-lagged 40 winks.