Skip to content

Ecce Signum

Immanentize the Empathy

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Published Works and Literary Matters
  • Indexes
  • Laboratory
  • RSS Feed

Katrina: Omnia Mutantur

2005-09-06 John Winkelman

One of the highest points of my vacation to New Orleans—other than seeing my Dad and stepmother—was a visit to the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas, just down the street from the French Quarter. I took many photos, and got to experience the wonder of seeing some amazing animals at arms’ length.

Now a great many fish (maybe 50% so far) have died because the filters and pumps for the tanks haven’t had power for eight days.

When I talked to Dad yesterday he asked me how it felt to be one of the last people to see New Orleans as it once was.

Disorienting.

I took about 50 photos, of Dad and Linda, of my brother Kurt, and Dad’s dogs, some of the local wildlife and the fish in the aquarium, and a few random shots of the French Quarter. I start to feel like I missed a spectacular opportunity, then I realize that people have been taking pictures of NOLA since the camera was invented, so the fact that I didn’t take a picture of the magnolia trees along the river doesn’t mean that such a picture was never taken. Just not by me.

And I will happily trade a thousand professional photos of the Mississippi River for one off-center shot of my Dad and brother standing in the mouth of a shark.

Posted in LifeTagged Hurricane Katrina

Post navigation

Katrina: Extraordinary Letter From the CFR Global Health Program
Katrina: Pointing Fingers

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Personal website of
John Winkelman

John Winkelman in a diner in San Francisco

Archives

Categories

Posts By Month

September 2005
S M T W T F S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
252627282930  
« Aug   Oct »

Links of Note

Reading, Writing
Tor.com
Locus Online
The Believer
File 770
IWSG

Watching, Listening
Writing Excuses Podcast
Our Opinions Are Correct

News, Politics, Economics
Naked Capitalism
Crooked Timber

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

© 2023 Ecce Signum

Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: x-blog by wpthemespace.com