Andrei Codrescu

"New Orleans is different, I think, if only because the locals have had a long time to elaborate a style of living and a modus viviendi that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Everybody in New Orleans loves the food, the music, and our sense of time (slow time) that's peculiar to us and to us only. There is a velvety sensuality here at the mouth of the Mississippi that you won't find anywhere else. Tell me what the air feels like 3 a.m. on a Thursday night in late August in Shaker show more Heights and I bet you won't be able to say because nobody stays up that late. But in New Orleans, I tell you, it's ink and honey passed through silver moonlight. Accuse me of poetry, go ahead. But prove that it isn't so. You can't, because New Orleans is made of a tissue of poetries that wove each other together over time."

From 1985 to 2005 (and then an afterword post-Katrina), Codrescu shares some of his writing from New Orleans. It's beautiful and sometimes gritty, reflecting both the light and dark of the city of dreams. He writes a few times of the parallels between New Orleans and Venice, which I had not previously considered, but having visited both, I get it. Venice had a similar effect on me- like walking into a magical city, out of real life and into a fantasy. Lovely. show less

I've been a fan of Codrescu for years through his spoken word bits he's done on National Public Radio (NPR). This is a collection of essays that he's written over a twenty year period about his adopted city of New Orleans, and it is a marvelous read. Codrescu's humor and insight are always sharp, and ordering this collection in this way allows the reader to follow his love affair with the city as it evolves from an initial infatuation to a deep and abiding love (the good and the bad), with show more the dark, unhappy moments that come with the package. Codrescu sees more from a coffee shop window than most of us can see in a year of observing our own neighborhood. Knowing about hurricane Katrina and post-Katrina New Orleans only serves to make many of his early observations even more relevant and powerful. Codrescu's essays reveal an ever-present awareness, likely shared by his neighbors, that the City was living on the edge of disaster.

I normally recommend reading collections like this in bits and pieces, and, certainly, one could do that, but the coherency of this anthology is so striking that I'd suggest taking it all in as you would a memoir or biography - a memoir is what this anthology turns out to be. show less

In 1947 Louis Armstrong posited the musical question, “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans?” Sixty years later, this chestnut has taken on a whole new meaning, and (if you have any kind of heart at all) has a tendency to stick in the throat. This collection of mostly short musings in, around, and about the Crescent City finds Transylvanian transplant Andrei Codrescu in his cups and in his element and shows us exactly what it should mean.

You might think that the Deep South would show more be an odd choice of pot for a former Eastern Bloc no-goodnik to replant himself in, but with further contemplation, it does make sense. First of all, there is the vampire connection, a Bohemian sense of empire gone to dangerous seed, and a certain resigned patience that someone familiar with Soviet-style can-do attitude might recognize and respond to (eventually) in the low-gear stifling heat.

Arriving in town in 1985, Codrescu wasted no time in surrounding himself with like-minded writers, artists, and miscreants which all make for an entertaining read as they play out their fantastical roles on a rotting, vibrantly-colored stage. There is a bracingly abrupt pause between Codrescu’s description of a burgeoning art scene and the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Most of this book is concerned with the years between 1985 and 2005, but there is an epilogue chillingly entitled, poetry will not end with the world.

“It’s heartbreaking watching my city sink,” Codrescu writes. “New Orleans will be rebuilt, but it will never again be the city I know and love.” After an entire book taken up showing us what we were missing, Codrescu unwittingly showed the world exactly what it should miss. show less

Born Andrei Perlmutter in lovely, medieval Sibiu, Romania, the author graduated from Lyceum in 1965, and he almost immediately left his homeland and its Communist regime for western freedom. In December of 1989, with a crew from NPR, he returned to his native country to report on the people's revolution that resulted in the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu, who had held the nation in their dictatorial grip for all of Andrei's adult life. The Hole in the Flag is his very personal show more account of what he found upon his return to Romania that winter, and again the following June. It is also very revealing of the immense difficulty of finding the truth about what transpires in times of upheaval. What appeared (and was meant to appear) as a spontaneous uprising of the people turned out to be something quite different, most likely a long-planned coup plotted and supported by the KGB, carried out by the military, and staged to present a revolutionary image not only to the outside world, but to those very near to its center. And yet, this coup did engage the populace, particularly young people, and as Codrescu says, there was in fact a true revolution "in people's souls, when they suddenly felt no more fear." Twenty-five years later, I am uncertain what the long-term effects of this overthrow have been. Romania doesn't make the headlines very often, but I'm fairly sure Codrescu has had more to say about the subject since he wrote this book, and I intend to seek it out.
Review written October 2014 show less