November 10, 2005 | Filed under: Uncategorized
You can either click on the photo or click here to watch. I beg of you to let me know if you cannot view it.
First off, let me warn you that this little movie isn’t all that little. I had a tremendous amount of difficulty cramming half-an-hour of raw footage into 2.5 minutes. So it’s really more like five minutes. And if it seems like an endless barrage of pictures of mass distruction, that’s because it is–because that’s what’s there. I do have some images from the spankin’ clean (although totally empty) French Quarter, and wanted to include it because of the sharp contrast, but then the darn thing would have been like eight minutes, and that’s really pushing it, so I’ll post it seperately.
A couple of notes to fill in where there’s no narration: those brown markings that run across cars and houses are silt marks from water lines. When you can’t see them, it means that either there was no high flooding at all, or the house was completely submerged. Those first houses shown are in my boyfriend’s neighborhood, and although it’s in the 9th Ward, it’s on the high side of the river and was spared major damage. Driving through the Lower 9th showed us how lucky he really was. I think it’s also important to remind folks (and myself–sometimes I get all caught up in N.O., too) that there are towns along the Gulf that were wiped off the map entirely, and that while New Orleans is getting the lion’s share of the attention, other areas affected by the hurricanes are also in dire need of aid.
The aspect of the trip that bothered me the most is the overall feeling that no one really knows what’s being done or what happens next. That lone local we encountered that was searching for kittens under porches summed it up: “What’s the latest? Do you know what’s going on?”. And he lives there. I have the luxury of going back to my little dry apartment and hoping the media will keep me informed, and this guy lives there and is getting next to zero information. Unfortunately, there is some truth to the rumor that the Lower 9th will be razed.
Another word on the godzilla-like size of this video: it’s about 19MB, which might explain why the kind folks at Ourmedia had trouble uploading it. That’s where my other videos have lived so far without incident, happily rubbing pixels with the other freely hosted media files from around the globe, but the last few days have been a computer-crashing, files-missing, screen-freezing, browser-bunching disaster as far as uploading was concerned. After nearly giving up hope (and even re-editing a little to shave a whopping 4.5 MB off the size, as if THAT would make a difference) I remembered that I have an unused .mac account just lying there waiting for a little upload love. Eureka! Thanks to Becca for all her good advice, Ryanne Hodson & Michael Verdi at freevlog who taught me everything I need to know about compressing movie files (teaching Quicktime IN Quicktime!), and Steve Garfield at feevlog, whose list of web hosting services jogged my memory about the .mac account I had totally forgotten existed.
Also, this and my other video posts are Quicktime files. I’m a mac user from way back in 6th grade, and still don’t get around Windows very well. I’m just getting the hang of it at work and I think that’s Windows 2000. Maybe even ‘95. My deepest apologies to the Windows Media users out there. I have absolutely no idea how to convert into that format, and I’m not even certain that there’s a way for me to do so, but I’m looking into it.
Enough of my yakking.
“I Wish I Was In New Orleans”
Tom Waits
“Small Change”
Asylum Records, 1976
Buy It!
11/27/05 update: This video now lives at blip.tv, and I return to my prior state of possessing a .mac account for virtually no reason whatsoever.
November 10, 2005
@ 7:09 pm
Hi there MsBHavens! I stumbled here via the funkybrownchick. Come on over and check out my wasteland. Great videos by the way! N’awlins is my favorite city in the world!
November 10, 2005
@ 7:53 pm
I could see it and I always have trouble seeing anyone’s video. Good job figuring the whole thing out. I enjoyed the footage, must have been something to see it firsthand.
November 11, 2005
@ 12:35 am
I’m so glad it loaded–the internet and my cable modem have been my enemies this past week! And yeah, it was really strange to see it live and up close after seeing it on TV for so long…
November 11, 2005
@ 1:12 am
That’s such a sad video, but I’m glad you final got it up! All we see is the videos the media provides of New Orleans, but none of what the people actually see. Very moving.
November 11, 2005
@ 9:59 am
MissB, I’m not sure I’m ready to watch this yet. I truly cannot believe of the conditions that still exist, for both humans and animals.
November 11, 2005
@ 12:35 pm
I’m having alot of trouble with Quicktime recently. I’m sorry I can’t watch it. I will try again.
November 12, 2005
@ 11:27 am
I’m amazed at how things are still over there. Why isn’t the media covering this? Have they forgotten about it?
It’s incredible how “the public” forgets so easy…
This video is excellent! They should show it in every TV channel!!! It gives you a dimension of the emtyness that you feel there. You can even see it!
It looks like a ghost town…
Great video… great video… I’m glad you were able to upload it to your .Mac account.
November 13, 2005
@ 10:24 pm
devastating to watch–and even moreso, as you say, since elsewhere it’s even worse. thanks for sharing that. I found moving, and so I linked to it.
November 14, 2005
@ 11:08 am
Thanks, from a Mid-City/Slidell girl, for getting it out there. I’m SO DAMN SAD. Or angry, depending on the time of day.
November 14, 2005
@ 10:32 pm
VerbalChameleon posted this, and I follwed. Thank you very much for this; we certainly don’t get a chance to see much of this on the regular news.
November 14, 2005
@ 10:37 pm
you did a great job with this.
November 15, 2005
@ 8:27 am
Hey MissB,
Your movies have worked for me so far. I’ll watch this one when I get home.
It’s amazing how the locals are the most clueles of all. I’m sad to say that I am not surprised, though.
That seems to be the way that some governments like to have things…
Jorge
November 16, 2005
@ 11:25 pm
Just the biggest Wow ever. Thank you so much.
November 17, 2005
@ 3:29 pm
This has left me broken hearted. When my husband and I first met, we snuck off to N.O. for four days. We drove around all of the places tourists don’t go and ate all of the most amazing food we could find, hung out with the most interesting people and just got drunk on the chilled out vibe of the city and it’s people. It’s where we fell in love. My heart goes out to your boyfriend and his loved ones. Thank you for this VLOG.
December 1, 2005
@ 11:18 pm
We can give money if we have some, if not we can send out at lest some prayers and + thoughts. I feel for those who have lost lives and homes.
–jan