Tag Archives: Biography

A Book About Surviving in New Orleans

 

The people of New Orleans
Street Musician and a fan in New Orleans

Destination: New Orleans, LA, United States

Book: Nine Lives, Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum

Just in case you think this book has something to do with how a tourist survives a Sazerac hangover, forget it. The latest addition to my traveler’s library tells about the lives of real people who survived Hurricane Katrina.

A New Orleans friend mused, “I wonder how this book has gotten so much attention with all the hurricane books that have been written?”  But perhaps he answered the question himself, when he said, “I didn’t want it to end.”

Dan Baum makes the readers of Nine Lives voyeurs who learn details of more than ‘life in New Orleans.’  We watch every move of nine people–through things they are proud of and things they are not so proud of.  It is true life to the extent that memory is true and to the extent that anyone who has lived in New Orleans all his or her life can tell a story without a bit of embellishment. Because we become voyeurs, we want more details of each life.

However, being a stranger to  New Orleans myself, I had had quite enough of some of these people by the time the book ended. Some were not the kind of people I wanted to hang around with for long periods of time. And yet one character who spent most of his life in prison and the rest getting in trouble, delivered some of the most memorable observations.

Which is not to say I did not enjoy the book. And, oh my, how much I learned.From the history and importance of the Black Indian Tribes of Mardi Gras to the importance of high school band classes in the city of music. I learned to appreciate the poetry in ghetto speak. I learned more about the fragmentation of the unique class system of New Orleans.

My own enjoyment was enhanced by the fact that this book is totally based on interviews–over 100 people helped tell the stories of the nine.  A friend and I have just completed a biography of Navajo artist Quincy Tahoma which was largely based on interviews. So I appreciated the authors’ research methods and the delicate balance one must walk in trying to tell the truth based on people’s oral history.

I highly recommend this book for your traveler’s library if you want to understand New Orleans. Just keep in mind that there are some people leading less dramatic lives, as well.  It is just that in New Orleans, high drama is more the norm.

As prototypical criminal type, Anthony Wells,  says of his expulsion after the storm, “I missed walking around. In New Orleans, you walk around. You sit down. You see people. You talk. There’s noise all the time–wreck on I-10, the pool hall, somebody playing on a saxophone. Gunshots. Yeah, man.  I even missed the gunshots.”

Photography by Vera Marie Badertscher, all rights reserved

Boston and American History

(Since Robert Todd Felton’s computer decided it did not want to blog today—died on a train to New York– I’m filling in with more thoughts on Boston, the subject of our prize book.  Felton will be back on Monday, and we will have the drawing for his travel book on Boston as scheduled, after midnight MST Saturday, Feb. 28. Comments you leave on this post will count toward the drawing.)

When I think of Boston, I think of 1776, the beginnings of the United States of America, and some amazing leaders. John Adams, my favorite founder, has been the subject of many biographies, but I can’t imagine any  more satisfying than John Adams by David McCullough. A little American history must go on the traveler’s library shelf in preparation for a trip to New England.

As I write, John Adams stares directly at me from the Gilbert Stuart painting reproduced on the book jacket.  He looks stern, intellectual, but also approachable and human. Alternatively, you may get the paperback book which cheats history by using a picture of Paul Giametti, who played John Adams on television.

McCullough portrays every detail of life in John Adam’s New England and Boston and how he hated to go down to Philadelphia for sessions of the Continental Congress. But traveling to Philadelphia, despite danger and outbreaks of disease is only one of the multitude of sacrifices made by the founders as they groped toward a democracy.

McCullough scores again with his book, 1776, a day by day tracing of the events of the beginning of the revolution.  So many things could have gone wrong. Our army was weak, our navy non-existent and our leaders playing the whole thing by ear. Perhaps a quote from John Adams explains the final outcome. “We cannot ensure success, but we can deserve it.”

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And here’s an English proverb for you—“A stumble can prevent a fall.”  So have you stumbled your favorite post from the traveler’s library,yet?

Austria: But Not THAT "Sound of Music"

Mozart cup in Salzberg
The Mozart Melange Cafe cup in Salzberg

Book: Mozart, A Cultural Biography by Robert Gutman

Destination: Salzburg

Don’t take the Sound of Music tour.  Don’t tell an Austrian how much you like the Sound of Music. For heavens’ sake, don’t walk down the Getreidegasse humming “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music.

I had been warned before I went to Salzburg that Austrians do not like American’s beloved musical because it portrays them as too friendly to the Nazis in World War II.  What others saw as accommodation, the Austrians saw as  survival.  But the lovely lady who guided us on a walking tour around the UNESCO World Heritage Site Old City, blamed it on dissing Austrian music.  “Edelweiss,” she explained, “is not even an Austrian folk song.” And with that, we went back to exploring the childhood neighborhoods of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Salzburg’s favorite son.

While Mozart did indeed spend his childhood in this city (when he wasn’t on tour impressing crowned heads of Europe with his prodigy), he lit out for Vienna, saying a few nasty things about Salzburg when he was old enough.  Learn all about the boy genius and his pushy dad in Mozart, A Cultural Biography, perhaps the best of dozens of biographies of Salzburg’s pride and joy, and worthy of a place in the traveler’s library.

So after you land at the Mozart airport, visit the Mozart Cafe, munch on some Mozart candy, attend the Mozart Festival or listen to puppets perform Mozart’s operas, but DO NOT take the Sound of Music Tour. Keep your ear on the Baroque music of Mozart.

Travel guides come wrapped in books of biography, too, you know. What biographies have you read that deepened your understanding of a destination?