Henri Schindler, a Mardi Gras historian and float designer, offered another quote, one he knows by heart, to sum up the city's march into a historic Carnival.
Nineteenth century writer Lafcadio Hearn wrote a letter to a friend in Cincinnati about two years after he arrived in New Orleans in 1877, during a grim period in which thousands died from yellow fever. He summed up his situation this way:
"Times are not good here. The city is crumbling into ashes. It has been buried under a lava flood of taxes and frauds and maladministrations so that it has become only a study for archaeologists. Its condition is so bad that when I write about it, as I intend to do soon, nobody will believe I am telling the truth. But it is better to live here in sackcloth and ashes than to own the whole state of Ohio."
Monday, February 20, 2006
Quote of the (yester)day
Sunday Times-Pic carried a pretty good feature story on Mardi Gras and national perceptions of New Orleans. This was noteworthy.
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