This Week’s Southernism, Monday, February 12, 2018

If New Orleans is not fully in the mainstream of culture, neither is it fully in the mainstream of time. Lacking a well-defined present, it lives somewhere between its past and its future, as if uncertain whether to advance or to retreat. Perhaps it is its perpetual ambivalence that is its secret charm. Somewhere between Preservation Hall and the Superdome, between voodoo and cybernetics, New Orleans listens eagerly to the seductive promises of the future but keeps at least one foot firmly planted in its history, and in the end, conforms, like an artist, not to the world but to its own inner being–ever mindful of its personal style.”

— Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume, 1984

 

Photo: Creative Commons

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About Deborah Fagan Carpenter

The creative and professional life of Deborah Fagan Carpenter has taken many directions: visual merchandiser, decorator, potter, sculptor, modern expressionist painter, photographer, and freelance feature writer. As Contributing Editor at PorchScene, her contributions are fueled by her love of all things beautiful, interesting, edible, and Southern.
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2 Responses to This Week’s Southernism, Monday, February 12, 2018

  1. Gary Fuller says:

    Past, present or future – mainstream or backwater. New Orleans is my favorite town in the world, and I have been to some great towns in Europe, North America and Asia.

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