this place is astonishing. you hear and see this stuff on tv or whatever, but nothing really prepares you for the miles of dark ruins that were neighborhoods, the piles of debris. you sort of turn easily to the survival and revival: the optimistic conclusion to the 3-minute piece. maybe so, but it's a long long way from here to there, and the human cost is astronomical and incurable. there's a bit of devastation tourism going on: we were in a little line of cars trolling by the breach in the 17th st canal. people stopped to take pictures of the cars up to their doors in mud etc. then on the other side we ate dinner at  a hopping r&o restaurant, where everybody was wearing beads and smiling at each other.