The non-recovery, and some thoughts on fashion

Donald Powell is the "Federal Coordinator of Gulf Coast Rebuilding." I honestly don't know what he's done other than nix other people's plans.

In the new issue of the New Yorker (Aug. 21) there's a good account of the big game of pass-the-buck that has left New Orleans without a plan or direction a year after the storm. It doesn't get into the issues about the levees, flood protection, wetlands loss, and so forth. But it does convey the continued chaos and confusion and deepening sense of hopelessness.

I didn't get to see Spike Lee's documentary at the Arena and I don't have HBO, so I don't know when I'll get to watch it. I think it should be worth seeing. I was uneasy about it because I thought he'd bought into the whitey-blew-up-the-levee theory. But he doesn't endorse the conspiracy theories, he just lets people who believe it say so. Fair enough.

Julia Reed has a pretty good piece about New Orleans a year later in the September issue of Vogue. She's a wealthy and sheltered resident of the Garden District, but she shows that there's a limit to how much protection from post-Katrina despair that money can buy.

I don't read Vogue often. It's the grande dame of high fashion magazines, and it's got the arrogance to match. The editorial tone often conveys the idea that if you don't wear a size 2 and have $20,000 to spend on the right bag, you're not worthy of gazing upon its glossy pages. And there is something obscene about dresses that cost more than a third-world factory worker makes in a lifetime.

But when the thousand-page September issue arrives on the newstand, I usually buy it. Then I go home and sink into it for an hour or two, and I enjoy it. Some of the clothes are gorgeous. Some are odd-looking, even shockingly so. They might be great as a work of popular art, but horribly unflattering to any woman who might actually wear them. But some of what looks wrong now will look normal in a few years.

I'm more of an observer of fashion than a participant. It's silly and trivial, but then again maybe not so much. It reminds you of the pleasure of clothes and looks, and makes you think about what you look like and what you've got on. This is what I meant when I wrote about watching what I eat and getting a haircut and so forth. I haven't paid attention to my looks for the last year, at least. I look in the mirror, but I don't really see what I'm looking at. Then one day I do see, and I wonder why that girl doesn't bother to wear something attractive and put on some lipstick.

I don't always put much effort into how I look, but I feel better when I do. It seems like a demonstration of my ability to take care of myself and an act of self worth. Right now it seems like an act of recovery, like I can do more than just cope. I know it affects for the better how other people treat me. And there's a basic pleasure in wearing a cute dress, getting a good haircut or a pedicure, putting on new lipstick.