Friday, August 14, 2009

Coiled Sexual Power of a Jungle Cat


From Woody Allen's Manhattan:

Chapter one. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Behind his black rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. New York was his town and it always would be.


While driving into Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge, or walking into a quiet bar off the busy city streets, I felt this way about New York when I lived there.

But the soundtrack in your mind in New Orleans is different. Here, it's more like:

Chapter one. He was as broken and beautiful as the elegant, old double gallery houses that lined the streets in the city he loved. Under his blue cotton suit, dark with sweat in the summer heat, was the animal ferocity of one of the small, feral street cats that fight off the packs of pit bulls that roam his neighborhood. New Orleans was his town and, though he hears gunshots in the night, it always would be.

And in the background, instead of Rhapsody in Blue, Glen David Andrews singing Summertime.

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