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audreyintheheadphones's review
1.0
Thirtysomething dude moves from NYC to New Orleans and proceeds to report back to his friends and family on it. Then decides to provide analysis on things like New Orleans neighborhood gentrification, historical strife and culture. This goes about as well as you'd expect, but maybe my expectations for Thirtysomething dudes from NYC are pretty low.
Basically: 200 pages of "Don't get me wrong, I love living in New Orleans, but..." followed by an example of what the author considers odd or picturesque that explains why this country thought Manifest Destiny was a fine idea. There are also tiny black-and-white photos sprinkled throughout the book that would've been awesome if they were big enough for any details to be discernible by the naked eye. Or the squinting-through-glasses eye. Instead, they're all meticulously 2"x2" squares set in the middle of blank white pages.
(Somewhere, off in the distance, a professional book designer just threw an ancient copy of Adobe Pagemaker through a wall.)
There's a briefly interesting interlude near the beginning involving a Miami Vice critical studies reader, robots that shoot fire and Richard Linklater's Slacker, but it's not remotely enough to save the rest of the book.
"In most metropolitan areas, housing projects are hidden away in the fringes. In New Orleans, many are woven throughout the city. One is just a couple blocks from the tourist-beckoning French Quarter; I pass two complexes every time I drive to the gym."
"Q: Why did you choose New Orleans?
A: Once 'Page Six' was available online, it became possible to live anywhere. There's no reason that the new Avenue C might not be beyond the East Village, beyond Williamsburg or Long Island City. It could be anywhere. Right?"
Basically: 200 pages of "Don't get me wrong, I love living in New Orleans, but..." followed by an example of what the author considers odd or picturesque that explains why this country thought Manifest Destiny was a fine idea. There are also tiny black-and-white photos sprinkled throughout the book that would've been awesome if they were big enough for any details to be discernible by the naked eye. Or the squinting-through-glasses eye. Instead, they're all meticulously 2"x2" squares set in the middle of blank white pages.
(Somewhere, off in the distance, a professional book designer just threw an ancient copy of Adobe Pagemaker through a wall.)
There's a briefly interesting interlude near the beginning involving a Miami Vice critical studies reader, robots that shoot fire and Richard Linklater's Slacker, but it's not remotely enough to save the rest of the book.
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