a review of the Decatur Book Festival - Paul Sanchez's MySpace Blog |

I have an interest in New Orleans and a few weeks ago I found another source by which to experience New Orleans - albeit from a distance. At the Decatur Book Festival, held three miles from my home, there was a book reading by a New Orleans musician, and author by surprise Paul Sanchez. He came to read from his book Pieces of Me and to play his music to other New Orleans worshipers,owners and, like myself perhaps, other proud borrowers of the city.

It’s hard to own something that you’re not so sure you if really own it. If you are not a native of a town, you don’t live there, and don’t plan do more than visit, then just how much interest should you have in the place? Does simply adding up a place’s significance in one’s life give you some degree of ownership? I struggle with my ownership of New Orleans. I have been a visitor there since I was about was about three years of age. My parents owned it in their hearts as they met there where when they were in college; could it be I owe my existence to the place? With the availability of news from the Crescent City on the internet and a growing list of books, on not only the recent disaster of Hurricane Katrina, but on the culture of the place, it has become easy to become a devotee of the place with one real visit each year. This book festival event was probably full of true New Orleanians, many of whom perhaps remain in therapy because of Hurricane Katrina, and so this event with Paul Sanchez was spiritual to many in that room.

Sanchez is a native New Orleanian and he was chased away, at least for a time, by the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. As a musician in a fairly well known New Orleans band, Cowboy Mouth, he can draw crowd just for his songwriting, guitar and voice, but the storm made him an author. Displaced from New Orleans he started an internet blog. In time someone who could get him published took notice of this blog. Between songs from his career on this day, Sanchez read from his book Pieces of Me and held his audience with his stories of place, displacement, and being home again. The audience joyfully responded to his narrative about people owning a pet goat as if it was another dog in the French Quarter’s urban setting, he has a story about a fruit and vegetable vendor who creeps through the streets of the city in pickup announcing his products in cadence over a loudspeaker, only occasionally forgetting to turn off the microphone when he takes a call on his cell , and then there is a hard story for Paul to tell, about his changed life after being hit by a taxi cab while riding his bike while on tour in Chicago,which for months caused him to black out at unexpected times.

People around me at this event were rattling keys and clicking their fingers to the stories he told. I heard yeses uttered as he spoke, almost like it was a lively church service on a Sunday. These were human stories with a sense of place that many recognized as they could only take place in New Orleans and sadly some of these stories could only be after Katrina almost washed the place away.

I bought Paul’s book and CD called Stew Called New Orleans that he recorded with another New Orleans musician, John Boutte, and I went back outside. I ran into someone I knew at a book booth out on the street. I related to them the story of this book event with Paul Sanchez and just talking about it seemed to be oddly poetic to me.

I remember days after Katrina defending this city below sea level with its contrasting mix of wealth and extreme poverty. At times New Orleans seems to have only have history and culture on its side in a country conflicted in a constant debate of worthiness. I will stand by my understanding of the place and my awkward ownership like the people with me at this book reading. I told Paul Sanchez after he signed my copy of Pieces of Me, thanks for coming here,yes thanks for bringing a piece of New Orleans in yourself to Decatur, GA for an afternoon.

Steve, Atlanta Ga.