What is it about New Orleans?

To quote Dave Matthews:
"New Orleans hasn't been incorporated in this dominant commercial corporatization of the rest of the country. It's a unique, self sustained city and culture. It keeps its identity in a defiant way."

I've held on to this quote on a ripped out bit of newspaper. Figuring it needed to get up on the blog.

Yesterday I went to the Hollygrove Market & Farm to get my box of locally grown produce (and it was booming!). Then I took the tire rims picked up in the neighborhood cleanup to the bulk recyclers on Earhart. Here I met one of my neighbors from farther down Pritchard Place. He recognized me waved, and came over to visit, updating me on his family and commenting on the Dance Studio freshly painted by the Lutheran volunteers. PreKatrina we were strangers. PostKatrina we are more like family. When he left we shook hands and kissed on the cheek, the crazy white lady and the nice black man. Both with our own innate sense of New Orleanian definance. We are going to survive and we have made our neighborhood a better place to live. Unique and self-sustaining.