Brick

Copy­right 2008 Ben S. Pol­lock NEW ORLEANS — You had to be here, you have to go here, to fully real­ize what’s going on here. If that is true then what of the Indone­sian tsunami that began Dec. 26, 2004? Do you have to go to Iowa to under­stand its mas­sive flood this month? You …

NEW ORLEANS — Come, see for your­self. My fel­low con­fer­ees and myself, being jour­nal­ists, have read about The Storm since it blew in Aug. 29, 2005, and refreshed our­selves before com­ing to town. Even though we’re writ­ers, some of us very good, none can explain the dev­as­ta­tion and slow recov­ery as effec­tively as being here. …

NEW ORLEANS — Din­ner on Fri­day fol­lowed a bit of planned silli­ness. Colum­nists gath­ered out­side the Hotel Mon­teleone where the Sto­ryville Stom­pers were wait­ing. They com­prised a danc­ing drum major, bass drum­mer, snare drum­mer, sax­o­phon­ist, trum­peter, trom­bon­ist and sousa­phone player. They played long ver­sions of about three Dix­ieland clas­sics and we were their “second-line,” sashay­ing …

NEW ORLEANS — For sev­eral years (see the Grapevine, Boston and Philadel­phia cat­e­gories at right), Brick has had write-ups of the ses­sions of the annual con­fab of the National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists. I’m not sure if many besides the fel­low con­fer­ees will be inter­ested, but it’s for the record. I am sec­re­tary, after all. My …

NEW ORLEANS — All morn­ing, we vis­i­tors have been refer­ring to Hur­ri­cane Kat­rina, occa­sion­ally to the other big one, Hur­ri­cane Rita, in the course of the all-day speeches and panel dis­cus­sions. Instead of two days of work­shops, this year’s National Soci­ety of News­pa­per Colum­nists con­fer­ence loaded up the teachin’ today so tomor­row we can move …