Fianl Portfolio Link

THE FINAL PORTFOLIO OF ROB

http://the-portfolio-of-rob.weebly.com/

Book Club Report Prep

My portion of the report will focus on the style of Why New Orleans Matters. Piazza uses a kind of disjointed style made up mostly of his own personal memories of New Orleans. He jumps from one subject to another in an attempt to convey the unique parts of New Orleans culture. Each chapter usually covers multiple topics. His tone is conversational and feels fairly laid back most of the time. The only exceptions are the beginning and end of the book when he is discussing the impact of Katrina. Appropriately, these sections have a more somber tone. Overall, the style of this book is best described as a jumpy recollection of what New Orleans has meant to Piazza. It is mostly a lighthearted memoir book-ended with a heart wrenching, insiders view of the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina.

New Orleans Journal

When trying to find a profile of New Orleans to compare to Why New Orleans Matters I found the New Orleans Journal in the New Yorker. Written by Dan Baum, these journal entries are in the format of a daily journal. Each entry is just a recap of the events of his day. It is more of a personal narrative than Piazza's version of New Orleans. This day to day account makes the story of New Orleans more personal and feels less forced than Piazza's book. It feels more objective and makes the reader relate to New Orleans more. Piazza could have taken an approach closer to Baum's.

Portfolio

My portfolio. Enjoy!

http://the-portfolio-of-rob.weebly.com/index.html

Why New Orlean Matters Recap

Overall, Piazza did a good job of describing the spirit of New Orleans. He showed what makes New Orleans so special and what would be lost if the rebuilding of the city was mishandled. The overall structure of the book works. He talks about what he loves about the city and then describes the destruction and the aftermath. The fact that a place that is so unique and special to him might not be the same again is devastating to him and he makes the reader sympathize with him. The book has a ton of great imagery. Piazza does a great job of showing the reader what New Orleans looks like at its most New-Orleans-like moments. I actually learned a lot about what goes on in New Orleans.

I still have a problem of the way he portrays everyone in New Orleans as smiling, drinking, dancing, good-time-having people at all times. He builds up this image of this constant party where everyone hangs out together no matter their social class or race or situation, and then mentions that there is racism and that the rich gave no effort to trying to empathize with the most destroyed parts of the city. Everyone hangs out together, but the rich are too comfortable to understand. The city is too well-knit to judge one another, but there is still racism. I don't think he's being inaccurate or intentionally trying to paint an overly bright picture, but I do think he's guilty of being too enamored with New Orleans. It feels like a book written by a guy who wasn't born in New Orleans and then traveled there and fell in love with how different it was culturally. And that is who he is. He loves New Orleans like my high school German teacher loved Berlin. She would tell us about how amazing and diverse and creative and expressive and perfect Berlin was. She lived there for 10 years and moved back here for a few years, but was going back again. To her, it was a magical city and it was her home at heart. It had flaws, but they just made it that much better. That's what Piazza does in this book.

Why New Orleans Matters first 3 chapters

The book reads almost like a travel guide. Piazza tells the reader where to eat and what areas to look for. He also lists musicians that the city is famous for. For the first three chapters I have learned about what Piazza is in to and have been given glimpses of the roots of the music and food. All of this is interesting and new to me, but it reads in a very biased way. Piazza loves EVERYTHING about New Orleans. There is nothing wrong with the city and everyone is an amazing character with a huge heart. There is no objectivity so the stories he tells come across as fantastic exaggerations. The stories might be completely true, but I have a hard time believing them completely because Piazza seems like he is trying to show how cool New Orleans is and how he is cool enough to know all of the famous people and can get in anywhere. Up to this point a better title for the book might be, Tom Piazza's Incredible Adventures in the Wonder Land of New Orleans. Also, he needs to stop with the long lists. Almost every page seems to have a list of 10 or more things, places, people, etc. It is like he is either showing off all the stuff he knows, or he is being sponsored by the things on the list so he can't leave anything out. I just want fewer lists and less of Piazza.

Why New Orleans Matters pre book club

Before I start to read Why New Orleans Matter by Tom Piazza I want to talk about why I chose this book. New Orleans to me is an almost mythic city. It has a culture so incredibly different and seemingly more interesting than the one I have grown up in. The appeal of the city itself and the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina are more than enough to pique my interest, but the thing that drew me in more than anything else is that I have learned a lot about people and government from this city. It would have been hard to imagine before Katrina that a major city could be destroyed so quickly. So much history lost in a matter of days. In the aftermath it became apparent that people were forgotten and that we were supposed to ignore this fact. Even now I have read about how people are not getting what was promised to them by the city, state, and federal government. I hope this book can shed some light on what New Orleans means to the people who live there, and what the cultural cost of Katrina has been.

Profile Selection

Professor John McDonough -
He is an incredibly entertaining person, so the quotes I will get for the profile will be telling and interesting. The profile itself could go in a number of ways because he has done a number of things in his life. The interview will determine what aspect of his life will be the main focus of the article.

Possible Interview Questions:
1. After taking a different path out of grad school, how did you end up teaching?
2. What is the most obvious change you went through while living in Ireland?
3. How would you describe your teaching method?
4. If you could design your own course any way you wanted to, what would the title be and what would you read?
5. How has your strict Irish-Catholic background helped you in your professional life?

Possible Profile Topics

1. Dr. Michael Hawes - CEO, Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the U.S.A
Executive Director, Canada - U.S. Fulbright Program. I met him through the Killam Fellowships program and he is heavily involved in educational exchange between Canada and the US and would be a great person to profile.

2. Dr. Ilter Bakkal - Professor in the Economics Department at BSU. He keeps himself up to date with recent economic developments and is very involved with his students' progress. He has been a huge help to me during my time at BSU and would be an interesting profile.

3. Professor John McDonough - Visitng Professor in the English Department at BSU. He was also one of my high school basketball coaches. He has lived in Boston, New York City, and Ireland and took an unique path to get to where he is today. His teaching method is unique and would make for an entertaining profile.