New Orleans is built on top of a fishbowl-shaped sponge, as far as its foundational land is concerned. Road repair costs reflect this, but of course the other side of the coin is the decades worth of local government corruption here that makes any major progressive infrastructure changes feel like a perpetual pipe dream. At the same time though, it's one of the most beautiful cities in the country for endless historical + cultural reasons. You could say New Orleans is a highly concentrated gumbo of both the "good" and "bad" of some uniquely American ingredients. I love it here and hate it here; I get jealous when I visit other cities, but then I greatly miss home. Weird place.
Yep! I'm guilty of continuing to use the double-colon separators to this very day. Just shipped an internal app for my company a few months ago that utilizes them in page titles.
Apt reference to Burroughs, as he and Bowie ended up meeting in the early/mid '70s, and Bowie employed the cut-up technique somewhat often on his albums afterwards (starting with Diamond Dogs, if I'm not mistaken). So the Verbasizer was essentially Bowie's attempt to modernize a creative process he was already very fond of.
Yeah, although honestly you're paying for the art created by John Kascht. The story is compelling but very, very short. I bought it in hardback right when it came out.
