Dispatches From the Drowned World

In some ways it was a melancholy Halloween in the French Quarter, and in some ways the best one ever: the crowd was tiny, but everyone was either local or here to help in some capacity, and everybody was relaxed and talking to each other, and you could see more than ever that New Orleans is wounded but very much alive.

--Poppy Z. Brite, alive, kicking, battered, and fried, on the Day of the Living Dead.