It’s raining and cold outside (or: Brownie Brownie B-B-B-B-Brownie)

So a hurricane approached the east coast last night and I really have no concept of what that means. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’ve been in Michigan my whole life and occasionally I’ve known how it feels to fear weather. I’ve known how it feels to be in a basement with a flashlight and a radio and I’ve known how to listen like my life is in danger. But it never was actually in danger. Really, I’ve only rehearsed the idea. And so I don’t know what to think.

I’ve seen the pictures from last night and they frighten me but they fascinate me. Seeing a place like New York, an infallible, imaginary city to me, fall victim to something as universal and equalizing as the weather, it’s scary. And it’s engrossing. And it’s confusing. But I feel scared for everyone out there and I feel like Michigan is a pretty great and safe place to be and it’s weird to know that just a bit farther east the world is different and that cold rain falling on their face in the morning is the least of their concerns. But I suppose that is always true, hurricane or not.

All of this hurricane talk reminds me of Hurricane Katrina, for some reason. I distinctly remember standing in the remnants of the hurricane in front of my house in a small town in southeast Michigan and thinking how strange it is that this same storm was just destroying a part of the country and now it is politely raining and helping my flowers grow. It was a weird feeling, like being numb and knowing that something hurts, but not actually being able to feel that hurt.

But Hurricane Katrina reminds me of songs. And specifically it reminds me of a composer who’s name is Ted Hearne and wrote a song cycle about the hurricane called Katrina Ballads (You can stream the whole thing here). He used a text entirely comprised of primary sources from the reaction around the event (Including George Bush’s famous, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job” and Kanye West’s “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”).

It’s an incredible piece of music and theatre and it is a fantastic look into raw human reaction. Sometimes all we can do to make sense of things is just to say what’s on our mind. And hope it makes something clear.