After 11 years in New York City, at the age of 46, I was ready for a change. So I decided to move to the city that had fascinated me since my childhood in rural Maine: New Orleans.
In New Orleans, I imagined as I packed up my small apartment, I would live in a place with lofty ceilings, shuttered windows, slowly spinning ceiling fans, and, that precious luxury in New York, a yard. Or a porch. Or a balcony. In any case, not a fire escape.
Read MoreI first encountered Tim Youd’s performance art mid-performance, in front of Faulkner House Books in New Orleans’ French Quarter. Seated at a card table, pecking away on an Olivetti Studio 44, the Los Angeles–based performance artist was retyping, word for word, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, the fortieth entry in his 100 Novels Project. “I’m an unorthodox typist,” Youd said wryly. “I’d say that I’m probably as good as I’m going to get.” For the project, Youd was retyping, as the title suggests, 100 novels, each on a single, continuously rolled sheet of paper.
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