Trama

Stephen travels through the basin of Old Man River, North America's greatest, from the Great Lakes to its Gulf of Mexico delta. Stephen starts in Louisiana, visiting New Orleans, site of Mardi Gras frivolity and superstition, touring the ruins of the Lower Ninth Ward and Louisiana's infamous Angola State Penitentiary. He then travels north along Highway 61, with stops in Natchez, Mississippi (talking with Morgan Freeman, owner of a local blues club), Arkansas (canoeing on the river), Iowa (discussing meditation at the Maharishi International University), St. Louis (talking with some homeless people living in an abandoned warehouse), Elkhart, Indiana (riding in a fire engine) and Detroit (riding with the designer of the latest Cadillac). In Chicago, he tours the South Side with blues legend Buddy Guy and gets roped into helping with a Second City show, with Chicago-style hot dogs after with two of the performers. Then on to Wisconsin for artisanal cheesemaking, a visit to a Hmong market in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and finally a bit of ice-fishing. Meditations about river-love, the restless nature of the American dream and immigration alter with visits to towns and cities in the vast Midwest plains and Minnesota sources. Included are the San Louis homeless, Vedic 'trans-meditational yoga' guru's Iowa commune HQ, second US economic city Chicago, Scandinavian and Hmong communities in the icy north.—KGF Vissers