Last week we talked a bit about what we thought Binx was searching for. Personally, I felt he didn't even know, that he was just looking for something to do; an excuse to mull around and do very little. Before coming to that conclusion, I was considering that he had perhaps already found what he was looking for, but didn't want to admit it. At first glance, he would seem pretty happy. There was one passage in particular which led me to believe this. Binx thought the following when Uncle Jules proposed going to Chicago:

"It is a small thing to him but not to me. It is nothing to him to close his eyes in New Orleans and wake up in San Francisco and think the same thoughts on Telegraph Hill that he though on Carondelet Street. Me, it is my fortune and misfortune to know how the spirit-prescence of a strange place can enrich a man or rob a man but never leave him alone, how, if a man travels lightly to a hundred strange cities and cares nothing for the risk he takes, he may find himself No one and Nowhere." (Page 99)

When I read this, I was set on the fact that Binx was happy, and that his search was some figment of his imagination. I later recalled an earlier passage where he spoke about the woman behind the ticket window at the movie theater. He mentioned her son, who hated the desert, then stated he would love to live there. The desert is nearly a complete opposite of New Orleans, yet for some reason he would like it. So I suggest the following topic for this week: Why is Binx in New Orleans? He claims that it isn't a non-place, but here he states his desire to live in a place completely different. I feel that Binx has an obligation to his family members, and part of his search is finding something outside of his family, which he has not yet been able to do.