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June 06, 2005
Bobos in Paradise?
So, after an overnight coach ride to the curb of Gatwick Airport, a transatlantic flight that replayed Groundhog Day three times (hopefully I wasn't the only person to catch the irony in that), and four devilish days in Mississippi, I have arrived here in Atlanta.
The Paste Headquarters are cramped to a certain coolness. I'm staying with a friend who graciously offered the extra bedroom in his parents house for my summer (free) accomodation. I may be incorrect in presuming this, but I will presume anyway. This home bears way too much resemblance to the sitcom notion of homes that at least 10 different people just waltz into on any particular day. I never believed it actually existed. I thought Patrick Duffy and Suzanne Somers homestead on TGIF's "Step by Step" was a manifestion of the collective American familial psychosis, a figment in falsity. However, my experience thus far tells me that these type of things actually exist. Having been here 48 hours, each time I have descended the stairs from my upstairs roost, someone I have never seen nor met before is standing in the kitchen. My friend's mother told me that about twenty people have keys to their home. This generosity both warms and chills me. I am delighted by their kindness, but have to prepare myself to live in the physical reality of what up until now has an only been a filmic representation for me.
However, what is even more chilling than that is my daily commute to work. The drive is a solid 25 miles through parkway, freeway and motorway. Nevertheless, those 25 miles mark a continental divide in cultural attitudes. Paste is located in Decatur, sometimes dubbed the Berkeley of the south. It's a hotbed of gentrification and the new urbanism, also only a stone's throw away from Little Five Points, the bohemian center of Atlanta.
Conversely, my friend's house is located, well, technically in Alpharetta, though I suppose it's closer in proximity to Duluth and Roswell. Essentially, this neighborhood resides in a North Atlanta netherworld. To get from the highway to this neighborhood, it's a mere three miles. However, as I realized on a drive just a short while ago, that requires passing by two golf courses. (The number is three if you count what is incidentally a first for me - a gated golf course. I'm not entirely certain if it's a private club or someone's front yard. Neither would surprise me.) Also, every neighborhood in this vicinity must be required to have a name vaguely remniscent of some rural idyll - for example, RiverPines or River Farm on the Chattahoochee - not forgetting my own, The Falls.
The nearby supermarket has one of the lamest selections of organic foods I've encountered. The Oxford, MS Kroger shames this variety. And for all its delusions of bohemia, Oxford is not exactly a bastion of progressive living. Driving around Atlanta still feels awkward for me, not because I haven't driven in five months, but because these people will so willingly just pack up and commute 30 miles for a stroll through Eddie Bauer or Bed Bath and Beyond.
Maybe this acute feeling when driving has driven me (puntastic!) to another realization. Atlanta, as well as American, pedestrians are little more than pariah. On the first count, there's hardly sidewalks anywhere. So, any city outing that involves walking must be preceded by a few prayers to patron saint of adventure travel Daniel Boone. Secondly, pedestrians just look so out of place. In some sense, pedestrians have become the bare genitals of American public spaces. Our reaction to their alienation is little different than that of when we accidentally open the door on someone using the toilet. I'm not going to shy away from the obvious: Pedestrians are the penises and vaginas of American society.
Honestly, though, for me there's are few things more depressing than the lone pedestrian walking down some grassy curb next to the next great American tribute to the shopping center. I respect the trailblazer, but bemoan the fact that walking in 21st-century America is as rugged as the Oregon Trail was.
I realize this isn't just Atlanta. America has largely become a suburban cesspool. Perhaps I can write this off to culture shock. For the past five months, I've been living on a campus dorm that was a ten-minute walk from a supermarket, coffee shop, pharmacy, bar, video rental store, cinema, Thai, Chinese, Indian, and pub cuisine. Hell, I could even walk to McDonald's if I wanted to.
You must not realize how good you had it until it's all gone. Emigration, please.
Posted by houch at June 6, 2005 01:38 AM
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Comments
Palmer, I had this exact discussion with my father as we drove out to the Frascogna mafia's newest development, Lost Rabbit. There will be a town center with a grocery store, a restaurant, and shopping, yet you are a good 25 minutes from the rest of Jackson. Is it at all odd that you have to drive to walk down a mainstreet. This also brings to mind the new development going in on the final corner of the Dogwood festival mall, it will contain an almost enclosed town center, in which a single lane of traffic runs through a hallway of stores and chain eateries.
I would also like to note that when I see people in Jackson riding a bike* somewhere or walking, I immediately assume they are either A) Too poor to have a car or B) Are in fact homeless and their pedestrian status is by default.
I think the fact that both of us can list cities outside of the south as primary residences for the past 2+ years is a major contributing factor to this mindset. So come visit me in Chicago, we will walk to get a bite to eat.
*Refers mainly to the Mexican workers who travel lakeland by bike to their places of employment.
Sorry for hijacking your blog.
Lou
Posted by: Lou at June 6, 2005 06:46 AM
i think the "suck" knob on my brain is broken. kick me in the head please.
Posted by: jimmy j at June 7, 2005 05:24 PM
I got bored somewhere in the middle of your post. You started sounding a lot like the voice I imagine coming from Oxford if the "bohemia" that it is could speak, lamenting the society of today, the good old days, etc., etc.
I ended up reading this: blah blah blah. I was vaguely entertained, hoping I'd be shocked by your assertion that pedestrians are the bare genitals of today's society, but I think that's kind of bullshit, depending. I give you a C-.
Meanwhile, I will go drive around Oxford in my car with the windows down, the sunroof (called the "moonroof" by the Honda people) open, and the radio blaring. I will be label it some kind of abstract art form: "Bastard in Motion," or something like that.
While you're near Duluth, check up on the missing bride case; she just ended up in court, I think. I want first-hand accounts of how pissed off the townspeople are at her.
Drew, who mails his Netflix to Duluth, as a matter of fact
Posted by: Drew at June 7, 2005 10:02 PM