i've just received word that my parents are reading my blog. hello, parents! welcome to the world between my ears. it's a bit like the wood between the worlds, in terms of growing things and lots of mysterious puddles. but you can't get to as many places from here as from there.
last night i drove and drove around the city, thinking. i now see all kinds of things in american cities that i didn't, before. take the skyscrapers. they must somehow reflect the desire to achieve and to gloat about it. forget all the talk about efficiently using space, this just looks like Babel to me. especially when the shadows of the downtown business district almost touch the poorest parts of the city. we have money, access, power, climate control... and you don't. in america, the advancement of the human race is never all of us advancing together. it's some advancing at the cost of others. "oh! let's play universe! i'll be god and you all be weak and oppressed, ok?"
maybe that's too much of a burden to place upon the well-meaning skyscraper. still, i find it hard to consider the steel-and-concrete exaltation of major corporations without thinking about money, when nine out of ten are financial institutions.
then there's the street-level activity. where do people spend their time when they're not working or sleeping? well, from the socio-economic bottom up, there are the public service providers (soup kitchens and shelters), starbucks (where you can get surprisingly little for less than $3), and dance clubs (where people wear expensive clothes and pay heavy cover charges in order to ruin their hearing and livers).
these are my options? good grief. i wonder if i drank too much european water; maybe these things are all normal and i'm just seeing them slant-wise, like when you've fallen out of bed and can't place where you are. but what happened to the humble kebap shop? why are the only people in the parks selling drugs or exercising themselves to death? where, oh where, are the tea rooms and all-night coffee bars? and if these places exist, why am I having trouble imagining conversations about philosophy or politics happening in them?
that's when the low-fuel light went on and i realized that as a private automobile user, i'm once again responsible for procuring fuel. with no one to reimburse me. woah.
no more driving for me. and who cares? i've got a television and a deck of cards waiting for me at home.
Posted by nickles at October 20, 2007 12:48 PM | TrackBackThanks for sharing your culture shock with us. You've always seen a lot; now you're seeing even more.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at October 21, 2007 01:33 PMGreyfriar's closes at midnight. Starbucks is not the same as Greyfriar's.
Come to Greyfriar's. There is much talk philosophy and politics to be sure.
Also, in Coolidge Park there is much frisbee throwing, chatting, and non-heavy exercise activities. Not too many drugs either. I don't know if I've ever seen a drug exchange there.
Although I think Hannah T. and I saw someone do a drug drop somewhere downtown once. It was several blocks away from Coolidge Park.
Chattanooga misses you. I think you need Chattanooga.