Place to Go

The Great Figure
Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city
William Carlos Williams

As William Carlos Williams describes the etiology of his historic poem that gave rise to this wonderful image (click on blog title for link) what struck me not was the beat nature of the poem, the graphic nature of the image, but simply that WCW could leave his place of work for that day, and go to his friends house. From those circumstances arose such a work. From a purposeful wondering, a working, leisurely sociability. Nothing could be more difficult to do today.

In an era where everyone crowded into Manhattan to be in the city, and rents while high were not extraordinary like today, no doubt most of your friends were close at hand. Today this is not the case. People seem to be strewn around the city. There are more people in the suburbs than the city. The majority of workers in Manhattan commute from outside the borough, from outside the city. The artists have been priced out. Perhaps in some areas - SoHo among the very successful and resilient artists who haven't moved for decades, this experience is still possible. In the East Village it would be possible also. Having lived there I can attest to it. A few painters and musicians are around. Various other types who don't work. And a nice park as a gathering point.

But we have changed. The etiquette of stopping by unannounced is discouraged in New York in general. The artists are a much looser community. No one knows everyone anymore, the only people who seem to are the rich club kids. Their productivity beyond hedonism is rather low.

The city then is destroying itself. The economic pressures at work have turned us into workers around the clock, when instead we could be working less hours than ever before to sustain ourselves.

I don't have the answers. At university of course, you have a confluence of leisure time, a wide network of friends, physical proximity, and scheduled meetings. Perhaps I am complaining of not having a life style that I am not willing to do the work to sustain. However, the briefest blush with history says that New York used to be more social, at the level of the block (1960's open door living), and especially among artists.
From these ways of living came an art. Today we have being loosely connected to everyone. Perhaps we can generate a universal, loose art.

Pace

One distinct question is the pace of life. Surely it's accelerating, but how? Is having a wide set of acquaintances one driver? Travel has become more routine. Crossing an ocean is no longer a life threatening risk that takes at best weeks. 60 miles, or rather, an hour in a car, has shrunk from a rare event to a daily. Telephone, text, and online allow us to keep tabs on whomever we wish. And vice versa. Yet is this of any value?

Couple this pace with our current jobs - which are exactly what? Do any of us have a job or task that is either important, directly connected to subsistence or existence? Disenfranchised, overstimulated, with weak attractions. Family as an anachronism. Friends are on Facebook.

One wonders what a detailed study of the change of face to face contact from 1939 to 1969 to 1999 to 2029 will look like. I can imagine or compile from second hand knowledge 39 69 and 99 - for 29 it is simply an extrapolation of today. Times 10.

Vacation Day 1

No wonder everyone likes vacation.



A frenetic pace yes, but at the division of work versus fun. The video here is my brother’s band – that’s Mike Soffa on the pedal steel. Country music. County fair type atmosphere. Crowd of 400. The show put on by Andy’s Automatics was great. The crowd was dancing and hopping!

An uneventful flight left me in Milwaukee. Through the tangle of traffic at Summerfest up to the burger shack in Lake Park. The allure of summer is best trumpeted where the hand of winter holds steady. Never have a seen a more appealing beach than Bradford beach. A long stretch of sand punctuated by volleyball nets. The rolling waves of an inland sea on a gentle day. Stark blue sky.

Past the park one stares at the mansions, rarely overdone, on the bluff over the lake. The appeal is tremendous. The turn inland reminds you that only a select few live on the lake in such style. Squat apartment blocks, zero setbacks, a dearth of tree cover leaving only sunbaked cement and car parks. Then a few more blocks and the empty storefronts, detritus from our economic overreach.

Perhaps my surprise that everyone is not like me, has similar tastes, similar income, and similar desires should diminish with experience. Suffice to say that walking through Sawdust Days, in Oshkosh, I was surprised. Or, that by leaving for 30 years, the greater distance of the class divide is starkly evident.

Just as an aside – could it be that when people complain about boredom they are commenting on the pace of stimulation in their lives? So traveling and meeting 25 people you know by name but see once or twice a year, plus an entirely new visual field – would seem to be a surefire boredom reliever.

Where to Begin?

Returned from vacation. Wisconsin. A perfunctory list here would not suffice. However, long delays upon return due to defective galley door in plane have rendered me listless. Patience will be in order, before the details are posted. Descriptively. In the meantime, recommendation of Arabia by Jonathan Raban.