January 30, 2004
Arr
I've been roused from blog hibernation by a particularly irritating NYT piece, delivered to me, as these things always are, by my mother, accompanied by the forboding warning "I think you'll like it."
I despise this article from the pit of my spleen. It advances the most reactionary and hopeless breed of urban politics (in a time of hopelessness and reaction), the "ahead-of-the-curve" mentality, forever trapped in the horrid contradiction of trying to socially capitalize on a neighborhood's hipness without drawing the "untrendy" masses. Ak. And he lays this all out in embarrassing detail. Even Lockhart Steele was put off, although, of course, not in a way he could really elaborate.
What's even more awful is that behind the text, you can hear the chuckling aloofness the editorial staff of the Times. They don't care that this dolt makes an amateurish hash of urban theory because they have an utter contempt for the entire exercise. They regard street-level culture with hatred. This is why I avoid the Times.
I was brimming with hatred and dispair. Where is the urban revolution to upset the safety those utter shits take for granted, to wipe away the pathetic shuck-and-jive of self-aggrandizement and barely projected self-hatred of characters like the author of the article and Lockhart? Exactly how much garbage are we supposed to eat until we can say we are full?
As I do, I turned to Molly. She said:
"Well, it seems like what you have here are people who feel fundamentally incapable of producing anything that they like, and deal with it by trying to refine their consumptive habits. If you do that, when you move to a neighborhood, you displace all the things you like about it and can't replace them. You are going to run out pretty fucking quick. If you like a gritty atmosphere, but feel unable to produce one, well then..."
Me: "once you breathe that air, it's gone..."
Mol: "...and you can't replace it.
"Not only does there have to be a fusion of the productive and the consumptive, but it has to start from the productive side. Think of the sympathetic inverse, things like My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable, people who are saying 'my entire productive life is being wasted.' This is the point you can start screaming from. Not by trying to refine your consumption. First you have to say 'I'm going to make something I really fucking like.'"
She said some more things too, before and after, which I couldn't type fast enough to get, and they made me feel a little better. Better enough to write this out, at least.
Posted by Sam at January 30, 2004 01:50 AM
I think that you're missing the larger picture, which is that you're just as complicit as the Times author or Lockhart in all of this. You are all producing a 'product,' whatever that may be, that is in some way capitalizing on this neighborhood, and effecting these very changes. While your product may be couched in a sort of new age urban theory (some of which I find compelling), and their's takes on a much more crass form, at the end of the day, you're serving fancy hot dogs to drunk debutantes at ground zero of the LES weekend madness. No more, no less. I'm not defending them in the least, but your self-righteousness smacks of the same self-hatred that you accuse them of. If you were a born and raised Puerto Rican Losaida - point taken. But you're not. So get over yourself and your claim to this neighborhood.
Posted by: Flashvsdubrunk at February 5, 2004 12:39 AM
Thanks for taking the time to weigh in, but I'm not sure I understand the "larger picture" you are referring to.
To clarify my position -- I'm *not* against neighborhood change, in fact I think it is one aspect of what makes cities great. Moreover, I *like* the untrendy masses, and the ready accessibility of neighborhoods that draw them. After all, I live in, and love, the East Village, which served as the whipping-boy of the article.
There are definately aspects of the process of neighborhood change that I want to bring into question, particularly the speculation, profiteering, and underhanded tactics of landlords and other opportunistic businessmen, which serve to impoverish the neighborhoods they claim to develop; but is precisely the nostalgic wish that neighborhoods stay "undiscovered" (and unchanged) that I was trying to attack in this post.
Most of all, though, I think it is important that you understand that I *like* the way my pushcart changes the neighborhood, as opposed to their (self-hating) qualms about the way their presence alters the neighborhoods they visit or reside in. I am not looking to "capitalize" on the neighborhood, nor do I only serve "drunk debutantes." I like the way that downtown streets feel on the weekends, including the drunkeness, including the debutants, including the visitors as well as the residents, Latinos, whites, blacks, whoever. I am trying to learn what I can do to engage with that feeling -- and self-righteous though my defense of it may be, I do not plan to get over it.
Posted by: sam at February 6, 2004 02:40 PM
wilderness neighborhoods
what a sterile morbid paradigm
these pristeeners
like their green analogues
are kulyish secret keepers
afraid of blame and shame
if someone shitz in za purtch
as moll tse
points outsky
they fear
they can never produce
and i add
neither dare they risk repair
or even brush away their foot prints
they'll die anyways
the poor dears
Posted by: meat me at March 4, 2004 06:21 PM
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