The advantages of a "walking" city over a commuter city are far too numerous to name (at least in one sitting). Speaking as someone who has been known on more than one occasion to miss the forest for the trees, one exclusive of the walking city that has always attracted me is the connection you have to the microcity. When most of a town blurs by in the antiseptic confines of an automobile, what few details are there most often go unnoticed. Most often the details are drowned under an expanse of parking space and by-the-book housing developments.
The true urban centers are seas of minutiae. Having visited several cities that can be considered walking cities - and I can include some quintessential cities like NYC, Paris and London among those I've been fortunate enough to visit - I must say that no city struck me as more of a detail paradise than New Orleans. Certainly only the French Quarter can be considered a walkable area (it's hard to build a subway in a city below sea level), but that is where all the fun is. Walk around the city during the day, long after the very macro spectacle of Bourbon Street has turned in for the night, and the random curiosities will overwhelm the discerning eye. Perhaps the collective hangover of the city allows a more casual pace by which to peruse (as opposed to the financial center bustle of NYC or London), but it strikes me that the city makes a concerted to be, well, quirky. You'll have to steer clear of the countless tourist-trap shops - there are only so many details to be found in the endless topless-woman-swinging-on-a-lamppost knick-knacks and hot-sauce bottles - but lose yourself in the side streets and you will find much to enjoy.
There was a gate leading to what I assume was someone's residence. The posts of the gate were each adorned with a shoe. So as to avoid any confusion, someone had labeled the gate appropriately: "SHOEGATE." There was the bicycle with the oversized front wheel, the type that should only ever be ridden down Flatbush by a man with a bowler hat and large mustache. The above-ground cemetaries, each tombstone and crypt complete with whatever token of rememberance a loved has decided to leave - as it should be, no one seems to concerned with cleaning much of it up, whether it be flowers or batteries. The antique shops, which against all odds managed to all have completely different stuff than the one two doors down. Each building, each door, each sidewalk has a story to tell, and given half a chance they will tell it.
Good luck, New Orleans.
Did you run about as far as you could go
Down the Louisiana Highway
Across Lake Ponchatrain
Now your soul is in Lake Charles
No matter what they say
- Lucinda Williams, "Lake Charles"
Posted by Joel at 8/28/2005 08:53:00 PM
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I recently found myself in the bakery section of a local grocery store - the one with the obnoxiously sentimental commercials about sentient salt and pepper shakers - searching for the perfect sandwich roll. I found what I hoped would be the one behind the bake case, but the two ladies behind the counter were highly engrossed in their cleaning, so engrossed that my whistling, growing louder by the second, proved not able to alert them. Not long before I thought to try something else, say a clearing of the throat or, did I dare, actually speaking, one of the ladies accidentally knocked over a box full of pastry bag tips all over the large metal table where all the baking magic happens. The lady not responsible for the incident was obviously nowhere near as amused as the guilty party, but nevertheless felt compelled to go over and help clean up the mess. Now whatever impatience I might have mustered had changed to voyeuristic amusement as I watched the ladies haphazardly toss the tips into drawers that were once meticulously organized. Finally, with a roll of the eyes, the less clumsy lady turned around and jumped when she noticed I was there. I gave her a half-roll as a way of acknowledging her predicament; she rolled her eyes back towards her colleague, who was still recovering from her laughing fit. As I pointed out which rolls I wanted, a very familiar crashing sound shot out from a very familiar place, along with a very familiar laugh. My helper's eyes rolled right out of her head onto the table once again decorated with the tips. The buns went into a bag very quickly, the bag shot out over the counter, and with a jovial "good luck" from me, the long-suffering employee shuffled back towards the table.
The limits of the human mind are such that as far as I am concerned, those two ladies are still cleaning that table right now, and until I go back to that bakery section of that grocery store, they will still be cleaning. My challenge to myself is to give the strangers I meet on a day to day basis more of a life than what slice I manage to witness. My imagination may prove to be very wrong, but it sure beats a life of cleaning up after yourself and others. We'll see about those rolls later.
Singing in the city's like singing on the prairie
New York City's like a cemetary
- The Moldy Peaches, "NYC's Like a Graveyard"
Posted by Joel at 8/28/2005 01:14:00 AM
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I have a pretty good feeling that 85% of blogs start just like this: it's 1:30 AM, I am not even remotely tired (although I should be in bed), and after several hours wasting my life away on the internet I've determined I am the only person on earth who hasn't cluttered the web with their rambling thoughts. Naturally, this is the solution. Peer-pressure is a powerful thing.
I have no earthly idea what I plan on contributing to humanity, although I am fairly certain it will be mostly benign. Maybe I can at least provide some poor, hyper soul out there with a fantastic sleep remedy before they start their own blog. Now there's a positive contribution to society if there ever was one. There's also a strong possibility that I will look back on this in a few days as something that may nor may not be (but probably was) a dream, and that there will be no further postings until I somehow google my way to this and wonder, "Man, who is this blubbering sap?" I am sure that this is the fate of many a blog. Nah, I bore too easily. Won't be me.
I guess I need a hook or something. Something that might bring someone back to this from time to time (and exactly what the benefit of frequent visits from strangers is I'm not sure). The only thing of which I can claim any amount of knowledge is music. After all there aren't enough opinions about popular music on the internet. All sarcasm aside (for now - I can't set it aside for long), we'll go with the Music in my Head, as in what song has been bopping around up there all day.
Washington, D.C.
It's the greatest place to be
It's not the cherries everywhere in bloom
It's not the way they put folks on the moon, no no no
It's not the spectacle and pageantry, the thousand things you've got to see
It's just that's where my baby waits for me
- The Magnetic Fields, "Washington, D.C."
Posted by Joel at 8/26/2005 01:32:00 AM
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