Tea Party Member Portrait (Post-Apocalypse)

"I can't believe I supported the interests of the wealthy while they were robbing me blind!"

Why Cities Die

Cities die when people no longer want to live in them.

I live in an enormous city that has not died but increased and prospered and which remains a magnet for smart, enterprising people all over the planet. But this, at least in this country, is almost unique and certainly the exception. It helps for a city to be mega-sized--the megalopolis creates its own social weather and is more impervious to the push and pull of real estate tropes.

Very few cities in the U.S. can claim this mantle. And almost none exist that aren't in some way blighted by core-abandonment, wretched highway planning, and profound ugliness in the form of parking lots where once stood thriving business districts. Certainly the advent and popularity of the automobile has gutted perhaps a majority of American cities, and it is easy to blame the automobile industry. But as with so many things, I have found the silly throwaway line from the old Pogo comic strip to be the case: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

People bought cars and drove out to the country and liked what they saw and moved there and built better schools for their kids and that is how the suburbs were born. I personally cannot stand living in the suburbs--find it stultifying and disgracefully overcrowded with traffic (at least in this megalopolis). But the suburbs are where the American has made his/her stand. It may not work out--there are signs it will not. But that's another story.

Again: cities die because people don't want to live there. You don't. I don't. Nobody does. Think about St. Louis, where they steal the very bricks of abandoned houses to ship off to New Orleans for renovations. Or Detroit, where they knock down abandoned houses routinely. Or Cleveland, where entire neighborhoods are jobless and suffering rapid abandonment. Or Philadelphia, easily the most underperforming major city in the U.S., where dowdiness is practically part of the city charter and which has an altogether mindless devotion to accommodation of the automobile and only the most pathetic mass transit "system" (the subway has one lonesome line).

It is somehow chic to decry the loss of our great American cities. But here's my gripe: if they were so great, how come nobody wanted to live there? My guess is, because they were lousy places to live--even back in that lamented and perhaps fanciful "golden era". Odds-on, if you're not an urban-pioneering, loft-dwelling, latte-sipping, wirelessly-empowered dandy, they still are today. And they continue to lose population because of this.

What were the great failures of many of these cities? Primarily two things, I believe. First, physical ugliness. Row after row of wretchedly unaccommodating houses served by block after block of wretchedly unfriendly-looking storefronts. Perhaps there was a sense of optimism in those who once lived there: "I can make this work for me". But they could not. It takes much more imagination than average to create an interesting storefront (rather than, say, a collection of orthopedic devices or a few dusty water pumps); and the same goes for the row of industrial-friendly hovels. Certainly if you are an artist, writer, antique-buyer, entrepreneur not needing to commute and no children to educate, you can make this work for you. But you are in a tiny minority.

Second, sheer brutality. The typical major American city, or at least those portions built during the industrial age, were designed and (over)built to feed the great maw that ate cheap labor all day and half the night: the cheapest possible housing and rapid access to the factory. Libraries, parks, schools, museums, civic monuments: except for a few showpieces to assuage the ostensible guilt of a few wealthy locals looking back upon what might have been, these are either entirely absent the landscape or when present, clearly an afterthought and not to be taken seriously. This type of carelessness about the spiritual and educational needs of people remains brutal and creates brutality of its own: desperation, corruption, crime, police intervention, resentment, hatred, ruin.

These cities are still being abandoned because they were never very good places to live even in their so-called "heyday". No, they were crowded, desperate, awful places to live. And the moment folks could get the hell out, they did. Possibly this is because the populace--unereducated, overworked, media-manipulated--lacked the collective imagination to make much of the place in concert. The suburb is nothing if not a sprawling monument to the sheer self-interest of the ex-urbanite and represents the apotheosis of un-neighborliness: high fences and rolling isolation booths are its chief characteristics.

In a singular kink of high irony, many of these cities, having spent a hundred years spitting on and squatting upon the hopes and dreams of the creative minds trapped inside them, now try to lure humans back into a re-inhabited, adorable "urban core" by touting, emptily for the most part, "the arts". There is no city too mundane for a brave new loft building. None too quotidian for an "arts center". None ashamed enough to avoid quirky, pointless, unloved and entirely misapprehended street sculpture often in irksome abundance. And even the barest crossroads trying to "reinvent" itself must have a "downtown mall" where suburbanites can, for reasons unfathomable, drive a long way only to end up where parking is harder and the mall has escalators and where, once "outside", beggars wait to be noticed via some handlettered placard announcing their failures as well as immediate need for coin (the "failure placard" is another unique feature of the American cityscape--I have not seen it elsewhere).

Most "failing" cities never in fact "worked"--not for the people who lived there. The failure can be traced to a lack of any sense of pride, a near vacuum of romance (or of any emotional support whatsoever), and no practical sense of prospect except where it intersected with the needs of a stultifying corporate culture. Big American cities were built for the Company and when the Company decamped, so, with barely contained glee, did the people who worked for the Company. What remains is a rotting shell, like some old coconut shard from which all the meat has been clawed.

In our next installment we shall discuss the role in which race hatred has played in the death of American cities--a phenomenon lamented mostly by, and caused mostly by white people.

Until such time, let the bricks fall where they may. Greater cities than St. Louis have been abandoned over the course of history--and what to make of it really, except to find a crumbled foundation buried long in the sand?

Mindfreak Magic

Nobody likes a killjoy. So if you're a big fan of guys like Criss Angel the Mindfreak, bail out now before your bubble gets burst.

I watched a show "about" him last night--an expertly orchestrated sham-fest that managed to trick the very gullible into thinking he knew how to dematerialize and rematerialize; and that this was a physically demanding process.

Once you know how magicians operate, it becomes entirely obvious and even kind of funny to see audiences so surprised at what transpires.

Have they never heard of the term "body double"? Clearly this is a big part of his act. He and his troupe of born liars (all seemingly right off the set of "Jersey Shore") make obvious statements about how "Chriss knows he could die if he falls from that height"; and pose silly possible explanations while of course never saying: "or, he could have a body double".

This is fairly standard stuff. That, plus massive amounts of preparation, audience plants, mirrors, trap doors and well-known mechanical ruses, accomplish all of his admittedly imaginative stunts.

What I find disturbing about him is that he seems to revel in lying--his eyes are the shiny orbs of a cynic. At least he is not doing anyone harm; and folks sure seem to love his act.

He is very good with cards of course; and some of his small-bore trickery is quite fascinating in its ingenuity.

One supposes there are plenty of folks who really have no clue how magicians operate, and these comprise his acolytes. In the end, it is they who are annoying for their obstinate gullibility.

Note to Chriss Angel fans: of course he cannot rematerialize; or make elephants move away from their posts in a flash. Why do you suppose he is always using a curtain? and why is he always standing on a platform? Heavens to Betsy.

Do You Have Anything to Share?

In a word, "no".

At least that is what I think to myself when I log into Yahoo and the first thing they want to know from me is if I have anything to share.

Why would I necessarily have something to share with who knows whom? One supposes one should occasionally cooperate with their transparent attempts to collect data on oneself, since they do provide a free email service that one uses much.

But I just can't bring myself to do it.

Claims that social media will not only increase exponentially in popularity, but will "take over the internet" and become "the marketing venue of choice for everyone" are, in my opinion, vastly overstated. I think social media is a fad. A big one, but a fad nonetheless. I predict that in five years people will be wondering what all the fuss was about, and will be using an enhanced web to do everything they want, but without all the needless information sharing. Facebook will be considered lame. Sharing inanities with nonentities will be considered lame. Only the lame will be using social media. There will be no new paradigm. People will want to keep their information to themselves. Yes, even young folks. Note: my kids are already tired of Facebook (hint: SELL!!).

This blog obviously is a form of sharing. But the blogging paradigm has much more long-term potential than Facebook. This is because blogging, while a form of self-publishing (and a kissing-cousin with the rest of social media), offers an attraction found neither at Facebook nor Twitter: in a blog, you can actually complete a thought. Inanity is in general not viewed favorably in a blog. The potential for interesting content (and the fact it is not--present company excepted--controlled by one company) is what gives the blogging paradigm a chance at longevity.

Did you say "Twitter"? Ask not--the bell tolls for it. Twitter (and anything Twitter-like) is going to be about as popular in five years as leg warmers are now. There will be no re-tweet of Twitter, only a long day's journey into night.

Marketers of course will claim to lament this. I believe they will be secretly very glad to see social media diminished, as I predict they will soon come to see they cannot utilize it for long-term effective marketing anyway.

The main reason for this is: as soon as people get the sense that a marketer is "watching", they run screaming in the other direction (unless they have given specific permission to hear from that marketer).

I do believe marketers have the right to try and reach their customers any way they can. I do not believe they will ultimately succeed in doing so via Twitter and Facebook. Ultimately, marketing in the social media world will have a creep-out factor that will outweigh the potential for reach.

Finally, email marketing will remain. Many who now use social media will let their social media involvement lapse but retain their email addresses. This is because email is the most useful boon to humankind since humans discovered they could get in out of the rain. Folks will not be able to survive without it.

Now, if I have managed to share enough. . .good evening.

Too Many Books

A few days ago I commented there was too much media in the world to begin with.

Though one could argue there are NEVER too many books, I have to state my belief: there have long been far too many new books coming out (none of mine, however). Most bookstores, even the independents, are crammed with titles no one is ever going to buy. I believe most of it is shelf-dressing, and a peek at the publishing trades will likely confirm this suspicion.

Is that bad?

Not unless you're a tree, I guess, or an aesthete of economic purity.

This is where two completely different entrants in the book retailing game come in from opposite sides of the stage: e-books and used book stores.

For my taste, there is little reason for a new bookstore to earn my visit except to peruse the bargain bin. Very occasionally a new book seems a must-have, but almost never unless steeply discounted. I own a lot of books, so I know whereof I speak.

For nearly all of my reading pleasure, I supply myself from the stunningly various arrays of wonderful volumes available at low cost from used books stores and charities. Can there be any doubt the world has so many wonderful used books that, were a moratorium on publishing be declared for ten years, the reader's market would not remain well-supplied? I think it would.

Sometimes I buy a "first edition"--for real money. This is because the book, and especially its dust-cover, have intrinsic value. Again, these books are nearly always "used", though they are in nearly every case quite a bit more expensive than a typical brand new book. There is a reason for this--they're collector's items.

With the advent of e-books, there is little reason for me to ever buy an actual new book at anything like list price. About a trillion (it seems) great books are available either for free or low cost as e-books. All of the classics are available as e-books and I have found them quite enjoyable to read in their new electronic get-up. Unless you're literally collecting the volume for posterity (sometimes I do), and if you believe the content is what you are after and not the paper and cardboard of a volume, e-books can provide the reader with about ninety-five percent of his or her reading pleasure.

So I think publishing (and more specifically the "new book" store), like the music industry, is headed for a fall. The fact is, we really don't need that many new books. And those we need, we can--again, except for special editions or signed first editions--purchase as e-books and enjoy quite utterly as such. For the rest, I think we shall see a rise in the status of the used book store for those who want "books". The volumes are as richly varied and as relevant as ninety percent of new books in print, and radically cheaper; and of course have all of the best qualities of print as well (look, feel, smell, weight, cover art). Moreover, you can buy these on-line as easily as you can buy e-books or new books at Amazon.

One model that may prove to work is that exemplified by that exemplar of great book stores, the Powell's mini-chain out of Portland, Oregon. Perhaps the world's best bookstore, Powell's hardly distinguishes between new books, old books, and rare books. They are all on the shelves together. And if you want a really rare book, they have those in a glass case. There is something quite wonderful about finding several editions of certain books, from a much-read paperback to a new hardcover edition, all on the shelf together like dissimilar siblings at a family gathering. Hats off to the Powell's model, may it long endure.

The new world of books will probably be crowded with small, specialty book stores and less so with megastores per se. The B&N model is already morphing into less a bookstore than a brick and mortar entertainment store--and good luck to them with that (and their cappuccino stands). A heavy percentage of buying will be weighted towards either cheap e-books (hooray for the iPad) and used books.

There will always be new books at book stores. But not nearly as many. And not nearly as big a market for new books in general, as it becomes obvious that, no longer needed quite literally as window dressing, most in-print book projects become totally irrelevant.

Next up is electronic self-publishing (see: blogging), which will end up putting further dents in the mighty ships of traditional publishing. We shall see much junk published this way. But we see much junk published "traditionally". I fail to see the problem, except that underpaid editors and entirely unpaid and unqualified interns ("readers") will no longer hold arbitrary sway over the fate of any particular author's chance at publication of a manuscript. Bye-bye!

As a final note, let me say that I have read Moby Dick on a tiny screen and found it quite as absorbing as holding that enormous tome in my hand and maybe more so. In the book world, content perhaps at last will in fact be king.

News Flash: I Have Nothing to Say

I have nothing to say that would not be of an overly personal nature for my taste, even though it seems social media requires a confessional frame of mind.

Perhaps the fact I have nothing to say is a statement in itself?

First, I am involved in enough actual things in the real world that they in fact consume too much of my time for me to spend any more of it online than I really have to.

Second, I am increasingly disenchanted with the notion of social media as it relates to the creation of content.

Let me explain.

Yes, you get free publishing. Isn't that what you always wanted? Of course it is. But did you know you don't own what you create? Even these words are technically owned by a giant corporation called Google. And when Google gets bought by a far more evil branch of the empire, it will be owned by them. And they will probably try to sue you if you want to use your own creations in your own way, later on in life (just kidding!).

Finally, I believe--and have long believed--there is too much content in the world anyway. Social media is really the last thing we need. Is there any hope that a great work of art will be created out of the social media milieux? Somehow I doubt it. And if works of art are not at least compelling, they are in the end deeply annoying. This is because, as objects, they compete with non-art objects, which almost always have a much more richly detailed past and present--even a small piece of stone has been bonking around for millions of years before you happen to have picked it up; and therefore is imbued with a certain natural energy that none but the most compelling works of man or woman can hope to attain.

Perhaps this sounds awfully precious.

But this is mostly because I have nothing to say. And because my cat is pushing a baseball towards my keyboard.

Ann Walling

Who is Ann Walling, buried in Trinity Churchyard in 1716?