By any other name...

I love the word "shambolic." It sounds like it should be a brand of rainbow shampoo.

Product Endorsement

For fishing I use Shurcatch sinkers- Guaranteed to get you a hit everytime.

Making the Rounds

Yesterday I drove home while blissful strains of Four Tet surrounded me. I bought the album while living in Maryland. It is significant how different it is listening to it in my nordic nirvana. I used to listen to it as succor, to provide me with beauty anchored by Modern Sounds as a bulwark against the Unbeauty. Now it is a supplement- the very cherry on the sundae.

Or to phrase it another way, I used to cling to it as a fundamental element of the Food Pyramid rather than the sprig of parsely framing the plate of an already delicious meal.

Sun so hot I froze to death

Yesterday, Mrs. B told me to put hats and gloves on the kids going out in 50 degree weather and to pull the unicorn out of the clothes dryer.

Scarlet fleece changes you

Heard the first Autumn leaf reports on the radio last week. And this week I noticed the sun's light had turned to a pale fall hue. And at work I heard someone explain that the "air is like champagne."
Indeed.

They drove Dixie down

The Fam & I left Maryland over a year ago, but in some ways I haven't left it. I still have nagging thoughts about how my experience there fits into the larger narrative arc of my life. What remains within me is a jagged disconnect between my essentially "live and let live" nature and my urge to fling unpardonable epithets and brickbats in the general direction of the Old Line State.

While a Maryland resident virtually every day when I was out in the world, navigating public space, I suffered some insult to something that I judged a cherished element of a high quality of life. The drumbeat against decent disposition of the commons was constant: walking, biking, recreating, or passive appreciation of nature so often seemed to be a remote priority behind a host of private concerns. I left the state with a feeling of unease: maybe it was just me. Why couldn't I get with the program to drive everywhere, only interact with strangers at malls, buy an obscenely expensive house with water access, and ignore the environmental degradation that my lifestyle spawned? I better skeedaddle my po self back to the Midwest where I could find other bike-riding public amenity-obsessed losers like me...

Over the weekend I was reading a collection of Annapolis historical vignettes. The book contains a series of profiles of political and business leaders who founded prominent places or local institutions. Many of the family names mentioned are enshrined in places througout the city. So it's just history, right? No harm, no foul. But that wasn't my response. It felt very alienating to hear stories of a simpler, slower time from this city.

I find this response peculiar. I've lived in many places where I've happily accepted my role as the outcast: as a member of the middle class in an affluent suburb growing up; as a transient resident of New Orleans, where societal ranking was determined by your grandfather's identity- forget about your own esteemed accomplishments in this life; or as the faceless visitor in small towns where I lived for months. But something about the exclusivity that pervades Annapolis really got under my skin.

It took awhile for me to identify the root of my feelings: the roster of elites is somewhat mislabeled. They really represent the gallery of rogues. The decay of prime features of a sustainable quality of public life is a consequence of their direct (for economic or political profit) and indirect (negligence or ignorance) actions. City leaders didn't require sidewalks in new developments, push for adequate funding of the school system, preserve the rail right-of-way access to Baltimore, and based a street network on farm-to-market roads.

The result is a diminished quality of life for anybody who dares to venture from their private dwelling. The road network, often single roads on peninsulas stretching into the Chesapeake Bay, is burdened beyond capacity with little option to expand. The Bay itself is polluted, with algae blooms and a deoxygenated dead zone developing every summer. Private schools, all curiously founded in the same year- 1956- educate the wealthy's children. There is little public transit for commuters going to the major job centers, Washington DC and Baltimore. The strict regulatory framework that limits shoreline development is often disregarded.

To be fair, many of the decisions I criticize were made within the political arena, supported by the public, and mimicked national trends in development. Maryland shares Bay shoreline with Virginia and a huge influx of Bay water comes from Pennsylvania, so the environmental damage is not solely Maryland's responsibility. But those who benefited greatest from the loss of a vibrant public sphere are absent from any process to reclaim and revitalize it, yet retain the power to do so. It isn't even part of the public dialogue that the loss of vibrant public spaces is a problem. It's like the earth or public space is a color other than white, and thus can be dismissed, devalued, or otherwise shat upon.

Am I mad? Hell, yes. But I feel much more at peace with the realization that it's not just me.

Update: The reason I take such offense at Annapolis versus, say New Orleans, is that the elites of New Orleans still put the jelly jar on the bottom shelf so the little people can reach it. The essence of the place is still available to all, regardless of social or economic status. Possessing wealth will gain quite a different quality of life, but anybody can walk lazily under live oaks in the Garden District, peer into hidden gardens in the French Quarter, or swoon on the levee under a full moon. The same amenities aren't available in Maryland. The real gem of the place is the Bay, and unless you got the do-re-mi, you ain't doing that dance.

Water is the life blood of Minnesota as well, and access to it defines a quality of life. But here in the Socialist Republic of Minneapolis, a different rooster rules the roost. In Anne Arundel County, where I used to live, there are 534 miles of shoreline; only about 10 miles of that is public. In Minneapolis, home to 22 lakes with dozens of miles of shoreline, all the shoreline is public with the exception of about 5 or 6 house lots. Here, we've got the coddlewobbles because we're eating so much jam. (Some have even taken to slathering it all over their bodies, but we won't get into that.)

Another man done gone

And another triumph of the castle doctrine.

Selling postcards of the hanging

We went to see the destroyed bridge yesterday. Dylan's "Desolation Row" resounded through my head.

Meanwhile, we ran into J( *} high above the river on the bridge adjacent to the wreckage. I hadn't seen him in about five years. He lives at the other end of the Mississippi in another city famous for its failed infrastructure. Then the fam and I continued across to a brewhouse where I drank cask IPA and L fancy-danced with salt and pepper shakers.

(The encounter with J( *} was highly coincidental because I had the thought last week that I'm a New Orleans boy on the wrong end of the river. That's what living down there will do for ya- it'll brand you for life.)