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That Old Hood of Mine
Dec. 22nd, 2004 12:57 pmThe other day I was driving home from work through Venice—Venice, California—as I do most every night. It used to be my home town, but I haven't lived there for several years now. I can't afford it. So I moved further inland, a few miles and a whole different mindset away. I wasn't sorry to go, though my love for my home town had once been intense. It just wasn't the same place anymore....
In which I wax philosophical in both a narrower and broader context.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Venice went through an intense yuppification, and the shabby bohemian funky splendor of the place was force-marched into the land of McMansions, snooty condos, and obscenely priced apartments. They dredged the soupy old canals that Abbot Kinney built to replicate Venice in Italy, and restored them to a fit state for developers to latch onto. Soon the down-at-the-heels California bungalows which lined the canals were replaced by gardens and huge vanity single family residences with !open floorplans! and !cathedral ceilings! and !cavernous master bedrooms! and kitchens with !stainless steal appliances! (What architectural writer Sarah Susanka calls "Starter Castles.")
Some very pricey real estate there now—none of it bad in and of itself. Nice homes are nice, more power to their owners. Just not my personal style. And the old come-as-you-are, live-and-let-live mindset of Venice was precious to me. Former boho residents who walk these high-tone neighborhoods (as I still sometimes do) find themselves peered at through louvres, watched suspiciously from behind window treatments, invited by the looks of those watering their landscaped gardens to kindly loiter elsewhere.
Venice used to be a place where you'd see crusty old sailors wearing dresses, people driving down the street in hand-painted VW bugs crammed with canvases, street mimes having a cup of java at the local breakfast shop and loudly discussing politics. The tradition of bohemianism was long and venerable in Venice; it's always been someplace Other and unique. After it's fashionable heyday in the early years of the 20th Century, Venice became a place where poor folks lived. Because of its unique turn-of-the-century Italianate buildings, its network of canals and fantasyland bridges, artists were attracted to the place. The beatniks had their Gas House in the 50s; the hippies had their happenings in the 60s; the street performers, poor artists, and fortune tellers came on strong in the 70s. But those things faded as yuppies and beachies moved in. Now bohos are mostly confined to the thin strip right along the beach, Ocean Front Walk, where an infamous flea market/street carnival flourishes every day of the week all year round. The artists and bohos have been forced out of actually living in Venice unless they are rich bohos and artists.
So I'm driving through Venice the other day and someone drops off the curb at Main Street to walk across the street. It's a girl, wearing jeans, and jean jacket, and a bright red tutu over the jeans. I laughed out loud. She headed into one of the last of the funky neighborhoods, the one hugging the edges of the "slums" in the Oakwood section, and I thought, "It's still here, still trying to hold on by its red tutu."
Artists improve neighborhoods, or make them arty, thereby making them hip and acceptable. Then the developers come in and make these neighborhoods safe for Yuppykind. It reminds me of what Westerners do when we invade a less-developed country. "Ooo, we must do something about these tatty natives, take away their rich traditions and replace them with our own." Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. Westerners bring improved healthcare, science, technology—which I happen to think are good things. But we can't seem to do it without bludgeoning what's individual about the cultures we invade, without turning them into McCultures.
And yeah, I would like to see some cultural traits stamped out for good: female circumcision, female infanticide, women denied education and the choice to go to work, genocide, rape and torture as a political tools. But when you tell people they are wrong in the way they approach everything, without giving them some wiggle room and some say in what their cultures are going to be, they pretty much stop listening to anything you have to say and hold on to their bad old ways as the last true vestige of their identity. Holding on to what used to be is an instinctual human trait, and "progress" can be both good and bad. Cleaner, brighter, newer is just that—but it should always be accompanied by a respect for what was good about the old ways. That's how humans integrate experience and make something strong out of the new.
I'm not generally a nostalgic person—the past is dead and doesn't always smell sweet. I don't long for things to be the way they used to be. My heart aches sometimes for that old hood of mine, forever lost. But I also think Tibetan Buddhism has it right: all things change, nothing lasts forever—and you'd better accept that about life. Often, the things we've lost come again and maybe next time they're stronger and stay longer. Or fade again as fast. That's the way the world is made. And remade.
But what do I know? These days when it comes to Venice, I'm just passing through.
In which I wax philosophical in both a narrower and broader context.
In the late 80s and early 90s, Venice went through an intense yuppification, and the shabby bohemian funky splendor of the place was force-marched into the land of McMansions, snooty condos, and obscenely priced apartments. They dredged the soupy old canals that Abbot Kinney built to replicate Venice in Italy, and restored them to a fit state for developers to latch onto. Soon the down-at-the-heels California bungalows which lined the canals were replaced by gardens and huge vanity single family residences with !open floorplans! and !cathedral ceilings! and !cavernous master bedrooms! and kitchens with !stainless steal appliances! (What architectural writer Sarah Susanka calls "Starter Castles.")
Some very pricey real estate there now—none of it bad in and of itself. Nice homes are nice, more power to their owners. Just not my personal style. And the old come-as-you-are, live-and-let-live mindset of Venice was precious to me. Former boho residents who walk these high-tone neighborhoods (as I still sometimes do) find themselves peered at through louvres, watched suspiciously from behind window treatments, invited by the looks of those watering their landscaped gardens to kindly loiter elsewhere.
Venice used to be a place where you'd see crusty old sailors wearing dresses, people driving down the street in hand-painted VW bugs crammed with canvases, street mimes having a cup of java at the local breakfast shop and loudly discussing politics. The tradition of bohemianism was long and venerable in Venice; it's always been someplace Other and unique. After it's fashionable heyday in the early years of the 20th Century, Venice became a place where poor folks lived. Because of its unique turn-of-the-century Italianate buildings, its network of canals and fantasyland bridges, artists were attracted to the place. The beatniks had their Gas House in the 50s; the hippies had their happenings in the 60s; the street performers, poor artists, and fortune tellers came on strong in the 70s. But those things faded as yuppies and beachies moved in. Now bohos are mostly confined to the thin strip right along the beach, Ocean Front Walk, where an infamous flea market/street carnival flourishes every day of the week all year round. The artists and bohos have been forced out of actually living in Venice unless they are rich bohos and artists.
So I'm driving through Venice the other day and someone drops off the curb at Main Street to walk across the street. It's a girl, wearing jeans, and jean jacket, and a bright red tutu over the jeans. I laughed out loud. She headed into one of the last of the funky neighborhoods, the one hugging the edges of the "slums" in the Oakwood section, and I thought, "It's still here, still trying to hold on by its red tutu."
Artists improve neighborhoods, or make them arty, thereby making them hip and acceptable. Then the developers come in and make these neighborhoods safe for Yuppykind. It reminds me of what Westerners do when we invade a less-developed country. "Ooo, we must do something about these tatty natives, take away their rich traditions and replace them with our own." Yeah, it's a double-edged sword. Westerners bring improved healthcare, science, technology—which I happen to think are good things. But we can't seem to do it without bludgeoning what's individual about the cultures we invade, without turning them into McCultures.
And yeah, I would like to see some cultural traits stamped out for good: female circumcision, female infanticide, women denied education and the choice to go to work, genocide, rape and torture as a political tools. But when you tell people they are wrong in the way they approach everything, without giving them some wiggle room and some say in what their cultures are going to be, they pretty much stop listening to anything you have to say and hold on to their bad old ways as the last true vestige of their identity. Holding on to what used to be is an instinctual human trait, and "progress" can be both good and bad. Cleaner, brighter, newer is just that—but it should always be accompanied by a respect for what was good about the old ways. That's how humans integrate experience and make something strong out of the new.
I'm not generally a nostalgic person—the past is dead and doesn't always smell sweet. I don't long for things to be the way they used to be. My heart aches sometimes for that old hood of mine, forever lost. But I also think Tibetan Buddhism has it right: all things change, nothing lasts forever—and you'd better accept that about life. Often, the things we've lost come again and maybe next time they're stronger and stay longer. Or fade again as fast. That's the way the world is made. And remade.
But what do I know? These days when it comes to Venice, I'm just passing through.