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on Hoosier life
You know, I now not only think AOL sucks but that it's downright evil. I
just finished a letter that took a good half hour to compose and when I went
to hit send it shutdown! Friggin fraggin.... So here is a partial rewrite.
I lost the persons quote I was responding to but to the Hoosier basher all I
gotta say is:
Hey now! Right down the street from me (Indianian here) we have a pub that,
every Thursday night, has one foot kicking, (or foot lickin for those drunk
enough to find the floor) hootin n' hollerin polka jamboree
And to the person who used the phrase "lack of culture shock": I agree
totally. I lived in Tampa, Florida for 9 years and when I moved back to the
NW armpit of Indiana I couldn't believe the difference. Not that there
weren't a majority there too who couldn't give a rats behind for the creative
side of life, it's just that there at least there were enough to support
quite a few wonderful used bookstores, art galleries, and not a few fine
intimate live venues. Here, the only nice bookstore within 30 miles was an
experiment of a Chicago store and had to close 9 months after opening. And
it was a Great store- grand wood floors, a high two story ceiling with books
going all the way up, a beautiful huge circular walnut desk for new arrivals
and checkout, and a very knowledgeable staff with an obvious passion for
books. We have one art gallery that supports itself by throwing banquets
with artists for around a 100 bucks a pop. The only thing is, those that
attend, at least the few I've talked to, don't appear to know much about art,
and they surely don't have a passion for it. It's just a feelgood status
thing. The live music around here is either bad regurgitated country or bad
regurgitated rock. And it's ALL cover bands.
There are a couple nice live venues for original music in Valparaiso, a
college town, but even there the only good used bookstore before it too shut
down had to resort to selling comic books and trading cards to survive. Any
local talent, of which there is some, to get a hearing, has to go to Chicago
or resort to the occasional open mike night. The Borders crowd here, that
does get some good bands occasionally, doesn't appear to know what to do with
good music when they get it. At best, it's some nice background noise. I've
talked with a few of the musicians who've been unfortunate enough to play
there (Pierce Pettis being one) and they all say the climate is terrible, no
one seems interested in what they're doing. They just sip they're lattes',
talk sports or whatever...
My own family is a small microcosm of the area. I have two brothers who
pretty much only think about sports, money, sports, money, ad nauseaum.
Myself, with my interests, am pretty much viewed as the oddball of the
family. To be fair there is a small underbelly of local writers (I attend a
biweekly workshop) but for the most part they're locked into a sort of
Wendell Berry-Eric Sloaneish small town ludditeism that when done well can
say some good things but for the most part it's just kind of scary. My own
far from fleshed out theory on why this is is that it has a lot to do with
the dominance of blue collar work around here. The people are just too darn
tired most of the time to do anything but come home and watch the tube, then
get up and do it all again.
Sure Nascar is great (I guess, not into it myself) and sports are fun but
there ARE OTHER things in life dagnabbit!
I know there's some very good things to say about small town life but right
now I'm just too into wallowing in it to think of any.
Kevin (fully disgruntled Hoosier and thinking of starting a new pastime:
lighting hicks on fire just to watch all the pretty flames. Now there's art!)
np: Mark Heard - Second Hand
"the colors here are monochrome, studies in one shade of gray. The good
times and the hard times, cut from the same gray cloth.....I just wanna get
warm!"
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