enthalpy

Friday, June 18, 2004


Lileks has a great piece about growing up in post-war middle America. Fargo in the 60s, and as usual, he nails it:
How can anyone be suitably complex when he's born in a Capra set?
What's amazing to those that didn't have the same experience during their upbringing is that this Norman Rockwellian universe was real, and still is in a lot of the rural landscape. It's hard for urban/suburban people to wrap their soccer balls around that fact.
You can't describe the vastness of the Panavision prairie to East Coasters. Either the idea bores them--sorry, if there's not an all-night Thai take-out every ten blocks I am so not there. Or it's incomprehensible--what, a dirt ocean that just sits there?
I once had a similar discussion with a suburban kid about the vast emptiness of West Texas. He said, as if it were a condemnation, "man, there's just nothing there!"

I know, ain't it cool? Not a Starbucks or a stripmall for at least 100 miles in any direction. If only we all were that lucky.



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