As referenced last Friday, the bluegill clan spent the evening across the river. While it was a special occasion for us in many aspects, it was, in fact, only one of hundreds spent on the other end of the bridge in search of culture in a state whose mere mention conjures assumptions of a grim lack thereof on a national scale.
Despite that stereotype, it was a fantastic evening spent in the company of old friends and the acquaintance of new ones. An artist friend sold thousands of dollars of his contemporary work; a boon to a young man who’s rehabbing a 1930 medical clinic in Portland for use as a studio and gallery. A recent University of Louisville music school graduate beguiled the crowd with his cello and voice, accompanied by a djembe, sax, and spoken word improvisations. I spent hours talking about art, music, and travel in a room filled with multimillionaires to the unemployed, representatives of several different countries to people from around the corner.
In other words, it was a typical Friday night less than five miles from here.
And yet, after crossing the bridge toward home, my family was relegated to a late night sit-down at Steak 'n Shake, the only place open save Denny’s with room enough for us at one table. It made me regret pointing the car in a northerly direction almost as much as I resented having to use the car at all.
What gives? As much as I value the revitalization efforts underway, I can’t help but wonder what made us so inhospitable to the creative spirit in the first place, what death led to the necessity of rebirth, especially given New Albany’s obvious appreciation of innovative endeavors in its earlier days.
The automobile and misguided development may have diminished investment in the physical infrastructure of downtown but what killed its intellect?
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5 comments:
My personal conclusion over the last couple of decades has been threefold.
First, the innovative generations inevitably died off leaving their sucess and wealth to their prodigy who for the most part, were set for life without having to put forth much if any effort to retain it.
This resulted in the second woe, which is an almost universal state of apathy about life in general.
To be required to work for something or worse yet, put forth the effort to be involved in something outside of ourselves is a foreign concept to way too much of our population.
Many seem to think that just because they draw a breath of air, they are deserving of all with no effort put exerted.
Add to this mix the commonly held beleif that speaking up will have no effect anyway and what you see is what we have left.
I think you're being too kind to Louisville although I agree, it's culturally more sophisticated than Southern Indiana. I graduated high school in the late 70's, with the best and the brightest at LCS in Louisville. It was a common wisdom then that to do anything interesting or different in your life, you had to leave Louisville. I remember how domed it made us all feel. But there was not within the very closed social order back then, any tolerance for doing thing "differently". You could go work for "Daddy" at the bank or brokerage house, but you essentially just became Daddy. But I think for generations this system worked, at least it retained wealth, the all important standard we use to ascertain social success. But it has seriously eroded the creative engine that all healthy enterprises need, including cities, to stimulate growth and change and all that horrible stuff Louisville tried for so long to be immune to. I'm happy to say today Louisville finally has a "creative class", but it's recent, very recent. I think in 10 years so will Southern Indiana.
To me, Brandon nailed this one. You go forty-odd years or more without placing value in personal human growth by neglecting art, culture and all-around self-improvement, and voila!
A nation of androids dependent on the likes of television, chain burger joints and Councilman Cappuccino.
Speaking of cold Coffey, it's Day 36 of the Steve Price blogwatch. His last posting was March 6.
As we continue to await fresh content from the Bard of Dewey Heights, here's a "greatest hit" soundbyte:
The one with the most “toys” doesn’t win, he goes bankrupt.
Take it away, spin doctors ...
Of course, I hasten to add that Bluegill's lament over the "loss of intellect" is keenly felt in this quarter. Being wary of something foreign is at least understandable. Hating it just because it's foreign simply doesn't compute. Thus, we're left with the sad reality of great numbers of people detesting that which might assist in delivering them from their woes.
Perhaps the pain isn't yet sufficient. Compare the number of people who ignore medical advice when times seemingly are good with those who'll snub the doctor's "intellect" and training when the pain sets in.
Any way you look at it, it's depressing, but I take solace in the knowledge that somewhere close by, someone like Ben is making life enjoyable for another person ... if only briefly.
when a community embraces the cookie cutter globalism that's walmart, meijers, target, mcdonalds, we kill our ability to survive locally.
mom and pop stores are killed off. local farmers are left out of the loop.
oh yeah, these companies want to tell you how they bring all these jobs to town, but how many of them can you actually earn a wage to live on? none.
i'm not sure what it is about new albany, but for this guy who grew up in jeff, i've always felt that i've landed on a different planet as soon as i crossed that silver creek bridge. i'm not slamming new albany, but it's just a very different attitude over here. i've always thought new albany's slogan was: "A small town with a big town attitude."
i think new albany's downtown has a helluva lot more to offer than jeff's downtown, but look what jeff has done with their downtown. it's friggin' beautiful now! downtown new albany could so be another artist, cafe, entertainment mecca, but it's like everyone is sprawling to corydon and sellersburg, rather to invest in downtown development.
i guess i'm a big advocate for social justice and using what we have, rather than to keep cutting up beautiful farm land to make more million dollar homes. btw, do we really have that many millionares in this area?
i read on the blogs about the current government and how they're holding us back. here's a novel idea, how about we vote in a new thinking government, who's actually willing to get off their duffs and do something. when i read some of these blogs, it's like i'm reading the movie version of groundhog day, except there's no happy ending until we get new peeps in the right seats!
ok..enough rambling from me. tootles!
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