[Ed. note: This will be the ultimately unfinished start to a failed post, ruminations on the now long-done Labor Day weekend trip that spared me the shootings that hit my neighborhood (and which surprised no one).]
I.
It was upon the fourth or fifth passing of a car dealership that I turned to my navigator-cum-lady-companion and said "This is what America looks like." We were driving along Route 9, towards MassMoCA from the city of Great Barrington, Mass., and the two lanes running alongside were empty, people vacating for the Labor Day weekend. We drove through the trench between two lines of the cloud-covered Berkshires. Unmowed grass on flanked us on either side. Breaking the ranks of the untamed ground were said dealerships. Breaking the ranks of homeless autos, a gas station or turnoff diner. Breaking the ranks of those were the occasional stagnant creek or still runoff lake. And breaking the sight of that was more asphalt and road.
We were listening to Mogwai, a dreary ruminative track most suited for the dreary overcast sky. It was 80 degrees, it was muggy. It had been raining intermittently, and were it not for the mountains I could have been back in Maryland. Even with the mountains it had that same lost rundown feel. Maybe it was more like Pennsylvania.
II.
That Tuesday, I told a coworker and UMass alum that I had been to the Berkshires for long weekend. He asked "Which Berkshires?", a concept alluding to the stark discrepancy between haves and nots: the summer holidayers from parts richer who forgot that the summer eventually has an end (New York, Boston, or any place where there is a fortune to be made), and the leftovers from when there used to be a vibrant industry, manufacturing, etc., at least judging from the factory shells that still dot the area.
The level of poverty is below that of the rest of the state (9.5% versus 10.1% statewide), but with its primary industry being tourism, it's easy to see how this divide can take place. For simplicity's sake, I will define the two groups as the Nose-uppers versus the Nose-downers. If I refer to them again.
III.
I've always held a belief in that you can tell a great deal about an area by the types of car-dealerships they have. Especially as the symbol of American-ness-writ-large in the latter half of the century, the car at once embodies a certain momentary status as well as the general aspirational zeal of its owner. And make no mistake, we saw our fair share of BMWs and Benzes and Cadillac dealerships, especially focused around the hubs of Great Barrington and Pittsfield. As the region denigrated to something more rural, these were supplanted by Chevrolet and Hyundais. makes both less lofty in ambition and strictly utilitarian, dependable, the vessels of mere survival.
The stores changed as well, from boutique outdoor-goods vendors to Dicks Sporting Goods to Marshall's. Predictably, the cars in the respective parking lots carried forth with these distinctions.
IV.
The houses were the type of blue and fading that tend to procreate in old mill towns, Victorian with white picketed porches and a crowning steeple, conical and wooden thatched. These were the type of houses that one would see in a magazine and would assume would be out of place. Due to the homogeneity, they defined the location they were in, and they articulated the probable ambitions of the original homeowners.
As we drove through North Adams these leered separated from the highway road, the road opened up to a webwork of downtown; with a light we were at the brick behemoth of the museum.
V.
What is the level of irony when your trip, to two unaffiliated museums is bookended by a pair of installations from the same artist? The artist in question: Sol LeWitt. The other museum: Dia:Beacon.
At Beacon the exhibit was line art, with geometric patterns being forced into 9x9 boxes to form a penciled-in texture. On a wall, in a room, with only a small white frame of unmarked paint and the light streaming in from skylights, they were weblike and claustrophobic.
At MassMoCA, they more dimension-plays, in the type of shocking hues that is a prescription for the color-blind.
At both places, they were missing the artist. In some ways, this was the goal of an era.
VI.
I.
It was upon the fourth or fifth passing of a car dealership that I turned to my navigator-cum-lady-companion and said "This is what America looks like." We were driving along Route 9, towards MassMoCA from the city of Great Barrington, Mass., and the two lanes running alongside were empty, people vacating for the Labor Day weekend. We drove through the trench between two lines of the cloud-covered Berkshires. Unmowed grass on flanked us on either side. Breaking the ranks of the untamed ground were said dealerships. Breaking the ranks of homeless autos, a gas station or turnoff diner. Breaking the ranks of those were the occasional stagnant creek or still runoff lake. And breaking the sight of that was more asphalt and road.
We were listening to Mogwai, a dreary ruminative track most suited for the dreary overcast sky. It was 80 degrees, it was muggy. It had been raining intermittently, and were it not for the mountains I could have been back in Maryland. Even with the mountains it had that same lost rundown feel. Maybe it was more like Pennsylvania.
II.
That Tuesday, I told a coworker and UMass alum that I had been to the Berkshires for long weekend. He asked "Which Berkshires?", a concept alluding to the stark discrepancy between haves and nots: the summer holidayers from parts richer who forgot that the summer eventually has an end (New York, Boston, or any place where there is a fortune to be made), and the leftovers from when there used to be a vibrant industry, manufacturing, etc., at least judging from the factory shells that still dot the area.
The level of poverty is below that of the rest of the state (9.5% versus 10.1% statewide), but with its primary industry being tourism, it's easy to see how this divide can take place. For simplicity's sake, I will define the two groups as the Nose-uppers versus the Nose-downers. If I refer to them again.
III.
I've always held a belief in that you can tell a great deal about an area by the types of car-dealerships they have. Especially as the symbol of American-ness-writ-large in the latter half of the century, the car at once embodies a certain momentary status as well as the general aspirational zeal of its owner. And make no mistake, we saw our fair share of BMWs and Benzes and Cadillac dealerships, especially focused around the hubs of Great Barrington and Pittsfield. As the region denigrated to something more rural, these were supplanted by Chevrolet and Hyundais. makes both less lofty in ambition and strictly utilitarian, dependable, the vessels of mere survival.
The stores changed as well, from boutique outdoor-goods vendors to Dicks Sporting Goods to Marshall's. Predictably, the cars in the respective parking lots carried forth with these distinctions.
IV.
The houses were the type of blue and fading that tend to procreate in old mill towns, Victorian with white picketed porches and a crowning steeple, conical and wooden thatched. These were the type of houses that one would see in a magazine and would assume would be out of place. Due to the homogeneity, they defined the location they were in, and they articulated the probable ambitions of the original homeowners.
As we drove through North Adams these leered separated from the highway road, the road opened up to a webwork of downtown; with a light we were at the brick behemoth of the museum.
V.
What is the level of irony when your trip, to two unaffiliated museums is bookended by a pair of installations from the same artist? The artist in question: Sol LeWitt. The other museum: Dia:Beacon.
At Beacon the exhibit was line art, with geometric patterns being forced into 9x9 boxes to form a penciled-in texture. On a wall, in a room, with only a small white frame of unmarked paint and the light streaming in from skylights, they were weblike and claustrophobic.
At MassMoCA, they more dimension-plays, in the type of shocking hues that is a prescription for the color-blind.
At both places, they were missing the artist. In some ways, this was the goal of an era.
VI.
