tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12133446737290024662024-02-19T19:29:07.700-06:00Hunting Nighthawks: On the Road with Edward HopperChicago writer Kevin Grandfield visited 47 US cities where Edward Hopper paintings hung in public museums and asked people, "Do you feel Americans are isolated as Hopper portrayed us?" What he heard, learned, and experienced fills the pages of this blog. (Hit CTRL + to make the text bigger.) Thanks for visiting! Copyright ©2013 and prior years, Kevin Grandfield. All rights reserved.The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.comBlogger277125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-58558051405923791652009-06-16T00:01:00.009-05:002009-11-11T17:02:35.652-06:00276 The Answer<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy9RrBQOeJGEUTWFm9mSczvQTYYKvW4yeD2pSdYVHg_PTg274uEMjWtkrr5aSyFsaNQ150HJYjdwiEwBAk9_Ljahp7kcCr3Uvo_pqRcW1nSwD_pkdhRzpQXSvo-ncXxlVcmygtv7e0MA/s1600-h/Jo+Sleeping+watercolor.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy9RrBQOeJGEUTWFm9mSczvQTYYKvW4yeD2pSdYVHg_PTg274uEMjWtkrr5aSyFsaNQ150HJYjdwiEwBAk9_Ljahp7kcCr3Uvo_pqRcW1nSwD_pkdhRzpQXSvo-ncXxlVcmygtv7e0MA/s200/Jo+Sleeping+watercolor.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335011861241299218" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[<i>Jo Sleeping</i>]</p>In the end, back home, after forty-seven cities, eighteen states, and hundreds of paintings and conversations, I realized that the real question I had been asking was not, "Do you feel that people in your community are isolated as Hopper's characters?" but rather "Do you feel isolated like I do?"<br /><br />And the answer was yes. The way that I felt isolated was unappreciated and unlistened to. Perhaps because of this, my perception of Hopper's characters isolation was that they did not feel others would listen to them (certainly not sympathetically); and they did not feel like spanning the gap between themselves and others because they felt that they would not be heard. The people I met during my journey also felt isolated--from and by their fellow citizens and their leaders. They felt that their lives were not appreciated by others who did not take time to imagine what they might be going through, just as Hopper's characters seem to be alone and in trouble and in need of help, but we are not aware of that until we stand in front of them and imagine their lives. People were desperate to be heard and hoped I would help others hear them. Perhaps Hopper was so silent during his lifetime from fear of being misunderstood and/or dismissed. My journey was an attempt to give voice to Hopper, his characters, and the people that I met along the way. It was also a way to give voice to my own frustration at my feelings of isolation.<br /><br />In February 2003, I gave a presentation as Artist-in-Residence at Chicago's Cliff Dwellers arts club about what I had experienced along the journey. I ended my talk by offering a bit of advice. "The next time you are in a diner with a bunch of Hopperesque characters, if you're wondering whether they feel as isolated as you, they probably do. What you do after that is up to you."<br /><br />Later that night, I was at a bar for a friend's birthday party. I found myself beside a pretty woman who I felt a connection to. Before I could take my own advice and ask what she was thinking, a mutual friend introduced us, and we forged an immediate bond. She loved my idea for the book and felt that Americans were "some of the most isolated people on earth."<br /><br />By the end of the year, we were married.<br /><br />My friend Mike, who had encouraged me to undertake this book, came over to our apartment one night afterward to celebrate. "Do you realize how much this man has changed?" he asked my wife. "Why, five years ago he called me from his dusty hovel filled with milk crate library shelves and told me how unhappy he was. He probably wasn't capable of connecting to someone the way he has with you. That's when he got the idea to write the book about Hopper and isolation. By the way, Kevin, did you get your answer?"<br /><br />I smiled down into my champagne glass and then looked at my wife.<br /><br />"Yes."<p align="center">THE END</p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLvjP7Si9j-CEDR0lw2MB7sYAUn3uHgG7gE5BIxy7PNIQfguTl5WDMrAmW8nqUURYs4qM2a-Wa2a5Giaf8EaksQlXQJ4kSrESdVUV44QlzujMfZ7DgzyoWHw_AeFHxSmwwrzcC9LZtg/s1600-h/Chicago+Mary+%26+Kev+GREAT.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuLvjP7Si9j-CEDR0lw2MB7sYAUn3uHgG7gE5BIxy7PNIQfguTl5WDMrAmW8nqUURYs4qM2a-Wa2a5Giaf8EaksQlXQJ4kSrESdVUV44QlzujMfZ7DgzyoWHw_AeFHxSmwwrzcC9LZtg/s200/Chicago+Mary+%26+Kev+GREAT.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335097856426402066" border="0" /></a></span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-1632396626158026202009-06-15T00:01:00.009-05:002009-11-11T16:58:21.427-06:00275 Chicago, IL: Nighthawks<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLrT98NdnuILTvjpI2KIy0YTcszn5La5CRaIXCjHiW7SZ-28lSxoa6c0ZrzVoyWtRmxf8aorxOfli8w-aKzOKnHP4ziNsnTCM5kUnzkvs5IGJ1Hl1jayupbJs2vp4VnPSMXKPjWpy4LA/s1600-h/nighthawks.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLrT98NdnuILTvjpI2KIy0YTcszn5La5CRaIXCjHiW7SZ-28lSxoa6c0ZrzVoyWtRmxf8aorxOfli8w-aKzOKnHP4ziNsnTCM5kUnzkvs5IGJ1Hl1jayupbJs2vp4VnPSMXKPjWpy4LA/s200/nighthawks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334996255474394690" border="0" /></a> <p align="center"><a href="http://www.choosechicago.com/Pages/default.aspx">Chicago, IL</a>: <i>Nighthawks</i></p>Maybe it was that the thought of writing about the iconic <i>Nighthawks</i> was intimidating. Maybe it was just knowing that I could always visit this city and its Hopper painting, while I had to plan to see other cities and paintings. For whatever reason, I found myself putting off writing the Chicago chapter until the end, even though Chicago is the town I know best and the Hopper here (<i>Nighthawks</i>) is the one most people know best. (Those paying close attention will have counted to 46 cities. I had to cancel Philadelphia from my East Coast visit, and by the time I visited every other city, I said, "Somebody is going to have to publish my book and pay me to go to that last city." As this blog attests, that never happened.)<br /><br />Perhaps you've seen it with dogs, or Santa and his elves, or one of many other parodies. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFmlIDpSUZk21lJsEQm7HVEL0zJ4RwoMKytk0kx8YlnUIpEAqQs9oeIi9Jua1Du9Abj93muX2X8_P8gcgOXMEtWfea4GAPcINDP7oUZOK5n6C81bVWpXQvlEnH5tErFamCf7RskyX6rg/s1600-h/Nighthawks+Parody+Simpsons.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 86px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFmlIDpSUZk21lJsEQm7HVEL0zJ4RwoMKytk0kx8YlnUIpEAqQs9oeIi9Jua1Du9Abj93muX2X8_P8gcgOXMEtWfea4GAPcINDP7oUZOK5n6C81bVWpXQvlEnH5tErFamCf7RskyX6rg/s200/Nighthawks+Parody+Simpsons.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338761230629707362" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMtIExArA8B5IXxe3DDTMMbtWBWrNXuyUq95oEN4S9u5n3q2JBD4aplvw7oMm5L0MIcetRBT2pypP0y7yMp_Mlwx1BvwXI3ibVBB_990UqQqnT2ma-Q9IP0jUQ83dOg0_hQaFAr00sUQ/s1600-h/nighthawks+peeps.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 105px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMtIExArA8B5IXxe3DDTMMbtWBWrNXuyUq95oEN4S9u5n3q2JBD4aplvw7oMm5L0MIcetRBT2pypP0y7yMp_Mlwx1BvwXI3ibVBB_990UqQqnT2ma-Q9IP0jUQ83dOg0_hQaFAr00sUQ/s200/nighthawks+peeps.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338760519657485522" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFH-5yrodE28gnmwo0sFPc9T9ljhWS_Z7YPglhEh0FmKpJbFI9-O0Z9iHI0sEzMYHxR7Tei0HLfaikcmqeKeuUvZnmUJ1XMUvfo1wm-bGQOQHu9YxMqawgXsDjx30poAG_EbI5etsGeQ/s1600-h/Nighthawks+muppets.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 209px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFH-5yrodE28gnmwo0sFPc9T9ljhWS_Z7YPglhEh0FmKpJbFI9-O0Z9iHI0sEzMYHxR7Tei0HLfaikcmqeKeuUvZnmUJ1XMUvfo1wm-bGQOQHu9YxMqawgXsDjx30poAG_EbI5etsGeQ/s200/Nighthawks+muppets.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338760989931036450" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxFIk2kNuLXHGuldUPAm750Gdd6UPmuX1dlH98vn-P1Z-gA-C8z5gG2Z4VscECe03zofYS9S-vtyfYACILZ_ZI5sivFPU9FjdFiN6mxKCYQnYiRhOckr-J53bBfqLPrWgaRwzU1tPyg/s1600-h/nighthawks+spacemen.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 110px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxFIk2kNuLXHGuldUPAm750Gdd6UPmuX1dlH98vn-P1Z-gA-C8z5gG2Z4VscECe03zofYS9S-vtyfYACILZ_ZI5sivFPU9FjdFiN6mxKCYQnYiRhOckr-J53bBfqLPrWgaRwzU1tPyg/s200/nighthawks+spacemen.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338761429008191410" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJwEpAdrAmP5Puxzye2Y2Skzm0R6-59bH-gIEeAhm1n8MM-CuNB_Ybctta-mjioB-Bvsmb0x0nrgR58uk2RSyz2-WPtIRzmYPLPmcDbWw_Ac9Mfl7ZrD9raWSomApQW_1PSxE3A01pA/s1600-h/Nighthawks+ducks.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 155px; height: 108px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzJwEpAdrAmP5Puxzye2Y2Skzm0R6-59bH-gIEeAhm1n8MM-CuNB_Ybctta-mjioB-Bvsmb0x0nrgR58uk2RSyz2-WPtIRzmYPLPmcDbWw_Ac9Mfl7ZrD9raWSomApQW_1PSxE3A01pA/s200/Nighthawks+ducks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338761603863332178" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLynDZl-YirfaUKCL23cZ5AdmN_GBPDNrcdfjdSwJhkS4QDx02PGszycmC-bargOGazTYCJME3mqflWuYOBMZ6B2Gp6rI6xJzBUZPrn-7v5bsQENSJFvhaSQLmAZoH8eNtr9Uy5dZVwQ/s1600-h/Nighthawks+Anime+Poster+crop.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 233px; height: 111px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLynDZl-YirfaUKCL23cZ5AdmN_GBPDNrcdfjdSwJhkS4QDx02PGszycmC-bargOGazTYCJME3mqflWuYOBMZ6B2Gp6rI6xJzBUZPrn-7v5bsQENSJFvhaSQLmAZoH8eNtr9Uy5dZVwQ/s200/Nighthawks+Anime+Poster+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338762466681158738" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Or maybe you've seen it in its most famous appropriation with Elvis Presley, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, and Marilyn Monroe (titled <i>Boulevard of Broken Dreams</i>). <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1qSTLoFxJYqNaFU7I2pnczzHwrOvHMKvQ83J6e3fjNa3hZBzM5dDdbT1ITBv0qc15fygpsUPkjjomQiDK-CXcK4aWmd-zKLpHEra15UVSMN6qtg2cd-07tu3rKf-ywtoJuXPWjbl4ow/s1600-h/Boulevard+of+Broken+Dreams+BETTER.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1qSTLoFxJYqNaFU7I2pnczzHwrOvHMKvQ83J6e3fjNa3hZBzM5dDdbT1ITBv0qc15fygpsUPkjjomQiDK-CXcK4aWmd-zKLpHEra15UVSMN6qtg2cd-07tu3rKf-ywtoJuXPWjbl4ow/s200/Boulevard+of+Broken+Dreams+BETTER.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334999324049694114" border="0" /></a> But by now, the image in Hopper's painting <i>Nighthawks</i> of four city-dwellers around a café counter at night is burned into our nation's consciousness as surely as the fluorescent lights under which the characters in that painting sit. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4zSUiwPK2WUVUavtMBkJ8UjpNshADptxeAUxY_HZuzRwUXHGwvmNhbDkm_ePKEVTDRWSexwZlEiFP3jxSxz2YvLBWBgoKkYfTJhaQ3U92BesWuNbs5-EbqoKH9SF72Xb8jfoIrdmsA/s1600-h/nighthawks.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK4zSUiwPK2WUVUavtMBkJ8UjpNshADptxeAUxY_HZuzRwUXHGwvmNhbDkm_ePKEVTDRWSexwZlEiFP3jxSxz2YvLBWBgoKkYfTJhaQ3U92BesWuNbs5-EbqoKH9SF72Xb8jfoIrdmsA/s200/nighthawks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334999485747261122" border="0" /></a> <br /><br />A man with a hawklike face and hat, wearing a suit and tie, sits almost touching elbows with a redhead who looks like she escaped from a film noir cell. She stares at something in her hand. The man in turn stares straight ahead. The tension between them is thick. Behind the counter hunches a pale short-order cook or busboy in a white jacket and cap. Another customer sits with his back to the audience. The four people are arranged with a few spare objects signifying a diner (salt shakers, mugs, counter, coffee dispenser) in such a way that the sight lines all lead from one person to another. It’s like you can't take your eyes off of them, but you jump from one to the other to see what they will do, expecting or hoping (even rooting) that one of them will do something. Nothing converges. Nothing touches. Not the characters, nor the perspective lines. A cigarette burns but is never spent. Time is running out on the characters and the night.<br /><br />At the bottom, a large swath of cool blue sidewalk not only makes the bright interior all the more mesmerizing, it also implies that you the viewer are walking along the street. You are in the picture, which may be part of why we feel we are these people in the painting. The café's window is see-through; it reflects nothing (much like the faces of the denizens). However, the glasses and salt shakers do cast reflections. In one preparatory sketch for <i>Nighthawks</i>, Hopper included the writing on the café window, so the see-through windows were a deliberate choice, another way to break down the barriers between the viewer and the viewed. There are no people in these streets, no trash, no cars, and most importantly no people. All the people in the painting are huddling inside. If we are indeed on the sidewalk, it seems to beckon to us to enter as well and commune with these lonely souls.<br /><br />The diner in <i>Nighthawks</i> was inspired by one in New York City on Greenwich Avenue where two other streets meet. Hopper's friend and Whitney Museum director Lloyd Goodrich said its shape was "like the prow of a ship." It might also have been influenced by Chicago native Ernest Hemingway's short story "<a href="http://www.geocities.com/cyber_explorer99/hemingwaykillers.html">The Killers</a>." In that story, two killers wait in a small-town café for the appearance of a local ex-boxer they have been sent to kill. Hopper wrote to <i>Scribner's</i> when they published the story in 1927: "It is refreshing to come upon such an honest work in an American magazine after wading through the vast sea of sugar-coated mush that makes up most of our fiction. Of the concessions to popular prejudices, the sidestepping of truth and the ingenious mechanism method of trick ending, there is no taint in this story."<br /><br />Perhaps this painting is so associated with Hopper because he served as his own model for all the male characters. Also, as a bachelor until he was 40, Hopper got to know fast food places like this intimately. In a 1960 interview, Hopper said, "<i>Nighthawks</i> seems to be the way I think of the night street…. I simplified the scene a great deal and made the restaurant bigger. Unconsciously, probably I was painting the loneliness of a large city."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzjOQVI2ZAcRSdre6_OrNZMlSpLeZc_Nw8JSKUruYyhWdFiZ0mMWL9y0qr9ZyzXjtO6WT6vgY4zd6UP7OwAt6olZv_0svYfxGxps460EOd7cFInxfD7z_ZRgbk0ApV1gToKcfNiCXHA/s1600-h/Excursion+into+Philosphy+GOOD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRzjOQVI2ZAcRSdre6_OrNZMlSpLeZc_Nw8JSKUruYyhWdFiZ0mMWL9y0qr9ZyzXjtO6WT6vgY4zd6UP7OwAt6olZv_0svYfxGxps460EOd7cFInxfD7z_ZRgbk0ApV1gToKcfNiCXHA/s200/Excursion+into+Philosphy+GOOD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335001322613183298" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i> Excursion into Philosophy</i>]</p>The first couple I interviewed, Hank and Gretchen, turned out to be from Hopper's own Cape Cod. He was short and stocky in a white turtleneck, a leather coat folded over his forearm. She wore a mauve sweater and dark blue blazer. They were about 50 years old. Like most people I approached, they said they didn’t know enough about art to help me. Also, like most people I interviewed in Chicago, they were from out of town.<br /><br />"Did you know he lived in South Truro?"<br /><br />"No," Hank avowed. "There are so many changing landscapes there. South Truro and Wellfleet and Provincetown is still old Cape Cod, very well-preserved. A lot of artist types and professional psychologist types from New York and Connecticut have summer homes there. I joke that there's plenty of work there for psychiatrists because of the artists.<br /><br />"We have a print of a street scene of Hopper's in our living room, but this is my first time seeing him in person. Our youngest daughter is an art major. She liked him and got me kind of interested in him. Our daughter gave us a book that has all of his pictures in it. He really is saying something. Why do you like him?"<br /><br />"His characters seem isolated," I said.<br /><br />"They do, don't they?" Hank realized. "I think the U.S. is more isolated. Europeans have age-old national identities. Our identity is based on being a melting pot. We came in past [Chicago's] Chinatown and Little Italy: you see those in every town, whether it's here or Boston or New York. It's a terrific museum here."<br /><br />Gretchen finally chimed in. "I get to see a lot of foreign museums with my job, and this is as good as I've seen. And this painting is also. He draws me in, makes me feel like I'm part of the scene. I want to be there and see, 'What's wrong with these people?'" She shrugged sadly and concluded, "I wish we could be more help," leaving me unsure whether she meant to me or the people in the painting.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3HiiFLywZZyPNe7TH4UNFDEGUiOAeRN96mH7N0En6SbH0QwJFEz9DYMCF-Ix2B_3wi4TqNtO-u5gKmNCQ72_q_4qxbJfURDhYrPM2vuUFj0IE2dzVIWGW7N9IC9Ri4Ur-s17O829_TA/s1600-h/East+Wind+Over+Weehawken+Bigger.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3HiiFLywZZyPNe7TH4UNFDEGUiOAeRN96mH7N0En6SbH0QwJFEz9DYMCF-Ix2B_3wi4TqNtO-u5gKmNCQ72_q_4qxbJfURDhYrPM2vuUFj0IE2dzVIWGW7N9IC9Ri4Ur-s17O829_TA/s200/East+Wind+Over+Weehawken+Bigger.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335004720608398194" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i>East Wind Over Weehawken</i> hangs in Philadelphia]</p>Another couple approached. He was burly, with a gray beard, and his glasses hung by a metal chain around his neck. She was pale-faced with big glasses and apple-red cheeks.<br /><br />"Have you seen this painting before?" I approached them.<br /><br />His voice was husky as if from brandy and unfiltered cigarettes. "Not this one. But we're from Philadelphia, and we have some Hoppers there. Also we've seen those at the Whitney. This is bigger than I expected. The lighting and the composition emotionally evoke the pathos, I think; the loneliness. I love the way he captures the color in the bricks. And the way he uses greens and oranges together is awfully difficult."<br /><br />"You know your art," I said.<br /><br />"I studied art, but too many years ago."<br /><br />"So as a painter what do you make of this?" I asked.<br /><br />"The lines draw your eye in from left to right as most Americans read, but the lines of the window converging right to left anchor your attention in that café. One reason Hopper might disconcert viewers is that his lines tend to go from right to left against the way we read."<br /><br />"Why are you visiting Chicago?"<br /><br />"To see this museum actually," he barked. "We spend time in France every year, and we try to get to the little museums there."<br /><br />"I love small museums," I said. "I first saw Hopper in Toledo."<br /><br />His eyes popped in recognition. "We stopped in Toledo on the way out to see the museum, and we were amazed. That great Rembrandt! And the El Greco!"<br /><br />They shared a look, and he apologized, "We have to keep moving if we're going to see all that we want to today."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilA_G5H2OGz1Vt_Ta7ogws3uVDPHlXt705hFnbZjXIgtCy_-8e9IX664EYH06QVc8ifmSaI0QkqSkrzA0IfKHAjPDLCgF1055vwsD2QGzfGT5pAdi9gIfGzY_HcvIwWUapgRVYU7ejZw/s1600-h/summer+evening+GOOD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilA_G5H2OGz1Vt_Ta7ogws3uVDPHlXt705hFnbZjXIgtCy_-8e9IX664EYH06QVc8ifmSaI0QkqSkrzA0IfKHAjPDLCgF1055vwsD2QGzfGT5pAdi9gIfGzY_HcvIwWUapgRVYU7ejZw/s200/summer+evening+GOOD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335002565446487362" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i>Summer Evening</i>]</p>The next couple that walked in front of the painting turned out to be on their honeymoon from Des Moines. That might explain his gaunt cheeks covered with two days' beard. His short wife with big brown eyes remained quiet and tucked against his side. He wore a checked cowboy shirt, and she was draped in a warm-up suit.<br /><br />"Have you seen this before?" I asked.<br /><br />"Oh yeah," he spoke quickly but distantly. "In reproduction. I had a college roommate who had this up. I think it was just the iconography of it. You come around a corner, and you see it: it's like when I saw the <i>Mona Lisa</i>. It certainly has a hold on everybody in the U.S. There are so many questions in his paintings. My roommate's poster cut off the left side of the painting. I think it's easy to see just the people and see that the characters are lonely or isolated or whatever. But to see the painting in full and the dead space over here, the whole painting as a whole becomes lonely. It's not just that scene, the restaurant, it's the whole city. Plus the café: how do you get in?" After a pause, he added, "Maybe they can never leave. Like Sartre's play <i>No Exit</i>."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSVb1HvJVZoHUu1SPfA8Figs17V2wK4v0INS1ghchWi9PclDfLZ4YxxfsLy6ONK1Fg9TX2llWuC-t5bQuTav4jS0bA_BI3RhOxYZdMb6KSaWkWHqNTpxTGlfmLD21e_mwnIHLMZO9Aw/s1600-h/Four+Lane+Road.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSVb1HvJVZoHUu1SPfA8Figs17V2wK4v0INS1ghchWi9PclDfLZ4YxxfsLy6ONK1Fg9TX2llWuC-t5bQuTav4jS0bA_BI3RhOxYZdMb6KSaWkWHqNTpxTGlfmLD21e_mwnIHLMZO9Aw/s200/Four+Lane+Road.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335003665611810642" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i>Four Lane Road</i>]</p>When they left, up walked a large woman with curly auburn hair piled atop her head. She wore a silver jacket with checkerboard racing flags down either side. I asked her about the painting. "It reminds me of the old days. I've been in diners like that." She paused and raised her eyebrows. "Years ago. It's just like you want to walk in there and ask, 'What's going on?'"<br /><br />"Are you from Chicago?"<br /><br />"We're from Seattle. We drove out and we're gonna do <a href="http://www.historic66.com/">Route 66</a>. My husband's got an old '39 Chev [sic] he had restored. We're gonna spend two weeks trying to find the old route." She smiled in anticipation, then pointed at the painting. "We might see some place like this."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxUS9sUrLEkh_xfxY23oQ16SgCUW7d6kjjLNeJY-RmIbl3XwYhJtTvFAE0leJtjaAv5PTcTCtx3wA2U2L4gCaZYCVO1Q11wxeONeBbCWIpbSJzBxeyMbZAhXa5LclbNTtqBGHBUOs_lA/s1600-h/Apartment+Houses.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 113px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxUS9sUrLEkh_xfxY23oQ16SgCUW7d6kjjLNeJY-RmIbl3XwYhJtTvFAE0leJtjaAv5PTcTCtx3wA2U2L4gCaZYCVO1Q11wxeONeBbCWIpbSJzBxeyMbZAhXa5LclbNTtqBGHBUOs_lA/s200/Apartment+Houses.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335001989395104066" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i>Apartments Houses</i> hangs in Philadelphia]</p>A hefty blond woman entered with her generic-looking husband.<br /><br />"It's the only place open for blocks," she answered, "that's why it looks so bright I think."<br /><br />"I was commenting,” he commented, "on the unusual green on the outside. It's almost eerie. And when you look at the ceiling in the diner, you can tell it's a fluorescent light. It's a feeling everyone can relate to."<br /><br />"I would imagine," she wrinkled her brow, "that it's 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning, maybe the middle of the week, even. Everybody in the apartment above the store is asleep, but for whatever reason, these people are awake and out."<br /><br />"And up to no good," he tossed in.<br /><br />"That's not a happy couple," the woman asserted.<br /><br />"They may not be a couple," he countered. "They may be together just that night."<br /><br />She said, "She's looking at her nails, thinking, 'I can't believe I'm going to have to do these again tomorrow.'"<br /><br />"Or, 'I can't believe I'm here with this guy'," he offered.<br /><br />"Her expression," she continued, "is complete boredom. Like 'I'd rather be anywhere but where I am right now.'"<br /><br />"Are you guys from Chicago?"<br /><br />"From Chicago, yeah."<br /><br />"Do you think Chicagoans and Americans are isolated?"<br /><br />They hemmed and hawed. "You want us to generalize," the woman shook her head, "and it's hard to generalize for Chicago because it's so big."<br /><br />"It also depends," said the man, "on where in the city you are. Some parts they roll up the streets at 9 o'clock at night; other places are open 24 hours. You can be as lonely as you want to be."<br /><br />"Have you seen this one before?"<br /><br />"Well," she answered brashly, "anyone has seen it. This woman I work with: it's her absolute favorite painting, and she has a print of it right above her desk. But people come into the museum and see it and they think, 'Oh my God: it's the real thing.' They didn't know it really existed. They've seen so many variations of it. I don't know anyone that just says 'eh' and shrugs, which is interesting because the subject is pretty mundane: four people in a café.<br /><br />"We moved away from Chicago for a while when I was a kid. Every summer, we would come back to visit, and one of the things we would always do is come back to the art museum. <i>Nighthawks</i> is always one painting that I want to see. Even now, we were just wandering through, and we weren't looking for it, but we saw it and both went, 'Ah! Gotta go look.' The pull of that loneliness on the inside every time I see it."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP0gnZYCuTO6XtrxLIXV9mC7z3mhoEofbH-KQjtMBIyKw7gHP9ej91KnIrYSvlDuH8lhhJYvnblTKbY989wbFxI1xxegDjzZzI8Go4CrAd_fqVEM6PXOWUQmHl-OQ_w8kTWBOxFbhNAQ/s1600-h/Summer+Interior.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP0gnZYCuTO6XtrxLIXV9mC7z3mhoEofbH-KQjtMBIyKw7gHP9ej91KnIrYSvlDuH8lhhJYvnblTKbY989wbFxI1xxegDjzZzI8Go4CrAd_fqVEM6PXOWUQmHl-OQ_w8kTWBOxFbhNAQ/s200/Summer+Interior.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335006234982336786" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i>Summer Interior</i>]</p>Another couple approached. A plump young woman with big brown eyes hung on the arm of her lanky husband. A widow's peak made in-roads into his spiked hair.<br /><br />"We just recently moved [here] from Atlanta," the man responded in a nasal voice that made him seem sneering. "This is our first visit to the Art Institute. It looks very different in reproduction. It's bigger in real life. You know what it reminds me of? I studied in Vienna for 6 months, and we'd always go to coffee shops. And it reminds me of one we would go to. There was never anyone in there. What can I say? Artistically, it's perfect. It looks like a photograph. He tells a story."<br /><br />"It looks," his wife continued in soft, measured tones, "like they've come together for some reason. He makes it so plain and empty. That's where you get your loneliness. It gets kind of depressing after you look at it after a while. It doesn't look like a city. There's nothing going on. We moved from a job change, and a city is mostly for working. Especially those who live downtown, they live there because it's close to business. But a city is exhausting."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoBjkTCOXlUVZEa_NFJzsk8-yhYlhfLoBUHE73bOu7B5Q4v9INN1HryktvT0QA-0EfFEKvMVe-rYn_xg2Fqs2sqN0I2QuCZ74qY3_bljC7nwt2aJHbXXInIELoq1msLToaOUIJudOlAQ/s1600-h/Kevin+Self-portrait.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 145px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoBjkTCOXlUVZEa_NFJzsk8-yhYlhfLoBUHE73bOu7B5Q4v9INN1HryktvT0QA-0EfFEKvMVe-rYn_xg2Fqs2sqN0I2QuCZ74qY3_bljC7nwt2aJHbXXInIELoq1msLToaOUIJudOlAQ/s200/Kevin+Self-portrait.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335006400572573698" border="0" /></a><br />I interviewed people in front of the painting in Chicago, as usual. But in Chicago, I also had the opportunity finally to interview myself. I was an average-looking man, about 5'10" 180, with an intense stare and light brown hair parted on the side. I wore a pair of slacks and a sweater on the day that I interviewed myself. "Do you think that people are isolated as Hopper's characters?" <br /><br />"I do," I answered. "In fact, I wrote a book about it. I certainly feel isolated myself, and I think that Chicago is an isolating town. The people here are often mean to each other. And the town is without a doubt segregated and nepotistic."<br /><br />"So you see this painting reflecting Chicago?"<br /><br />"Well, there were still a lot of places like this when I first moved here, but now Mayor Daley does his best to run them out of business. In fact, there is a place up on Irving, an old diner (<a href="http://www.centerstagechicago.com/restaurants/diner-grill.html">The Diner Grill</a>), that they tried to shut down and put in condos. I have gone to that diner several times, and I can tell you that it does feel like walking into a Hopper painting. The grill is right there in front of the counter and you can watch the food cook as you sit there, and there are no tables, just the counter."<br /><br />"I got an architectural guidebook to Chicago and started exploring all the neighborhoods. It's amazing how many there are. And people in one don’t know about the others. There are a lot of neighborhoods that people will tell you you can’t go. But I go on Sunday mornings. The only people out at that time are church-goers. You see a lot of <i>Nighthawks</i>-like scenes at that hour, too. The guidebook has helped me notice the architectural treasures I would have missed otherwise. I think this is a lot like what Hopper did: search for the unique and evocative.<br /><br />"Chicago's particular form of isolation would be segregation. A recent report declared it the second-most-segregated big city in America. (A black friend of mine who lived in a traditionally black neighborhood on the south side, noted that when Mayor Washington, the first black mayor elected in Chicago, was in power was quote 'the only time snow in my neighborhood got plowed.') Also with the well-known patronage system of big machine politics, there are two tiers of people politically, those with clout or at least access to city jobs and those outside." <br /><br />"You said you felt isolated. In what ways?"<br /><br />"Well, in many ways. I mean, I tried to make a living as an artist here. And the irony is that it is the third-largest city in America, so it draws a lot of people from the Midwest who want to be artists, but it still does not have a great artists' community--not powerful and visible like New York's. So you come to the big city for the art scene which is better than your town's, but it still is not a great art scene. I think artists and thinkers are sort of sneered at in this culture. If you have culture, it is not immediately visible or something that you can buy. I think it's just easier for people to make snap judgments based on people's belongings. Even people who say this painting and other Hoppers show people isolated are just jumping to a snap judgment. I mean, the people in here might be happy; they might not feel sad about being isolated or even feel isolated. But you know that's what you have been told about Hopper. So I guess I feel isolated in that way; I feel judged.<br /><br />"Actually, I overcome isolation in this city by coming here. The museum and the people in it, even the dead artists who have stuff that I can relate to, that's where I find my community."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJMnfeLeaZR7nBWCdcawXwgHsf9fu5lOROZNMYM0axq4fCjs4q-ncaoZ1r_jdjOBXrAboFhcXW-HVPdAcBLCxJpwdcEIHbfgjJfm-in8FYCkTvDQ_Vlu-pIbsKt2Ad3tfQ3VAQ_82bA/s1600-h/Dawn+in+Pennsylvania+crop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgJMnfeLeaZR7nBWCdcawXwgHsf9fu5lOROZNMYM0axq4fCjs4q-ncaoZ1r_jdjOBXrAboFhcXW-HVPdAcBLCxJpwdcEIHbfgjJfm-in8FYCkTvDQ_Vlu-pIbsKt2Ad3tfQ3VAQ_82bA/s200/Dawn+in+Pennsylvania+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338787334395771618" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Hopper's <i>Dawn in Pennsylvania</i>]</p><i>Nighthawks</i> hung in Chicago, in a museum better known for its extensive Impressionist collection. Collectors made wealthy by rebuilding Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871 went looking to buy the city some class. East Coast collectors thought the Impressionists brash flash-in-the-pans. Chicagoans quietly and eagerly amassed the best collection of Impressionists in the country.<br /><br />Hopper's Gothic scene in <i>Nighthawks</i> could easily have been titled <i>American Gothic</i>, the title of Grant Wood's instantly recognizable picture of the old man in overalls holding a pitchfork and standing next to his daughter (many believed it was the man's wife). <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBE_nDC-1xIeeoIaHVmG9c5vv6hGn2e5id3CvTTJ0fV_PFd8ZOTZjgNxb5cI9Sg74ZfeTca5eJuweFlF4eml_qe0HdAlXWQRFRUOiDyMM3BOdEqb8ez81NfGnQ1wjgWEBJ5PAtHTqbRg/s1600-h/American+Gothic.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBE_nDC-1xIeeoIaHVmG9c5vv6hGn2e5id3CvTTJ0fV_PFd8ZOTZjgNxb5cI9Sg74ZfeTca5eJuweFlF4eml_qe0HdAlXWQRFRUOiDyMM3BOdEqb8ez81NfGnQ1wjgWEBJ5PAtHTqbRg/s200/American+Gothic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335006895671306738" border="0" /></a> That painting can also be found in Chicago's Art Institute, a truly great collection of often-seen classics: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_KkXGi14oFa4Q8glFsYA-wfj-t0tnBQQnQ1AaM0_-hBprD9EqzFvLKIGyhkse0oEgyLVqf-PjkbNyQYs3_cUfhP0a1GMQ4L8kO5Q4YLkcQBWOdFSiKUaKqhXd7GFiJKSy5gMe1LzFg/s1600-h/Seurat.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj_KkXGi14oFa4Q8glFsYA-wfj-t0tnBQQnQ1AaM0_-hBprD9EqzFvLKIGyhkse0oEgyLVqf-PjkbNyQYs3_cUfhP0a1GMQ4L8kO5Q4YLkcQBWOdFSiKUaKqhXd7GFiJKSy5gMe1LzFg/s200/Seurat.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335007439594562146" border="0" /></a> <i>Sunday on Isle Grand Jatte</i> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNu5kYyhZFS4g_MDTE7qalgAs4JhdsPGjqfBuy2NVFUQij58wz0w9MqqWIBx2TqL7T1SsvrB-gfm-OAHrwTa_I7cVkqTsU02wHyGbDWtofcCTVDb97S2aFdqRDWy8Uoknte9gUleeofg/s1600-h/Van+Gogh+Bedroom.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 156px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNu5kYyhZFS4g_MDTE7qalgAs4JhdsPGjqfBuy2NVFUQij58wz0w9MqqWIBx2TqL7T1SsvrB-gfm-OAHrwTa_I7cVkqTsU02wHyGbDWtofcCTVDb97S2aFdqRDWy8Uoknte9gUleeofg/s200/Van+Gogh+Bedroom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335007706402698082" border="0" /></a> Van Gogh's <i>Bedroom, 1889</i>, Caillebotte's <i>Rainy Day in Paris</i>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjACSAwJMlrFIMnzgkc1QneCrT28U81Bj35Gxsj69E-idqFx4tDuUnZkAQo2K7P2a-XAPcfr5WLWFHSGEhiJ36e8dVbfI9CHjuR2ZeDyOu7X83ERX9tabWB7dB4ancBsx9b-ryYToIC5w/s1600-h/caillebotte.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjACSAwJMlrFIMnzgkc1QneCrT28U81Bj35Gxsj69E-idqFx4tDuUnZkAQo2K7P2a-XAPcfr5WLWFHSGEhiJ36e8dVbfI9CHjuR2ZeDyOu7X83ERX9tabWB7dB4ancBsx9b-ryYToIC5w/s200/caillebotte.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335007978950906354" border="0" /></a><br /><br />(The Terra Museum of American Art, headquartered in Chicago, also owned two Hopper paintings, but I was informed when I started that both were on permanent loan to their sister institution in Paris. By the time I finished the project, the Terra had gone under, and <i>Dawn in Pennsylvania</i> hung beside <i>Nighthawks</i>.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixF-qrCeQRW0uSM7BrDp4o4dQhSwiaqYhIg8gcOpkMcYoPyD9LQd2_XNtnylUY0RGr7ne8wPxPBSW04YjxWVE32e1UVd7RWF6mOlAKqtCOeaA3lF1hHUQKbefh2zDOQ2hhDwJAXX1lXw/s1600-h/Chicago+Kev+desk+%26+Nighthawks.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixF-qrCeQRW0uSM7BrDp4o4dQhSwiaqYhIg8gcOpkMcYoPyD9LQd2_XNtnylUY0RGr7ne8wPxPBSW04YjxWVE32e1UVd7RWF6mOlAKqtCOeaA3lF1hHUQKbefh2zDOQ2hhDwJAXX1lXw/s200/Chicago+Kev+desk+%26+Nighthawks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338779024699573074" border="0" /></a><br /><i>Nighthawks</i> is so well-known and prototypical of Hopper's paintings that it is the hardest work to talk about. Similarly, Chicago is the hardest town for me to talk about because I know it so well. As I visited all the Hoppers in the U.S., Chicago, my hometown for more than 20 years, was the touchstone against which I measured the other cities.<br /><br />Chicago playwright Lynn Rosen, who wrote a play called <i>Nighthawks</i>, said, "A lot of Chicagoans connect with Hopper, even though he was a New Yorker, It's because the Art Institute has <i>Nighthawks</i>. New York is on a different planet. Chicago is more American." Chicago institution Studs Terkel said, "I love that Edward Hopper's <i>Nighthawks</i>. When I was a kid, I lived in this place: The Wells Grand Hotel; it's still there. There's an all-night restaurant down below. My God, it was <i>Nighthawks</i> in every way." <br /><br />Like with New York, there is no way to summarize the people, events, and superlatives that made this such a significant and American city. Founded by French priests where the Chicago River flowed into Lake Michigan at a swamp filled with reeky onions that the natives called "cheecagou," the town became a hub due to its placement at the nexus of the waterways and roads of the North American continent. Its identity really solidified after the Great Fire in 1871, when there was money and infrastructure in place but no buildings. The "second city" that was built on top of the rubble was a showcase for the leading architectural wonders of its day: indoor plumbing, gas lighting, elevators, and other modern marvels made this town immediately more modern than any other. Chicago architect Louis Sullivan invented the term "skyscraper" to describe the building he was designing for the new city. <br /><br />When I moved to Chicago in 1977, I was told that it was home at the time to the world's first, third and tenth tallest buildings. Chicago has always been trying to be the biggest and the best. In fact, it was the politicians who lobbied so hard to have the nation's Columbian Festival in Chicago in 1894 that gave it the nickname "The Windy City" (not the lake winds as many now believe). They got their wish, and the fair was so well attended it made the city famous. The Midway down the center of the White City created for the exposition to show off the most modern achievements in every science or art was so famous that the Chicago Bears became nicknamed "Monsters of the Midway."<br /><br />Having always striven for the biggest and best, it is no surprise that <i>Nighthawks</i> is here: the pinnacle of Hopper's work. It <i>is</i> a surprise that it almost did not end up here. The original buyer swapped it for one that the Art Institute had. It almost seems like a mythical creature, like the man who broke the bank at Monaco: the man who let <i>Nighthawks</i> out of his possession. Yet here it is: in perhaps the most typically American city because it is the largest American city not on a coast. It is the swaggering giant of the heartland, due to its position at the bottom of the great lakes and halfway from the West to New England.<br /><br />I spent a lot of time with Chicago's night hawks. Both the people and the famous painting by Edward Hopper. I lived here for 25 years starting in 1986, when no one wanted to live here. I first got an apartment in an old Hopperesque three-story Greystone with massive rough stones bulging out of the façade and a wooden door with cracked paint. When I first moved in, on my walks home from shows or waiting tables, a hooker would call out at every other corner (a professional courtesy of territory, I learned). Now, when I walk down the same street, a Starbucks calls out from every other corner (the opposite of territorial courtesy for business). Since my move into the city, the neighborhoods that used to be exclusively left to young college grads, artists, and hippie urban-renewal types (the term "gentrification" had not yet been invented) disappeared. Since then, people and their real estate dollars have flocked here. But I don’t think that more people has resulted in better community. Just the opposite. The types that moved here demanded parking lots and got them. They wanted the chain stores they knew in their former cities: Chicago suburbs or other metropolises. We are becoming more isolated like the people in Hopper's painting. As long ago as 1996, a friend of mine moved away form here and said she was doing it partly due to the "New Yorkification" of Chicago. When I was in Europe one time, I saw a magazine that highlighted the hottest neighborhoods in the world: Hong Kong, London ... and my neighborhood in Chicago. I had moved there because it was affordable and had longtime German householders lending stability. Now, it was overrun with yuppie couples and families, holding barbecues in the back yards and beer frat parties on the public ways.<br /><br />When Mayor Washington was mayor is when the arts flourished. Washington's reign was the glory days for independent theaters. When Daley's men took over they shut down one theater where I had done a show because it was in an art gallery. When the director argued, "Theater is art," the city's henchman grunted, "Lady, it ain't art if it don't hang on a wall." Under Daley, things started changing in Chicago. Maxwell Street, long-time home of Chicago's blues culture, was demolished for a condo development. Housing projects tumbled without replacements. Lifeless high-rise cinder-block condos replaced quaint old single-family homes. I lived in this city when my family thought that it was gang-ridden. Now my family wants to come down to Navy Pier because that's the best mall in town. We've gone entirely the other direction. And I laugh because all my artist friends are moving to the suburbs which ten years ago they hated. <br /><br />I could go on with examples, but trust me. I have lived here long enough to know the city. And the city is not the downtown that the tourists see. Most of the living is done in the neighborhoods and not downtown. Neighborhoods here used to be towns that were swallowed by the ever-growing city. That is why they retain separate names today: Lake View, Hyde Park, Austin, Bridgeport, etc. And allegiance is to the neighborhood first and the city second. Read Nelson Algren about how viciously people fought over the imaginary borders certain streets constituted between neighborhoods of rival ethnic groups. Algren actually knew Chicago better than almost any other writer and his opinion was, "[Chicago is] the only major city in the country where you can easily buy your way out of a murder rap." And about the Greek philosopher who went walking with a lamp in daylight to see if any man were honest enough to tell him his mistake, Algren said, "If Diogenes came to Chicago, they’d steal his lamp."<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAr28bwMs2HMLUK_aTqjP4mSmSvohNcry1_9usV05GfdiDmBmnq5S-xxibbjrPV-Q0Z38IUPJtnozAclhXf9lcNzKGIjoAITedbJQtkGyNiaNaYrHSZxHDa1u8W9zeJfGD-Ge-HAgjVw/s1600-h/Chicago+City+on+the+Make.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 138px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAr28bwMs2HMLUK_aTqjP4mSmSvohNcry1_9usV05GfdiDmBmnq5S-xxibbjrPV-Q0Z38IUPJtnozAclhXf9lcNzKGIjoAITedbJQtkGyNiaNaYrHSZxHDa1u8W9zeJfGD-Ge-HAgjVw/s200/Chicago+City+on+the+Make.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335000734417362802" border="0" /></a></span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-24264853344332936062009-06-14T00:01:00.012-05:002009-06-15T09:46:24.036-05:00274 Utica, NY: Camel's Hump<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXhPg4s2m8tozBGfyyMUDo5_2oww3kE5JrU9f9iQCNJ6APs436feRgT-zOo1FNo0bAKAqeXKoOIvwVJ55F3P8X_G_odaIw4YEKRRb71OwlEk7lX2Y5sxxCRK84DktZFscGKpR0uM0Pw/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Stephen+King2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXXhPg4s2m8tozBGfyyMUDo5_2oww3kE5JrU9f9iQCNJ6APs436feRgT-zOo1FNo0bAKAqeXKoOIvwVJ55F3P8X_G_odaIw4YEKRRb71OwlEk7lX2Y5sxxCRK84DktZFscGKpR0uM0Pw/s200/Utica,+NY+Stephen+King2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334683798252746626" border="0" /></a><p align="center"><a href="http://www.cityofutica.com/Home/">Utica, NY</a>: <i>Camel's Hump</i></p>Stephen King once said he got his ideas from Utica. I got the idea where to start exploring the town from the landlords who had put up my niece when she was at nearby Hamilton College. They recommend a place that my web research did not turn up: <a hred="http://mvny.org/entertainment/utica/cafe-domenico.cfm">Domenico's</a>. In a mob town known for family networks, mine was paying off.<br /><br />The space had brightly-colored walls filled with original paintings, as well as reproduction portraits of famous writers, musicians, and artists. A bullet hole pierced the back window. I couldn't have picked a better starting place. Within his first three sentences, Orin, the owner working the counter, mentioned some of my favorite philosophers, like James Hillman and Joseph Campbell. "The coffee shop," he related, "from the beginning, was kind of envisioned both as a business and a place to address isolation." Orin was a bit shy of six feet, paunchy and gray-bearded, draped in a black apron with a small black-and-white peace sign pin on his lapel. <br /><br />"There just aren't places for people to meet face to face and to talk to each other anymore. There's a quotation by James Hillman in an essay that he wrote about cities that I used in the first letter I wrote trying to raise funds to start this place. (I ended up doing it without raising these funds.) He talks about the need for places in the city where people meet 'at eye level.' I tried to make a place that would appeal to a cross-section of people, so that different sorts of people would end up talking to each other. Boy I get 'em! I get everybody from the mobsters to the peace coalition. It's fun.<br /><br />"I had people saying to me when I started this, 'Oh, the best thing is you'll make out real well and Starbucks will buy you out.' I said, 'I'm not interested in starting another Starbucks; I'm interested in this place and keeping this great.' We're very interested in promoting the idea of local economy. These items you see for sale in our display case, this milk and eggs, are from a nearby organic farm run by a retired airline pilot and an Ivy League economist.<br /><br />"There is an isolation in Utica," he mused in answer to my question. "Part of it is just modern life; that's a better word than <i>culture</i>. I don't like to use <i>culture</i> to describe what we have in this country. There's another element here, and that's that a lot of people in the community come from Southern Italy originally. You tend to run into a lot of dysfunctional cynical attitudes. There's been a lot of in-fighting and back-biting for years in politics here that I think contributes to the isolation. I have a friend who calls people here 'Utaricans;' that's his way of saying they have small, stubborn politics. And that further increases the kind of distance that exists between groups. For a small place, there's a lot more of that here than there needs to be.<br /><br />"A whole hell of a lot of people have left Utica," he lamented. "You had kind of an economic catastrophe. When I was growing up around here you had Griffiths Air Force Base, which was very much a product of the Cold War. My father worked as an artist who ran the graphic arts department for the air base. And besides that there were mills. They're all gone. General Electric sold out; they're gone too. And with that went a large lump of the population. I lived within three to five blocks of both of my grandparents, several uncles, bunches of cousins, and there was this kind of fabric of the community. You knew everyone. There isn't one of my uncles who lives in this area anymore.<br /><br />"There's several good things happening right now," he noted. "I see a lot of people who are starting to look for places like this to get out of big cities. We've got two guys, just for instance, from Los Angeles who've bought the church up the street here and put in a recording studio."<br /><br />A woman who had stepped in to the café and ordered several coffees to go, jumped in, "Yeah, he's my dad; I'm the studio manager. He's from San Francisco actually."<br /><br />"People would love it here if there was more opportunity, don't you think?" he asked her.<br /><br />"Absolutely," she agreed. "You've got gorgeous architecture. It's like traveling back in time."<br /><br />Since she had included herself, I asked her my question. "I don't feel isolated," she shook her long blond hair. "My whole family's here. I'm Italian and Irish, and I have five hundred cousins and aunts and uncles, and they all stayed here. My mom and I are the only ones who left. For two hundred years my family's been here. Both sides. 1803. I felt way more isolated in San Francisco because it's such a transitory city. This city: talk about roots, they're here. People would come back, they definitely would. It's just there's no economic opportunity for them."<br /><br />Orin continued, "I would like to see my kids make it [Utica] somethin'. Have my grandchildren around. If corporations start looking seriously at putting things like chip plants here, it's because we've become third world. Your wages have to be so low, and they have to give away so many things for them environmentally and tax-wise and so forth that you don't even want 'em here. And besides which, there's no loyalty. You guys set the studio up here, with all the work you put into it, you're not just going to leave next month."<br /><br />"Right," she said enthusiastically. "I'm gonna inherit that studio."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXfr4dst14wIlp-Xh74vdjZf34Q-YLWA7EqtPF9fHo9d0JD_oZSySPGgRjItg8abkkTVvUyuFEv5mbYs_Ry47O2PCz4enNTcL5PfOcHk_LJJyGTcUtkDpvxRhis6iM0507oHvx1NxjvA/s1600-h/Camel's+Hump+GOOD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 113px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXfr4dst14wIlp-Xh74vdjZf34Q-YLWA7EqtPF9fHo9d0JD_oZSySPGgRjItg8abkkTVvUyuFEv5mbYs_Ry47O2PCz4enNTcL5PfOcHk_LJJyGTcUtkDpvxRhis6iM0507oHvx1NxjvA/s200/Camel's+Hump+GOOD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333189844529920882" border="0" /></a><br />The Hopper here, <i>Camel's Hump</i>, shows a series of Cape Cod hills, bright in the foreground, darker in back, under a pale blue sky with one white cloud. The slanting hillsides converge like arrows. There are no figures, no architecture, just the light catching the camel's hump. Jo described it in the ledger as "Bare saddle shaped dune (Indian campground) on skyline." Hopper had painted the same subject from a different perspective the year before in <i>Hills, South Truro</i>, now in Cleveland's museum. Cape Cod was still new to Hopper as a subject when he painted this in 1931.<br /><br />The painting hangs at the Munson William Proctor Institute (MWPI), <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi77YLSQU5VCY31EmMjNuTG2tlhXygDPJpV6fooZkoXvMyd_kKtGQLBhwTH8qBonxOBuuSwjV49f5YsMjKu42XlE1maPpqM8vkcEVr-uwHf3ljJRNGHxIVvWWbhsb-gNq8G9fyBk01ahg/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+MWPI+logo.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi77YLSQU5VCY31EmMjNuTG2tlhXygDPJpV6fooZkoXvMyd_kKtGQLBhwTH8qBonxOBuuSwjV49f5YsMjKu42XlE1maPpqM8vkcEVr-uwHf3ljJRNGHxIVvWWbhsb-gNq8G9fyBk01ahg/s200/Utica,+NY+MWPI+logo.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333190184240110098" border="0" /></a> whose mouth-garbling name is shortened by locals to "<a href="http://www.munsters.com/">Munstitute</a>." I was at the museum the day that artists were dropping off submissions for the annual art contest. I asked one who had stopped in front of <i>Camel's Hump</i> her thoughts about isolation in Utica. She was a sturdy 5'8", with big round face, crooked teeth, short black hair, and lots of eye shadow ringing her brown eyes. She leaned away from me at a forty-five degree angle suspiciously.<br /><br />"Definitely yeah, I agree," she began.<br /><br />"Isolated from each other?" I probed, "or isolated from the rest of the state and country?"<br /><br />"All of those," she exclaimed. "I grew up here, but I was away for twelve years. I just now came back. I've seen isolation like this. But my perspective comes from my life experience. You know, you talk to someone else, and they might feel completely different. And if you had interviewed me fifteen years ago, I probably would feel very differently about a lot of things because I was doing very different things."<br /><br />"Would you have been more or less inclined," I wondered, "to agree that people are isolated at that point?"<br /><br />"Less inclined," she said, "because my life was very different then. I was married. I was busy all of the time. I had virtually no down time, no time for myself. So I wouldn't know if people were isolated, because I was not isolated. Now things are very different, and I just want to spend time with myself. Art is an isolating work. I don't have the same kind of money I used to have, you know what I mean? It's just the way my life went. I was alone at the time. I had a bunch of time. I've been sketching and all this stuff since I was a toddler. Until the last six years, I never really had time to put into that. Now I can."<br /><br />"Is there a place in town where I might interview other artists?"<br /><br />"Oh gosh," she ahemed, "you know, that's the thing. Nah. Everybody's got their own schedules. There're a couple artists friends that I have conversations with, but there are other artists around town who I don't know. Some I don't want to."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAxgF6Zv3t2dH4xqLxase3CLbdGC3fyxSxj0_D55FFirpw7LtOppcmISIB_4R4QquM60iveBn0Oe27QwE9DrTQjJ3f68UYvzaW8gW_LkuH4m2v_dWBZVNTxpiwD_RgJCW5iuQc-DtJw/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Jo+Hopper+Truro+map.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 301px; height: 128px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCAxgF6Zv3t2dH4xqLxase3CLbdGC3fyxSxj0_D55FFirpw7LtOppcmISIB_4R4QquM60iveBn0Oe27QwE9DrTQjJ3f68UYvzaW8gW_LkuH4m2v_dWBZVNTxpiwD_RgJCW5iuQc-DtJw/s200/Utica,+NY+Jo+Hopper+Truro+map.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334963320275745090" border="0" /></a><br />I found in the files an original hand-drawn map by Jo Hopper of how to get from the local train station to their studio. Another note told me who had gained possession of Jo's journals. A letter from painter Phillip Koch, who had a residency in Hopper's studio in 1996, reported that the hill known as <i>Camel's Hump</i> was bulldozed after Hopper's death. <br /><br /><i>Camel's Hump</i> was bought by Edward Root, son of Elihu Root, who had been born in a cottage on the campus of nearby Hamilton College and went on to become Secretary of State and 1912 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Root admired Hopper's "feeling for the brilliant sharply defined iconic appearance of the American Landscape." <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuV0WygXwkyfkqxPi3cm7bHkB7hdbIwo_hRmJ-IyPKY1ghTxB7Lnw5SFd0BB9xj1V-v5COL4ino6OvolAIIqOWpQ4uSbGWckGszU9Zme33ilvSgwi9loKi843ZnyiRhruLOamIIvK_dQ/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Get+art.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuV0WygXwkyfkqxPi3cm7bHkB7hdbIwo_hRmJ-IyPKY1ghTxB7Lnw5SFd0BB9xj1V-v5COL4ino6OvolAIIqOWpQ4uSbGWckGszU9Zme33ilvSgwi9loKi843ZnyiRhruLOamIIvK_dQ/s200/Utica,+NY+Get+art.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334607939016969202" border="0" /></a><br />Out in the galleries, I spoke with a short, stocky woman in droopy jeans and a "Get Art?" T-shirt. She wore a backpack and had frizzy light brown hair, several ear rings, chubby cheeks, and gaps in her teeth.<br /><br />"Um, I'm not sure <i>isolated</i>," she mumbled, She was always moving and held a Coke in one hand and candy bar in the other. "But you know I think they must really [be] on a level. Location-wise, I think maybe [they are isolated] because the valley area is definitely out of the way. It's kind of in an area where there's farm lands all over the place, and there's the city right in the middle of it. I think a lot of people can relate to this painting just because they see hills and stuff. So I think maybe even though he may not have painted it around here, people say like, 'I kind of seen that around here, too.' There's definitely serenity about the painting, too. I think maybe people relate to that kind of green serene feelings around here. What kind of isolation I like is in the woods. Someone from around here?" she balked. "If they saw this? I don't know if this is isolation; this is just home." <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_6c-pd4RXhiEteKYbQh7PbLBqRtDkAO1y-gRJD0RCRnIk_QBREMjsmo6gouQSzKfTIJ1iAuc4HHFBnchdTFo_D5axEtJyM-kU1JmNXnAAmtprLb8jycvt3Ouw555Bz9WO3_dX830g1g/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+triplets.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 91px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_6c-pd4RXhiEteKYbQh7PbLBqRtDkAO1y-gRJD0RCRnIk_QBREMjsmo6gouQSzKfTIJ1iAuc4HHFBnchdTFo_D5axEtJyM-kU1JmNXnAAmtprLb8jycvt3Ouw555Bz9WO3_dX830g1g/s200/Utica,+NY+triplets.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334610978782202642" border="0" /></a><br />Stephanie's sister, Jennifer, worked at the museum and came over to us. She looked similar because they were part of identical triplets, but her green eyes were framed by fashionable oval glass frames, and her dark hair was cut in a short pageboy.<br /><br />"From what I know of his characters," Jennifer responded, "they do seem very caught up in their own business, and Utica can certainly be like that!" She and her sister both laughed at this. "There is a sense that people are only looking out for themselves. Certainly, if I needed directions to go somewhere, I wouldn't feel totally comfortable just asking any random person off the street. I would want to make sure I was asking a respectable person, someone in a respectable position anyway."<br /><br />The building housing the MWPI collection's decorative arts was Fountain Elms, an 1850 Italianate mansion from Utica's prime that was the ancestral home of the institute's founders. The tour guide there gave me a history of the place and explained the origins of its long name.<br /><br />"Okay," she began, "Alfred Munson came from Connecticut and he gets in on the Erie Canal that's just about to open. Mr. Munson makes a ton of money. He's the first millionaire in Oneida County in 1823. He has a lovely daughter Helen. This is her portrait here. She falls in love with a local attorney, James Williams. She becomes Helen Munson-Williams. They raise two young ladies, Rachel Williams and Mariah Williams who marry two Proctor brothers. So now we have Munson-Williams-Proctor."<br /><br />I asked her, "Do you feel that people in Utica are isolated like Hopper's characters?"<br /><br />"Uh," she hesitated, "no I don't, not at all. I don't feel an isolation like that exists here. Maybe it's just because of the fact that I work here, and we see people on an international basis. But even the city itself, we have a lot of different ethnic groups. It's a very friendly community. "<br /><br />I said, "In a town of 60,000, you probably see your neighbors fairly regularly, too."<br /><br />"Oh, I know all my neighbors," she said. "You know names from high school and grammar school, and they're still here. If you don't know them, somebody else does. So it's a close-knit community. Very friendly people here, very generous people. Well certainly these people [the Munson-Williams-Proctors] are, right?"<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHkZSR3awa2SqJW9xVbebTDmIwEEcv1k85kP-S31UC-J4F3aCzxrF8leRSA4e6jqJ7Pm9IK6G_zftjSa5YJlfVLq7jk6rdXNMiQKkOo2YjLhjtLcrAAS76IwC4rEAHz4U02Ow5eGLNFw/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+13.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHkZSR3awa2SqJW9xVbebTDmIwEEcv1k85kP-S31UC-J4F3aCzxrF8leRSA4e6jqJ7Pm9IK6G_zftjSa5YJlfVLq7jk6rdXNMiQKkOo2YjLhjtLcrAAS76IwC4rEAHz4U02Ow5eGLNFw/s200/Utica,+NY+13.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334642223982451234" border="0" /></a><br />The town's name was chosen out of a hat with 13 names in it. If that number wasn't a bad omen, the source of the name was. During the Roman Empire, Utica was a North African state overrun alternately by Romans, Carthaginians and Arabs. New York's Utica began in 1758 with the establishment of Fort Schuyler. It was chartered as a city in 1832 and became a manufacturing hub, halfway along the Erie Canal from New York to Buffalo. As the economy crumbled and the population dwindled, the town gained a reputation as a haven for the Mafia. Even today, mob hits don't raise eyebrows here. They had to call in the Federal Arson Squad recently because so many buildings were being torched.<br /><br />Knowing Utica's staunch Italian history, I expected the Italian delis and stores to be in thriving neighborhoods. Instead, they were the only businesses left amidst blocks of homes burnt, boarded or for rent and storefronts now derelict or colonized by ad hoc pawn shops, small grocers, etc. The Italian Heritage Center had even packed up and moved to Syracuse. One storefront had nothing except black tinted windows and signs on the walls that blared, "For Members Only"!<br /><br />I had read online about Utica's mysterious "pusties," the favorite food of townies. I learned that it was short for pasticciotti, an Italian pastry. The name comes from Naples and means "big mess" (a potshot metaphor for the town). When I stepped into Caruso's to order one, I asked for one second to see whether I wanted anything else as well. After a count of two, the flabby-armed woman behind the counter said, "Time's up."<br /><br />Seeing that the Italian neighborhood was not what it used to be, I headed for the heart of downtown, lorded over by a bank's huge gold dome. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwOmmMzt5nSb9Fr8UACV4dgLUCcSLI8v0WStc2_FiiUcavkn06du7t1N14Z4E2YOunY4mg9IV-92DRDgkcQXFh8lPp2EwXS6Hsf5o5iemf9gzLkwymQ1DKY4F3rSEAyy4uVaksoK51Og/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Gold+Dome.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwOmmMzt5nSb9Fr8UACV4dgLUCcSLI8v0WStc2_FiiUcavkn06du7t1N14Z4E2YOunY4mg9IV-92DRDgkcQXFh8lPp2EwXS6Hsf5o5iemf9gzLkwymQ1DKY4F3rSEAyy4uVaksoK51Og/s200/Utica,+NY+Gold+Dome.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333190326379253250" border="0" /></a> Genesee Street, the main artery, sloped up from the Mohawk River Valley and passed the Hopper-era Stanley Theater: whose sign read "Stacey, we love you so much, The Amigos and Me." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwsxWO_dLePJvr4hb9EyAjxaa90gUvw5cJNn15RVwUYEUj3Ukf_9sHTZ1p_VO-pUAyOGybrgN5uxBLVvk6crqDMNRGGwVd8cwPBSFwKNjFA31kQqw3ZFp5pMG04K_8Vwhp2RzD14Irlg/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Stanley.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwsxWO_dLePJvr4hb9EyAjxaa90gUvw5cJNn15RVwUYEUj3Ukf_9sHTZ1p_VO-pUAyOGybrgN5uxBLVvk6crqDMNRGGwVd8cwPBSFwKNjFA31kQqw3ZFp5pMG04K_8Vwhp2RzD14Irlg/s200/Utica,+NY+Stanley.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334643502096631394" border="0" /></a> You can also rent the lobby, and it has become a local tradition for wedding parties to have their photographs taken on the grand staircases in the lobby--though that might not be a lucky thing because legend has it this one was designed to resemble the grand staircase on the Titanic. The theater tradition in Utica began (of all places) on Hopper Street, where, in 1914, the Players Theater produced an evening of plays at the New Century Club. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1_RHOpvTHJiN7Qv3mJd2KaZF89_fERRX2-ypR_LLe1altpJP9Wi8rRV7uZYCxbnOVUfIRHRVStH6m3rcLpXjT00TaestkhSpxbegb3rIucThMIhZ2XudqSSNqKrpr6h1fJ9_T9C_ejg/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Flatiron+Bldg+Hopperesque.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 161px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1_RHOpvTHJiN7Qv3mJd2KaZF89_fERRX2-ypR_LLe1altpJP9Wi8rRV7uZYCxbnOVUfIRHRVStH6m3rcLpXjT00TaestkhSpxbegb3rIucThMIhZ2XudqSSNqKrpr6h1fJ9_T9C_ejg/s200/Utica,+NY+Flatiron+Bldg+Hopperesque.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333190634646061842" border="0" /></a><br />Near Hopper Street was the appropriately Hopperesque Triangle Café, a tiny greasy spoon diner shaped like the one in Hopper's <i>Nighthawks</i> because it was at the tip of a triangular building. A sign advertised a special price for a "hamburg," which in Utica comes without the final "-er." The walls were covered halfway up with wood paneling, halfway down with dingy plaid wallpaper. Fluorescent lights buzzed on the dropped ceiling. A spacey-eyed, wiry character to my right smoked a cigarette with zombie-like slowness. Three women mindlessly rubbing lottery tickets with their spoon ends talked weather, taxes, and lottery. I sat at the counter and leaned on my elbows. The transformation was complete. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZIuzDIBOyjc9gnXaGMe2FqCAs7b1kEgLfQ_U2_0fvpHq53HJ1-45KHQulIgLbFfUm2vaJCapR1DvRBmq8aNZoQbqPAxjT0UZuoE0obnNghTkmVSep8xpbgweEtmggikNSVxcKQA8VA/s1600-h/Nighthawks+back+of+man.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 156px; height: 171px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigZIuzDIBOyjc9gnXaGMe2FqCAs7b1kEgLfQ_U2_0fvpHq53HJ1-45KHQulIgLbFfUm2vaJCapR1DvRBmq8aNZoQbqPAxjT0UZuoE0obnNghTkmVSep8xpbgweEtmggikNSVxcKQA8VA/s200/Nighthawks+back+of+man.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334644167935949762" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5y9KOB37FB4bD8-y0kukfYgedEFChN0EL_nHQQz4n73rqSFhWbxL13ctxpdWl2_iTE59lYZps-XB1JT2oqP2iWlDsFoqWhfqsXu9OHTy6rhX0QkhQVNFY6kjYXRwrGBpR_uUIrvLqA/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Hotel+Utica.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5y9KOB37FB4bD8-y0kukfYgedEFChN0EL_nHQQz4n73rqSFhWbxL13ctxpdWl2_iTE59lYZps-XB1JT2oqP2iWlDsFoqWhfqsXu9OHTy6rhX0QkhQVNFY6kjYXRwrGBpR_uUIrvLqA/s200/Utica,+NY+Hotel+Utica.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333190958809445282" border="0" /></a><br />Some things remained vital downtown. The Hotel Utica had been saved and restored with a lobby decked out in Tiffany lamps, crystal chandeliers, and caged birds. A live pianist and violinist played classical music from one corner under the balcony ringing the room. As I jotted down the day's notes, the candle at my table burned out, the only one to do so, like some Sicilian curse, <a href="http://www.girosole.com/italy-travel-info/art-malocchio-evil-eye.html">malocchio</a>.<br /><br />My waitress's gold nameplate read, "Tina." She was tall and trim, wearing black pants and a white shirt. She had a fresh pale face and brown heavy-lidded eyes beneath reddish-brown hair pulled tight behind her head. She looked sweet and young, but she approached with the self-assured, square-shouldered walk of a man and spoke with a strikingly husky tone.<br /><br />"The answer to the question," she asserted, "is yes. I've been out of this country, and I feel more warmth [elsewhere]. I've been to Italy and seen a different way. I grew up with a family community that was stronger than most Americans because it had Italian heritage. My father moved here when he was 17. I feel they are different from my friends' families, and that's why I say, absolutely."<br /><br />I asked, "Did you notice when you grew up in Utica that this was isolated?"<br /><br />"No," Tina pondered, "I think I learned that as I got older. I've been more isolated places. At least people here will acknowledge if you say something in the store line. And Monday Night Utica is a great tradition; different ethnic groups take each one. My father claims that Genesee Street was formerly so packed on a Saturday night that traffic was at a standstill."<br /><br />"Why are you back?" I asked. <br /><br />"This is where my family lives," she shrugged.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ1H2yyVezErNA9IGqONO8lKgPWo8Wu6Kv8tVF3DIeq0kkhWlij68EQdM3Ep4hQIp31Iq-Ur8vXw_G_NDhupo_45z_0lZ9-m52vzAc885w0fnjhswwjvGSsjL7byUbBG1qAPxeAspyvQ/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+train+station+sign.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ1H2yyVezErNA9IGqONO8lKgPWo8Wu6Kv8tVF3DIeq0kkhWlij68EQdM3Ep4hQIp31Iq-Ur8vXw_G_NDhupo_45z_0lZ9-m52vzAc885w0fnjhswwjvGSsjL7byUbBG1qAPxeAspyvQ/s200/Utica,+NY+train+station+sign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333191470124517730" border="0" /></a><br />Another still-vital Utica institution was Utica's 1914 Union Station, the last grand station built by the New York Central Railroad. I visited in the evening, and the cavernous hall was empty, save for a teenage girl slumped on a long bench and an East Indian man in a business jacket standing beside his luggage. Three workers were sweeping up one corner. One was a paunchy, white guy with a gray-haired buzz cut. His partner was a tight-lipped muscular young African American. Their supervisor was a middle-aged African American man who had the ease and fleshiness of a Buddha, calmly smoking a pipe beneath a dark mustache.<br /><br />The supervisor said he didn't really have an opinion, then turned to his workers and explained what I asked him.<br /><br />"Oh yeah, we get along," the paunchy guy said. "We've been talking to each other all day. If you look on a State of New York map, we're right in the center of the state, between New York City and Buffalo, New York."<br /><br />"Unfortunately," the African American supervisor said, "we haven't been able to capitalize on it, on our location. Well," he amended, "we've been getting a big influx of individuals from New York. This afternoon we had a Hispanic gentleman who was here with his son who looked at Utica College campus, and he was trying to decide whether he wants to move up here. And, you know, he said, 'well, where's all the people?' Well, you probably said the same thing when you came in here. But we're getting a lot of Bosnian immigrants; you know, Russian immigrants, Hispanics, people from Nicaragua, you know? Vietnamese.<br /><br />"Matter of fact," he perked up, "I wouldn't say that I'm isolated, but I have some Vietnamese neighbors; they've been living next door to us, I would say for about five or six years, and they pretty much keep to themselves. We have some Hispanic people on our block also, and they pretty much keep to themselves, too. I don't think that's healthy, but I guess that's their culture. And I guess that's they way they want to live. In fact, the case is the neighbor that I have who's Vietnamese, I do his lawn, when I do my lawn, and the guy has never said, 'Thank you.' And my daughter said, 'Well, why do you continue to do his lawn if the guy don't even say thank you?' but, you know, my house would look as dumb if my lawn was done and his lawn wasn't done. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRmJmQ199aDmxa_7HnqltTQl-Zu3tFrVCEoe60QXwFgYyoIoL1itxOYUBQUYKxutXTPi0e86PK9iSapWb8Q8k0pxsQm0n0vlsU2Y62YajDD676424rU9TA5JYsnFgPj232V1mMvc1wgQ/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Mowing+job2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRmJmQ199aDmxa_7HnqltTQl-Zu3tFrVCEoe60QXwFgYyoIoL1itxOYUBQUYKxutXTPi0e86PK9iSapWb8Q8k0pxsQm0n0vlsU2Y62YajDD676424rU9TA5JYsnFgPj232V1mMvc1wgQ/s200/Utica,+NY+Mowing+job2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338382093110127042" border="0" /></a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBlqGkDfTFkOHk4W4-mJSe5rd9asNU1mn16hoFu5T3rqncA3ypflpnhhWsLcG-HV3j02QXKPbBLRWzpvDpVsiWoDojxVs5q95TTSp70s0v_c3rBCKW_hi5mds8x53QiPt_PYAExn7WFw/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+Adirondack+Railway.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBlqGkDfTFkOHk4W4-mJSe5rd9asNU1mn16hoFu5T3rqncA3ypflpnhhWsLcG-HV3j02QXKPbBLRWzpvDpVsiWoDojxVs5q95TTSp70s0v_c3rBCKW_hi5mds8x53QiPt_PYAExn7WFw/s200/Utica,+NY+Adirondack+Railway.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334686123955255218" border="0" /></a><br />The lobby housed the Adirondack Scenic Railway office. The man who ran it was just over 50, had a gray beard and a big nose, and wore a blue shirt with the Adirondack Scenic Railroad logo on it.<br /><br />"This place," he informed me, "is the middle of the New York State Rustbelt. I mean it's taken a beating. Somebody said they took down five hundred homes in the same night just because people walked away from them. This is something I know about, and I'm just recently here ten years. That's funny, this town probably by default has a lot of its original structures. Nobody wanted to build anything there, so they didn't take anything down. So we have more beautiful downtown, a fairly intact Main Street here. Take this station for instance. It's one of the grand old railroad stations, the only one left between New York and Chicago. It's all the marble and stuff; some of these columns came out of the original Grand Central that was taken down in 1908. Some day I'd like to turn it into The New York State Railroad Museum. I mean it's empty now. It's a shell, but it's still there.<br /><br />I said, "The painting I'm here for is called <i>Camel's Hump</i>, and it might have the New York-New Haven-Hartford track in it. You should check it out."<br /><br />"Ha," he exclaimed. "There's a spot on this railroad they call 'The Camel's Hump', too. I mean, if you want a story, this is a story. It was saved by a bunch of volunteers with hard heads that wouldn't let the state rip this railroad up, and they have a world-class railroad going back to Lake Placid. There's a story for you; put that in."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh20wHvkA_J3_MHahWSP_JiauSKY5RwR5mSZRxuge_KezRe0YuXT-M51h6LvkZl_HNUk89JRru_6DfeOnEtlNYnCejoIceW-zU3zrqa_BM_S_N85dcWtyRhgZMjtTSr-grn7n3GGJqMGw/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+train+station+lobby.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh20wHvkA_J3_MHahWSP_JiauSKY5RwR5mSZRxuge_KezRe0YuXT-M51h6LvkZl_HNUk89JRru_6DfeOnEtlNYnCejoIceW-zU3zrqa_BM_S_N85dcWtyRhgZMjtTSr-grn7n3GGJqMGw/s200/Utica,+NY+train+station+lobby.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334645386525361378" border="0" /></a><br />The station also housed a taxi company, barber shop, restaurant & bar, and newsstand, where the woman working the counter was fiftyish and a stout 5'5". When I asked if she though people in Utica were isolated, she said, "Yes, I really do." She had a big friendly pale face with freckles, brown hair, and kind brown eyes. A gold cross with inset diamonds dangled on her white T-shirt beneath a plaid soft short-sleeved shirt. "It never ceases to amaze me that little pleasantries that used to occur twenty-thirty years ago just don't happen. You can say something funny to the person in front of you or behind you, and they won't answer back. It's like everyone is just scared of their own shadow. It isn't because of 9/11. This happened earlier than that. I think that it's the tremendous media coverage making the smallest things and the most random and infrequent things appear like everyday occurrences. People perceive threats around them that just aren't there."<br /><br />"Every once in a while," she continued, "you'll be in a grocery store or somewhere, you know you'll see a little kid struggling with something; you'll just give 'em a hint how to do it. And I was here tellin' a little girl, next to her mother. And when they're walking away, the little girl said, 'Do you know that lady?' and she said 'no.' And she said, 'Then why was she helping me?' And she said, 'She was just a nice lady.' But, you know, even the kid noticed the difference. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0o3g8BAUlc4CwIC16qdYKHSTWobwivG11VYCt4-OtuHrERoXRPJgf4Uh3x2UZVF9pMZsgy3Sk-RvL3WEKEjRrO5jufRhxuAmaqkgXEu9_bbRqOSZptBFJooyejBolTwxTRW8k5h4YA/s1600-h/Utica,+NY+thankful-child.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiY0o3g8BAUlc4CwIC16qdYKHSTWobwivG11VYCt4-OtuHrERoXRPJgf4Uh3x2UZVF9pMZsgy3Sk-RvL3WEKEjRrO5jufRhxuAmaqkgXEu9_bbRqOSZptBFJooyejBolTwxTRW8k5h4YA/s200/Utica,+NY+thankful-child.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334688440602467058" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"I help out people who come through here," she continued. "There was a gentleman who told me he had come to town to visit his long-lost daughter, and he came in here and he got a cab to the address, and then was back in an hour. And I said, 'Didn't it go well?' And he said, 'I got there; it was an empty lot.' And I said, 'Stay right there,' called the police department, had them work backwards and found her, and she was one number off across the street. And he went back and had Christmas with her. You never know when someone's gonna need something.<br /><br />"One time I gave somebody a ticket. Someone came in had a ticket to New York on a voucher, then got a ride; his girlfriend came and picked him up. So I had the voucher. And there was this woman in the lobby, and I asked if she needed help because I just had a funny feeling. And she said, 'Oh, I just have to get to New York, and I don't have enough for a ticket.' And I said, 'I guess you're the lucky one. Here, use this ticket. And if the driver asks if you're just being released from jail, just tell him yes! Because that's what the ticket is for, and you have to pretend you just got released.' So she went down to New York, and two years later her daughter was up here and came to thank me and explain. That was her mother, and she had lost her medicine, was stuck in Utica, and was starting to have problems because she didn't have her medicine. And had lost her money. And she said, 'You saved my mother's life because you gave her a ticket that day.' So you just don't know how far-reaching some of the things you do really are until the people come back and tell you about them. It's like <i>It's a Wonderful Life</i>."<br /><br />"Corporate America," she cautioned, "is out to get everybody. I started a bus ticket company from nothing. I had a two-million-dollar business here I started from nothing. And, on thirty days notice, they took the business that I spent all those years growing and gave it to the drinking buddy of the Greyhound area sales manager. And I'm stuck in a long-term lease. So, I had to make the best of it, so I added lotto, and I'm about to add Internet access in the back, expanding into fancier coffee and things. 'Cause you gotta do something. I own two houses two-thirds paid for. I wouldn't have anywhere to live. So you just gotta keep doing what you have to do. And I don't lose my outlook. I don't know why everyone else does," she laughed, "I'm the one who has the reason to.<br /><br />"People are struggling. They're not banding together yet, but we gotta. My husband and his brother are making a big attempt. They're starting a club, Internet-wide, that we're gonna push for an amendment to change income tax. So that the people who have the money are paying it. Instead of hiring lawyers and accountants to not pay it. But I'm only here because I wanna be, you know, I could be elsewhere."<br /><br />"Did you grow up in Utica?" I asked.<br /><br />"No," she said, "I grew up in Long Island. I went to Clarkson on full scholarship. I was one of the ten smartest girls in the country in 1965. So I had every expense plus spending money if I'd go to Clarkson over MIT and Duke. And Cornell didn't have enough dorms for women then in sciences. Only if I would take Home-Ec. So I wouldn't do that. And now I'm thinking about going back and getting my master's and getting back into research. The kids are all grown, and I've lost a quarter of a million dollars in the last three years because I was committed to these huge things."<br /><br />I said, "Is there anything specific to Utica that would make people here more or less isolated than other Americans?"<br /><br />"I think around here it's the old, y' know, mafia history," she opined. "And people being afraid of who they might say something to or about. Because there have been people blown up; there've been people hit. There was a man who worked in this lobby who was found beaten to death with a baseball bat. And, you know, when it strikes home like that, it makes people more cautious."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-13502477031564303732009-06-13T00:01:00.011-05:002009-06-13T00:01:07.647-05:00273 Montgomery, AL: New York Office<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRScMA8B6w_KERsnwuvKfVjkkPHqJdVhQgLyW0t7j_LjLqLx8-S1PLd5xEDddYM7udAE4qPwAVn5KnF9Iiha34A5Tt9PigTq2ZcsbtfjnLXncGu_x6xlvsMOtoi2cgMSwbLzIYZunRA/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+downtown+view.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRScMA8B6w_KERsnwuvKfVjkkPHqJdVhQgLyW0t7j_LjLqLx8-S1PLd5xEDddYM7udAE4qPwAVn5KnF9Iiha34A5Tt9PigTq2ZcsbtfjnLXncGu_x6xlvsMOtoi2cgMSwbLzIYZunRA/s200/Montgomery,+AL+downtown+view.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332749839278109266" border="0" /></a><p align="center"><a href="http://www.visitingmontgomery.com/">Montgomery, Alabama</a>: <i>New York Office</i></p>"We <i>don't</i> date our cousins down here," I was reassured by Jina, the woman running Montgomery's visitors center in the pretty old Union Station, a train station Hopper might have portrayed. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdiotzd9Jgf1Ny7RKzE8ndJDspGp8VyRujhgzQ1sa4AIieFZofr4kU0KdlvRIDy21boKdshGf6FyGCThQuaT4Kn0fDGKfOyxEZ88lAub9DvHTK2MnN4ExqRNi3vVI70JowLRL9eDhRQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Union+Station+welcome.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEdiotzd9Jgf1Ny7RKzE8ndJDspGp8VyRujhgzQ1sa4AIieFZofr4kU0KdlvRIDy21boKdshGf6FyGCThQuaT4Kn0fDGKfOyxEZ88lAub9DvHTK2MnN4ExqRNi3vVI70JowLRL9eDhRQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Union+Station+welcome.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332750011365622946" border="0" /></a> She was a freckled twenty-something, with an elfin nose and brown eyes. A diamond pendant necklace graced the black T-shirt beneath her white, broad-lapelled shirt. "We get people from all over the world in our visitors center, and they're all surprised how nice Alabama is." As if to prove it with a dose of southern hospitality, she presented me with a Montgomery T-shirt. I felt like it was a bribe, but maybe we Yankees just don't get it. Everyone down here told me as much.<br /><br />A city of slightly more than 200,000 souls on a sharp turn in the Alabama River, this was one of the last places I went, but it was one of the friendliest. Montgomery was also the only city in the Deep South that had a Hopper, so it had to shoulder the load for a large part of the country. I found certain clichés true about Southern hospitality and willingness to talk for a long time. The clichés were also true about secrecy and racism.<br /><br />Jina insisted that people in Montgomery were not isolated, but when I asked, "What about from the rest of the country?" she hemmed, "Ooh, well there you're on to something." When I asked about African American relations, she said things were much better now, but conceded, "That didn't start till after the bus strike. After that, we began to think maybe we should try working together rather than butting heads."<br /><br />When I asked where I might find artists, she looked baffled but eventually ventured, "Maybe '1048' would be a good place to go. They have jazz." Then she added, "They have artsy types there; you know, berets."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzc_sNDk1VwamAahrdpU6VcEw1wBy272eH9Ljqudm8TJl1n81qReorUUy92B7cC-3Bhpy0fMMIRFLu_rdJ6UeenR8XFxU9-Olyv9tKKaowTPJWSQXRl9vqAXa-e4uRqEzAzcClif-LWQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+flag+US.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 126px; height: 99px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzc_sNDk1VwamAahrdpU6VcEw1wBy272eH9Ljqudm8TJl1n81qReorUUy92B7cC-3Bhpy0fMMIRFLu_rdJ6UeenR8XFxU9-Olyv9tKKaowTPJWSQXRl9vqAXa-e4uRqEzAzcClif-LWQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+flag+US.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332751728175705026" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKLSXWwtdxAwd4U_xaCIbUX5O3MIeZIdY97bHzh9el3nfyJ-OBPDvXjQFRp_OACPrwhZ5vQp4dxnjnnhUam6T16UXLT-bjphSqmM2j8QbdE1Nyan8UgpiVFUZV7hBohDDcJhASeIWZw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+flag+Olympic.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 122px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKLSXWwtdxAwd4U_xaCIbUX5O3MIeZIdY97bHzh9el3nfyJ-OBPDvXjQFRp_OACPrwhZ5vQp4dxnjnnhUam6T16UXLT-bjphSqmM2j8QbdE1Nyan8UgpiVFUZV7hBohDDcJhASeIWZw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+flag+Olympic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332751801493420946" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNQOqZUS0eUsLpOgZEV4Gy9BFCYwV_puNJ2n8KjX60h23NDhAYKVZ55IEKIsVQL9bf6gMqKcRNYS09YHQpeKHmITtgMCO5skheATMJ1bL99NC2JycK5rq9Spb8OxKJhwM2BlBj7eQOA/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+flag+Greece.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkNQOqZUS0eUsLpOgZEV4Gy9BFCYwV_puNJ2n8KjX60h23NDhAYKVZ55IEKIsVQL9bf6gMqKcRNYS09YHQpeKHmITtgMCO5skheATMJ1bL99NC2JycK5rq9Spb8OxKJhwM2BlBj7eQOA/s200/Montgomery,+AL+flag+Greece.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332751858879368194" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I took her advice and started my exploring at the coffee house 1048, where I found three guys who were studying at Maxwell Air Force Base, the Air Force's biggest school. One was boyish, with chubby squirrel cheeks, a recessed chin and big blue eyes. He wore on his balding head a blue cap bearing an insignia of Athens, Greece and pins of each the American flag, Greek flag, and Olympic flag.<br /><br />The second was tan, with jet black hair, dark heavy eyebrows and a strong chin colonized by five o'clock shadow that he must have had to work hard to keep in line with his trim military look. He wore a primly pressed blue-checked shirt with a pen in the breast pocket and never turned entirely towards me, as if I was something he did not want to acknowledge or was suspicious of.<br /><br />With them sat an Asian man with a very long face that ended in a black goatee. A small fanglike tooth grew beside his front upper teeth. He wore a tight black T-shirt, and had short feminine fingers. He was a hairdresser friend who had tagged along here with the other two, all friends from DC. He said he owned a Hopper poster, and all of them knew his works.<br /><br />When I asked whether people in Montgomery were isolated that way, the military-sharp guy answered, "That's been my impression. Gosh, people tended to interact more in DC, I think in part because there were more places like this. This is the only coffee house in Montgomery, and in DC we had one every block. Rather than just people sitting at an individual table being engrossed in their book, there was a lot more interaction, not only with folks from DC but also folks from everywhere."<br /><br />"There really is not a place here," the guy in the Athens cap offered, "that offers any kind of mixing or cosmopolitan nature. If you visit the downtown area of Montgomery, you're going to find [like in Hopper] the stark office buildings and almost no city life at the sidewalk level, especially after five or six o'clock. If you go to a more cosmopolitan area, like DC or New York, a whole different crew takes over in the evening."<br /><br />"I agree with them both," the soft-spoken Asian hairdresser chimed in. "I lived in DC for twenty years, and I would sit in coffee shops and see total strangers, and we would just have conversations, and I haven't been able to do that here with anyone. And we've been here for about eight months."<br /><br />"You're very lucky," the military-sharp guy said, "to find this place so quickly 'cause this is in an odd area. It's kept its character, and it's vital. It's not, you know, mass-produced, pre-assembled housing. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjycepSEL6tQIt_4DhN3NIILbhee1a4CG6Hr52f4KzhcWVyhh3Rx7MKs3r9VMN4Dm_bDbIjsrRdJLZQlQKJmYAHVGgl6AcqsrA9PkCUaiGeSrCWB_ZrZA3bWhFSniRKIH4_Nj3G36AVwQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+houses+mass+produced.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjycepSEL6tQIt_4DhN3NIILbhee1a4CG6Hr52f4KzhcWVyhh3Rx7MKs3r9VMN4Dm_bDbIjsrRdJLZQlQKJmYAHVGgl6AcqsrA9PkCUaiGeSrCWB_ZrZA3bWhFSniRKIH4_Nj3G36AVwQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+houses+mass+produced.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332755725453805314" border="0" /></a> It struck me when I moved into the apartment complex: the people who introduced themselves to me were just like me. They were in the area for just a short time, and they were much more apt to reach out and introduce themselves. I've yet to really get to know any native Montgomerians."<br /><br />"Like in DC," the Asian explained, "if someone from South Africa moved in next door you might be like, 'Well, I only have one year to get to know them; we'd better have dinner.' As opposed to, 'Oh these guys are just going back home, so…' I was <i>very</i> interested to talk to people who were not from DC. No one's <i>from</i> DC anyway. When I moved into the neighborhood here, nobody really came around and introduced themselves. I had one neighbor did stop by, but that was because I had a downed cable."<br /><br />"Now," Athens man cautioned, "what I find interesting is that some place like New York, it maybe the transients who are isolated and the locals very tight. There may be that strong community here; it's just something that we're not a part of, and haven't been invited to be a part of. There are ways that people come together here. Churches are very strong here. But those tend to be long-term residents. And that may be part of the problem we're having is that we're transient, and everyone knows we're transient, so they're not going to bother getting to know us 'cause we won't be here very long."<br /><br />"So," I said, "for places to go that I might interview people, I guess church on Sunday morning."<br /><br />The man in the Athens cap laughed, "Or Saturday nights or Wednesday nights. They go all the time.<br /><br />"Places I've lived or visited," he mused, "they have some common bond. In Washington, so many people work for the government. In New York, it's Wall Street, or maybe the theater. In LA, it's definitely the film industry. So when you meet a stranger there's a good chance you have some common interests. Here, and a lot of smaller cities, there isn't necessarily something that everybody shares. So here maybe it's the locals who find themselves isolated. If there is a common industry here, it's military. I've moved around because I grew up as an Air Force brat, and in some places you have a lot of conflict between the military and the townies (as they call it). I lived in Minot, North Dakota, and the base was fifteen miles out of town. So there was definitely 'wing-nut vs. townie' competition. Not always friendly competition. It's easy for military communities to be isolated within themselves because we have our own services provided on base, as far as groceries, stores, and churches. Here, the response that we get when we go out into the community and they find out that you're in the military is positive."<br /><br />The military-sharp guy said, "The military move so frequently. So they're very accustomed to short-term relationships, and they recognize making them as valuable. Because isolating yourself is miserable. And they realize that the relationship they establish, even though it may end in two years, you're going to see it emerge again and again. I can foresee meeting these two again. I mean, career paths do that."<br /><br />"I was walking through a neighborhood in Paris," the military-sharp guy interjected, "and in the middle of a very urban area there was a park. It couldn't have been more than a hundred meters by a hundred meters, but in that park there was probably a hundred and fifty people. And there was a cluster here of old men playing cards; they had ping pong tables made of concrete; and kids playing soccer over there; and a game of cricket over there; and there were probably five different nationalities. You don't see those kind of parks in [U.S.] neighborhoods. If there's a park, it's a kiddy lot kind of park, and you take your kids there to play ball and you leave." He shook his head. "The character of a city changes so much if people rely on their automobile like in Montgomery. When you're on foot, and you pass people, and you walk past the stores, you're more apt to look in them, go in them, and you greet people; there's much more sense of community. When you get in your car and drive to the Starbucks, you don't feel any ownership of that store." <br /><br />"I've never really studied Hopper," the Asian hairdresser offered, "but I just like that painting." [<i>Nighthawks</i> was on my T-shirt]<br /><br />"A lot of people," I said, "feel that it does portray something about a very American isolation. And I started this book in 2000. A lot's happened since then to muddy the waters of isolation."<br /><br />"Now that would be interesting, too," Athens cap pointed out. "Well, that's another book I suppose; pre-September 11/post-September 11. How attitudes changed. Do they connect more because they feel the need to be connected? Do they isolate more out of fear?"<br /><br />I noted, "You're an Air Force brat, and you're from DC; it's easy to have a holistic view, but I don't think somebody from Nebraska necessarily ever thought or cared about what someone in Afghanistan thought of us. Now you have to care what the rest of the world thinks of you."<br /><br />"Right, exactly," the military-sharp guy said, "That's, ironically, the very stuff that we're studying. Strategically, what's going on in the world? And how do those forces interact to affect the security of the country?"<br /><br />A little boy stopped beside our table and tried to pick up a quarter on the sidewalk.<br /><br />"Can't get that quarter?" the military-sharp guy asked. And the little boy walked off defeated. "I already tried picking it up."<br /><br />"It's attached," the Asian hairdresser explained to me, "someone soldered it down."<br /><br />The man in the Athens cap got a quarter out of his pocket and laid it atop the stuck one, then called the boy back to try again. The boy pulled it off and dashed inside to show his mom.<br /><br />"How sweet," she cooed. "You are so lucky. Collin, you go poke your head in there right now and thank the man for the extra quarter."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUAau0XPKKTUfK7RPpDlZPx_EmG2e9C0Y-bopn4FQleNsPOwXyj48891arcT_WIy-TWsAodyGxjqhZlVe2cHJmyuD06zytkdvEHJE0s2oFVUZG7SNqnUUs6Gymf7-86ZB1uaR9qMqOQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+camel+pack.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFUAau0XPKKTUfK7RPpDlZPx_EmG2e9C0Y-bopn4FQleNsPOwXyj48891arcT_WIy-TWsAodyGxjqhZlVe2cHJmyuD06zytkdvEHJE0s2oFVUZG7SNqnUUs6Gymf7-86ZB1uaR9qMqOQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+camel+pack.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332756469624381218" border="0" /></a><br />At the next table, a bearded construction worker about 30 wearily tossed down his dusty bandana from his head to beside his hard hat. He wore a white T-shirt dirty from work, jeans, and sleek sunglasses. He said his name was Eldon, and he spoke methodically with a deep resonant tone maybe made more so by the Camel cigarettes he nursed constantly throughout our interview.<br /><br />"Yes," Eldon answered, "we are isolated as a people. In Montgomery, I noticed this more financial thing. Competing with the Joneses. Half of our neighbors haven't spoken to us, and it's because I work for a living. I don't sell insurance, I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer. As a result, they see me as scum of the earth. My neighbor next door, he's a working man, and we get along really well, you know, we help each other out."<br /><br />"It's definitely a class structure, " he continued. "It's not quite the chain of being of the Victorians, but it could be. On the other hand, I choose not to associate with the soccer moms in the SUVs, either. So it goes both ways. But I like watching people. You learn so much by watching your fellow citizens. If you sit at this little coffee shop and watch as people go by, there's some that won't look at you. There's others that will sit down and talk with you all day long. Good with the bad."<br /><br />"I don't suppose," I ventured, "you'd find people sitting in a city diner late at night in Montgomery, this type of isolation." I pointed to <i>Nighthawks</i> on my T-shirt.<br /><br />"The closest thing we have to that," Eldon answered, "would be if you go to the Waffle House at two or three in the morning. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxSWjG_J9giO0xp098S2SnIZNHB1Dfw4hBIiCgeEkOjl0HN1UgnDWdwykVk2Rui6gAqZEoAA9mIHW5Ppxip_qL1O0VwI1ssX6gb-cdsNF5fDg-jqTQv9It07A4hzbl0zHzH0fElwypNA/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Waffle+House.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxSWjG_J9giO0xp098S2SnIZNHB1Dfw4hBIiCgeEkOjl0HN1UgnDWdwykVk2Rui6gAqZEoAA9mIHW5Ppxip_qL1O0VwI1ssX6gb-cdsNF5fDg-jqTQv9It07A4hzbl0zHzH0fElwypNA/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Waffle+House.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332756966819961042" border="0" /></a> There's usually that old man who sits by himself. He drinks coffee all night; he chain-smokes; and he might know the waitress; but he does not want to speak to anybody. He just wants to sit there. And that's every Waffle House I've ever been to. I've <i>been</i> that guy. <br /><br />"In Montgomery," he said, "as I'm a new face on the scene, my wife and I are very isolated. We're 27 both of us. We've been here for almost two years, and we have no friends in our age group. We hang out with people that are 50 years old. But we have yet to meet anyone our own age that is actually willing to stay in touch with us. If you didn't go to high school with these people and haven't known them your whole life, it's really hard to break in with the group."<br /><br />"I work for a little Mom-and-Pop company," he explained. "It's one of the best I've had the pleasure of working for. You have a company that is all black guys or all Mexicans, but very seldom do you have a racial mixing in the construction industry. Some of my fellow workers live out in the country and have their sheets. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK2b6qoDAsxSWZsbPgkzo9FDIVVOtkusmjLlAk0TVDAtlOcdKYHajfeWHOQERZk1dnTNtmxm_rR56Sv9IPJcKVnkfFthfXNtCPnoc7RYOrJD4w6vbVbE-ffeOvZymBiEmcMedsKrdgrQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+KKK+Sheets.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK2b6qoDAsxSWZsbPgkzo9FDIVVOtkusmjLlAk0TVDAtlOcdKYHajfeWHOQERZk1dnTNtmxm_rR56Sv9IPJcKVnkfFthfXNtCPnoc7RYOrJD4w6vbVbE-ffeOvZymBiEmcMedsKrdgrQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+KKK+Sheets.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332759546946217586" border="0" /></a> I lived in a neighborhood where my friends were afraid to come visit, and I would walk up to the store on a Saturday night and talk to the guys and never have a lick of trouble, you know. It's all about your attitude. I've been to New York, I've been to Boston, I've been to London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfort, Hawaii. People are the same everywhere you go. There are good people, and there are bad people. And it's my humble opinion that there are a lot more bad people than there are good people out there. You have to really watch your back. And take everything with a grain of salt that you hear.<br /><br />"There's skeletons in every closet, and it's a general rule that you got to keep it hush-hush and quiet. You don't ask, you don't tell. Keep the crazy aunt upstairs, you know. That's the way it is down here. We take care of our own problems. It's that need to keep up appearances. You know, the lawn's got to be perfect; the cars have to be washed. Never mind that daddy's smoking crack; the grass is level. The hypocrisy is blatant. And like I said, there's good people that'll bend over backwards to help you out, you know. But my philosophy in life is balance. I feel that extremes are bad, and few people have any balance in their lives. And they're the ones with the ulcers and the crack, what have you. Just stay spiritually and mentally balanced and keep an open mind."<br /><br />"Which way do you think most people go out of balance in Montgomery?" I asked. <br /><br />"Chasing after that almighty dollar," he said, inhaling smoke. Then breathing out, he said, "The almighty dollar: whereas it's necessary, that's not the answer. You've got to look after relationships with your wife, your parents, your children; you've got to look after your own people instead of squishing their little heads to get ahead."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqMv0f_-l6aJn0eh9lPAFeBLK1es3skUvBBqWbNNWqtaCLZXKPl43yv2zeKH-Mxh6TIOATmG0vBdkj07bfmJwwRG80nhyDFcDV5K3dZnedQSgmakyqoPxqEtigEVZFAtSP-xqpLEFyQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+dollar+bill+suit.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqMv0f_-l6aJn0eh9lPAFeBLK1es3skUvBBqWbNNWqtaCLZXKPl43yv2zeKH-Mxh6TIOATmG0vBdkj07bfmJwwRG80nhyDFcDV5K3dZnedQSgmakyqoPxqEtigEVZFAtSP-xqpLEFyQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+dollar+bill+suit.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332760431340611346" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkeJ1k9gilrN6VDGf7TBTvAyWbNbFTeP8t2ab7W9xx4nJYLOqavMo-w2mvT4_1ODIrCjdOoIw3EQj27_cjHq8nkAG8mlAF-QieqaOvLGsYWR-LwDcKbYFm1NC1YIC2818C70hxR0bHg/s1600-h/New+York+Office+-+GOOD.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 161px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkeJ1k9gilrN6VDGf7TBTvAyWbNbFTeP8t2ab7W9xx4nJYLOqavMo-w2mvT4_1ODIrCjdOoIw3EQj27_cjHq8nkAG8mlAF-QieqaOvLGsYWR-LwDcKbYFm1NC1YIC2818C70hxR0bHg/s200/New+York+Office+-+GOOD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332760933851398258" border="0" /></a><br />The Hopper here, <i>New York Office</i>, shows a woman in bright sunlight standing in a great cavernous first-floor office window boxed in by rusticated façade columns. Along the impossibly high ceiling, a line of yellow oval lamps trails off into the distance. She holds a letter at arm's length, as if apprehensive about its contents. There is no glass in the window, so she almost seems to be standing on the street or where we could reach right into her office and touch her.<br /><br />The Blount Collection also included two Hopper watercolors: <i>Lighthouse at Two Lights</i> and a view across a strange dark rust-colored trawler bow called <i>Deck of Beam Trawler</i>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRdRdTQMFwWZiIH0IiDssrbaY-C7NRHdziSUM2M9yqdlPdWuoWbVzQhvsanVK_4-IHWj6UBc8tHFRhcg1tyKpYSvcgi6ljPwOh2avdnMoAhKJR20VaSaWZwWnBxRHYTf-7KwuUWQtDDQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Deck+of+Beam+Trawler.0%26wid%3D400%26cvt%3Djpeg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRdRdTQMFwWZiIH0IiDssrbaY-C7NRHdziSUM2M9yqdlPdWuoWbVzQhvsanVK_4-IHWj6UBc8tHFRhcg1tyKpYSvcgi6ljPwOh2avdnMoAhKJR20VaSaWZwWnBxRHYTf-7KwuUWQtDDQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Deck+of+Beam+Trawler.0%26wid%3D400%26cvt%3Djpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332762188768982850" border="0" /></a> Thus, they have an example of each of Hopper's major series: women alone in urban settings, New England landscapes, and sailing scenes.<br /><br />Hopper's fellow Jazz Age artist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was an army lieutenant in Montgomery and married local girl Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge. Like Hopper's, F. Scott's marriage was turbulent, and Zelda was occasionally institutionalized. She had three paintings in the museum: squiggly dancer-like figures in theatrical settings. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_6thKaTiJ18wkxgkenHVUiFTThhqX_gb6pwLpOWfAUkZQeDQgxk89OZahunSlCZgoR9NwaCIcZAdpZmtKZ7licYBvBokGqYLJgz08ugKvJr4BVcAYtysZmzunx9hHvkuBGCXcVzREw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Zelda+Marriage+at+Cana.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 149px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf_6thKaTiJ18wkxgkenHVUiFTThhqX_gb6pwLpOWfAUkZQeDQgxk89OZahunSlCZgoR9NwaCIcZAdpZmtKZ7licYBvBokGqYLJgz08ugKvJr4BVcAYtysZmzunx9hHvkuBGCXcVzREw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Zelda+Marriage+at+Cana.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332762870271462322" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpcBq3edmXq0g3Ba8ixno2u5SVKf0aWKiSq4975cl3UKFAw7IhRNfwjQUHC3giBXbQQQ68iYVixCVGHoAYCj9SoVUwWM1J-JLrKv_yetnDVpZBfVfoTFu9KWKT2bClzYhGrphVAW4rw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Art+museum.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEpcBq3edmXq0g3Ba8ixno2u5SVKf0aWKiSq4975cl3UKFAw7IhRNfwjQUHC3giBXbQQQ68iYVixCVGHoAYCj9SoVUwWM1J-JLrKv_yetnDVpZBfVfoTFu9KWKT2bClzYhGrphVAW4rw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Art+museum.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332760635673550738" border="0" /></a><br />After being housed for its first sixty years at first a school and then the town library, The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts moved in 1988 to its current location in the Winton M. Blount Cultural Park in a domed red brick building with Greek columns lining a terrace overlooking a pond. Blount forged a contracting company that built the New Orleans Superdome, Cape Canaveral launch pad, and King Saud University in Saudi Arabia (at two billion dollars, the largest construction contract in history). Blount's company proudly advertised that they sell "almost everything needed to build an old-time fort and defend it:" lumber, power equipment, and ammunition.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYjYrWIjxN5NB-cHqW2JHuPGGEQWPbXB_dMEQfG34_QbUDSCLMSA_FUFR3pkabcodeGXelYZL-eyoZHLO8jgb8QsH7E8s7cEyjcV8B_Eu-aaoWXxrjQ2-75IWENjBIPysdVope4fap_g/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+cold+people.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYjYrWIjxN5NB-cHqW2JHuPGGEQWPbXB_dMEQfG34_QbUDSCLMSA_FUFR3pkabcodeGXelYZL-eyoZHLO8jgb8QsH7E8s7cEyjcV8B_Eu-aaoWXxrjQ2-75IWENjBIPysdVope4fap_g/s200/Montgomery,+AL+cold+people.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338336192127486882" border="0" /></a><br />A cheerful African American woman was working as the security guard. She had a round face, round nose, and thick curly black hair. When I asked her about the painting, she said, "You know it's very cold. And there are plenty of, I mean, the majority of people I meet, especially that come here to the museum, are not warm individuals: first impression. They are kind of cold like she is. And I spend five days a week here.<br /><br />"I like the lines," she added. "We were learning from the docents how these lines move directly to her. And the other thing I like is just the colors. Bright. A pretty blue. I love his light. His watercolors are just totally different. I just like his work; he's just got so much talent to me. At least compared to a lot of stuff I see. I don't like junk. But Edward Hopper has something I enjoy. He's strange, but... I would like to have met him." <br /><br />"Is part of why you relate to his paintings is that you relate to that sense of being alone?"<br /><br />"You know," she thought, "it could be. Because I feel alone, I just lost my son. I mean, I'm still married, but you know. Even married, I'm pretty sure he must have felt like that still. But I don't mind that feeling; some people find it lonely, but to me it's just good quality time. I'm not afraid to be alone myself."<br /><br />"Is there an isolation between African Americans and whites here?" she asked herself, rhetorically repeating my question. "Yeah, for sure. To be honest with you, yes. I think so. My opinion is."<br /><br />Afterward, she drifted into other galleries, and a pair of teenage girls came to look at the painting.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjad-ASUasMmOH9PWeS1xTeHQDacaNjkjC_YFWOKu_PmVamBwb9ePmjOVdutlY3kI_3xoWIA-ar9p6HynSFKnqItOj0j2DmSA3VGpYmBoeX5hJwFZyk41htueL1wV81vxty8pbfRLZX0Q/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+teens.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 151px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjad-ASUasMmOH9PWeS1xTeHQDacaNjkjC_YFWOKu_PmVamBwb9ePmjOVdutlY3kI_3xoWIA-ar9p6HynSFKnqItOj0j2DmSA3VGpYmBoeX5hJwFZyk41htueL1wV81vxty8pbfRLZX0Q/s200/Montgomery,+AL+teens.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332769317673927154" border="0" /></a><br />One girl was beefy with too much blue eye shadow around her dark green eyes. Her thick frizzy brown hair and refusal to meet my eyes as she clutched her black purse to her blue top gave her the impression of being a bit on edge. The other one was bony and pale with insect bites on her neck and forehead. She had green eyes and squiggly blond hair bunched up atop her head.<br /><br />When I asked my question, the beefy one answered suspiciously, clarifying my motives. "What do you mean isolated? You mean just from, like, general people, like stay to themselves and like? Nah," she sneered, "they might, individuals, stay by <i>them</i>selves. That's basically it. But a lot of the youth stay close."<br /><br />Her bony friend ventured, "Just like all people, if they see you walking down the street, they won't say 'hi' unless they know you."<br /><br />"Well, it's kinda like all people," the beefy one defended. "It varies. The youth group, like the youth and teens, isolate into groups."<br /><br />I asked, "Why are the cliques not interrelated?"<br /><br />"People are too different," she answered. "And they're shy, and they think that they'll be okay if they stay in their own groups with the people they already know. People don't like to really get to know other people, to be friends with them. 'Cause they might think what their other friends will say if they saw 'em out with someone different. So, they just stay in their own little group."<br /><br />"Do you think that teenagers today are isolated from society?"<br /><br />"To a certain degree, kinda, maybe," she conceded. "They stay in their own world, in their own little group. They don't really venture out, and they don't really know what's going on in the world."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0pjxi0gHYM-A9-1qJCmR7UzUF4S7VyYDrp59LutEL5Rs69vzEipmzBR8BbApkKmvN24SI_OLfRaaGjUTHTbpLjwklbtR0q-Z31qryb9M38TSv9NfaXWw7cQ9vdGnuD7CCA7EBTWsJ7w/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+TN+Williams.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0pjxi0gHYM-A9-1qJCmR7UzUF4S7VyYDrp59LutEL5Rs69vzEipmzBR8BbApkKmvN24SI_OLfRaaGjUTHTbpLjwklbtR0q-Z31qryb9M38TSv9NfaXWw7cQ9vdGnuD7CCA7EBTWsJ7w/s200/Montgomery,+AL+TN+Williams.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332770027925005762" border="0" /></a><br />"Would you find someone in Montgomery isolated like this?" I asked of a man whose spine slouched into a paunch of stomach, and whose sleepy brown eyes showed off long feminine lashes. His soft blue terry shirt was halfway unzipped. "Gosh," he drawled from the back of his raspy throat, smelling of smoke, "I'm sure there's a few. Just like this one person here? Oh, I'm sure. But in general, it's probably less isolated than other cities. You know, we're the South, and I think we've got good values, and I think we're just very friendly in this town. We have a couple of major Air Force bases, so we get an influx of, you know, at any one time probably ten thousand people from all over the world, different areas. And a lot of those folks, they come back and retire here or close by, so I suspect we're doing something right.<br /><br />"Montgomery, it's a big town, but it's got kind of small-town ideals, you know. I guess we've got about 200,000 people, but if you live here you can get a chance to know everybody in this town if you get out there and walk."<br /><br />"Do you like Hopper's stuff?" I asked. <br /><br />"Oh yeah, I do. I saw, and I walked over, and I was thinking, 'Oh, they've got an Edward Hopper.'"<br /><br />I said, "Do you think Americans are isolated like his characters?"<br /><br />"I don't know," he mumbled. "I think we go through swings. Sometimes we are a little bit more than other times, but to a big extent I don't think so. I'm trying to think of an office building in Montgomery that would have a person in a window that big right up front like that. You know, when I was a kid, Montgomery downtown, that's where you came. There were no malls. You shopped downtown; you came to see Santa at Christmas downtown. All the movie theaters were downtown. I remember being a little kid lookin' at the big buildings. You could see things like this. You know, it was like, <i>my</i> New York. And the way I knew about New York mainly was '<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059982/">Family Affair</a>,' just watching that show when I was a kid."<br /><br />I said, "What would you say about isolation between African Americans and Whites in this town?"<br /><br />"Ahh, yah, you know I think it's like a lot of towns, like a <i>lot</i> of towns. Whether it's at school and you're in the lunchroom, or it's, you know, one group goes this way, one group goes this way. And then there's a group that's together. And it's like that here, and it's like this way everywhere. You have a predominantly black section, a predominantly white section, and then there's sections that are all mixed up."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhiLpVLAGLa48jr_bKc-fOk1YH3o8J8ycgTRWbHtjwS1UDwY2kyITIssUgRPcm63M7TgiZuMtgqtQgzoocfRCeeJgZj0CQ-n1h8gNbgYVsHcVx3MV7RLHXm_9WaV9sdIWqJntDgyIQw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Stars+fell+on2+crop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 99px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhiLpVLAGLa48jr_bKc-fOk1YH3o8J8ycgTRWbHtjwS1UDwY2kyITIssUgRPcm63M7TgiZuMtgqtQgzoocfRCeeJgZj0CQ-n1h8gNbgYVsHcVx3MV7RLHXm_9WaV9sdIWqJntDgyIQw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Stars+fell+on2+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338339746733153618" border="0" /></a><br />In 1540, Hernando de Soto explored this area and battled with Choctaw Chief Tuskaloosa. Some claim that Alabama is a Native American word meaning "campsite" or "clearing," but other groups interpret it as "Here We Rest." Montgomery was named for Richard Montgomery, the first American general killed in the Revolutionary War. An Irishman, he led the American troops that took Montreal but died New Year's Eve 1775 in the battle of Quebec. In 1818, Montgomery's body was transferred here from Canada.<br /><br />The town of Montgomery was settled where the Alabama River takes a hairpin turn around where a meteorite hit and fused such hard rock that the river had to flow around it. The Alabama license plate says, "Stars fell on… Alabama." Montgomery evolved from a merger of two rival towns: Court Square stands where New Philadelphia's Market Street (now Dexter) once met East Alabama's Main Street (now Commerce). <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtAssZL_RGPuCsohAho6elsImzcMjTr5_nOQecAqOxbtvUPxm-jQzeF8jxKcDeJYh1CCVow9WmXufWKCOkDPe05Iv0NH-yLl1Y4liClWnToUPW9SpRMk4ZzvyVQIllOTe5jqFSZSQ0Ng/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Commerce+Street.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtAssZL_RGPuCsohAho6elsImzcMjTr5_nOQecAqOxbtvUPxm-jQzeF8jxKcDeJYh1CCVow9WmXufWKCOkDPe05Iv0NH-yLl1Y4liClWnToUPW9SpRMk4ZzvyVQIllOTe5jqFSZSQ0Ng/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Commerce+Street.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332812708719312866" border="0" /></a>Commerce Street had a series of preserved old Hopperesque storefronts. The Montgomery Theater opened 1860 but now had a 1950s tin and yellow plastic façade. A sign noted that John Wilkes Booth performed there and the song "<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Dixe%27s_Land_Sheet_Music.jpg">Dixie</a>" was debuted there. The city's "Lightning Route" was the world's first electric trolley. Nat King Cole's birthplace still stands here. Country singer Hank Williams lived here 1937-1953, and his 1952 Cadillac that acted as his hearse was on display here in a museum dedicated to him. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvzG9W4phe10rmPFha0Yi3D4hW_bZD2GMFLEcUlXbkeazANVuuJ5B750Esdfbftd9MPKBOBVMdyyhpY1qiopancuvDmOSVxz4F8wWGevALhrDomF4nNUHurozE04dSqTkg9UP_0XUqQ/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+bldg+govt.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 84px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvzG9W4phe10rmPFha0Yi3D4hW_bZD2GMFLEcUlXbkeazANVuuJ5B750Esdfbftd9MPKBOBVMdyyhpY1qiopancuvDmOSVxz4F8wWGevALhrDomF4nNUHurozE04dSqTkg9UP_0XUqQ/s200/Montgomery,+AL+bldg+govt.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332811508120746578" border="0" /></a><br />A Montgomery office, as opposed to a <i>New York Office</i>, would probably be a state government office in one of the town's many large, whitewashed, Greek Revival buildings. Montgomery became the state capital in 1846 after three other towns had proved undesirable due to geography, politics, or flooding. The 1850 state capitol building is commonly referred to as "Goat Hill," due to the property's original use as a pasture. February 18, 1861, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the Confederate States of America here. The Confederacy White House nearby, built by William Sayre (one of Zelda's relatives), was a dead-ringer for the one in Hopper's <i>Pretty Penny</i>: <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh77UvxxpnG_2nlTlXdybDeL6FQq4QE6XuS2cuVE3ysPfT67BIffn9-sSVzUlSFLmeyTSof9liJ1ZI_CL2JKk5LSjerHYJXw55vA2SF3TssY_pKoM38AlgIdmCu1iqQ_3yVNOjKQE3vbA/s1600-h/Pretty+Penny.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh77UvxxpnG_2nlTlXdybDeL6FQq4QE6XuS2cuVE3ysPfT67BIffn9-sSVzUlSFLmeyTSof9liJ1ZI_CL2JKk5LSjerHYJXw55vA2SF3TssY_pKoM38AlgIdmCu1iqQ_3yVNOjKQE3vbA/s200/Pretty+Penny.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332811769893889762" border="0" /></a> green shutters, white wooden sides.<br /><br />One Court Square, the building all the locals said was most like the one in the Hopper painting, was a huge faceless modern building home mostly to government offices. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70FUTckwEprdYIi0uh8sbAEQ0l4y-OjxsNtyjFW8E2yErd4zzlayNFx5cntW1_CX97mBcAzS7S_9pTG-yfXt8qrCkbLm4nKm_01INudyyJtO4gvkO0ltzpdIXVhp1nmEV4TeDT6EMFg/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Court+square+1+ct+sq.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj70FUTckwEprdYIi0uh8sbAEQ0l4y-OjxsNtyjFW8E2yErd4zzlayNFx5cntW1_CX97mBcAzS7S_9pTG-yfXt8qrCkbLm4nKm_01INudyyJtO4gvkO0ltzpdIXVhp1nmEV4TeDT6EMFg/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Court+square+1+ct+sq.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332799610909330978" border="0" /></a> Older, quainter buildings surround Court Square, which in the 1800s was the slave market called "Artesian Basin." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2cgxTZic3bFr1kt7qUC7-u6i9812iAyejwcwDsY2Wqh4nNPrM4C-H_3KnB47BCKMcqym7jSQO-_HkuoVgIjvUMRBuXt_jVmLJCbdpO3acryZ0RBVHXPSnWpyRXEOrsBzznC7Xa4Qtw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Court+square+bldg+GOOD.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE2cgxTZic3bFr1kt7qUC7-u6i9812iAyejwcwDsY2Wqh4nNPrM4C-H_3KnB47BCKMcqym7jSQO-_HkuoVgIjvUMRBuXt_jVmLJCbdpO3acryZ0RBVHXPSnWpyRXEOrsBzznC7Xa4Qtw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Court+square+bldg+GOOD.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332799828662819186" border="0" /></a> It was from Court Square's Winter Building (still standing) that the telegraph demanding the evacuation of Fort Sumter was sent, essentially starting the Civil War.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3HGe6WSG6t023i6kR8Dyu3nI6nMVnbRphDUQBOgUGo2S4KaQOq59z2YVGIJtehArJfbhuDd0V8XVZ5sb3ogiKosFpKUcGc8iJxQqfn4N-nuvfshRitH1weoioVHa-lEJ8PaBd2rt7w/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Rosaa+Parks+on+bus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 132px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb3HGe6WSG6t023i6kR8Dyu3nI6nMVnbRphDUQBOgUGo2S4KaQOq59z2YVGIJtehArJfbhuDd0V8XVZ5sb3ogiKosFpKUcGc8iJxQqfn4N-nuvfshRitH1weoioVHa-lEJ8PaBd2rt7w/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Rosaa+Parks+on+bus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332800071325519890" border="0" /></a><br />Court Square is also where Rosa Parks began her famous bus ride, and Dexter Avenue leads from there up to Capitol Square, where the National Historic Landmark Martin Luther King Memorial Church stands kitty-corner to the entrance of the State Capitol where until 1993 still flew a Confederate flag. (The Confederate flag still flies across the way on the Confederate memorial, which is surrounded by scaffolding and sports a sign saying without irony that it was under <a href="http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/recon">reconstruction</a>.) <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhp0ug80tYfftpT78OGK8470yRXPbffKVwG-g7Zeszax_J9U2XgEbv_3NCstvODGTn8gbZ_Q6wn7zCcgUrYbog-v1xaDRLkSVBA6M4sQNljBQYIIJajgnEPTam_S04Me_zNI6FUFW69Q/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Dexter+Ave+church.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhp0ug80tYfftpT78OGK8470yRXPbffKVwG-g7Zeszax_J9U2XgEbv_3NCstvODGTn8gbZ_Q6wn7zCcgUrYbog-v1xaDRLkSVBA6M4sQNljBQYIIJajgnEPTam_S04Me_zNI6FUFW69Q/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Dexter+Ave+church.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332800688044341474" border="0" /></a><br />The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (as it was called when Reverend King was pastor here) was a modest church, with pews haphazardly resined and varnished and hackneyed from years of use. The windows had been replaced after being knocked out by rioting mobs during Civil Rights times. From this church, Reverend King led a boycott of the local bus system for trying to make Rosa Parks sit in black for being black. It grew into a civil rights movement that swept the nation in the 1960s. In a sign of how much things had changed, a movie celebrating Rosa Parks was filming in Montgomery during my visit. I planned this visit in a hurry and didn't pay much attention to my itinerary. But when I began my walk around Montgomery on April 4, 2003, one of the monuments reminded me that I was here on the 35th anniversary of MLK's assassination in Memphis. I asked the woman leading a tour of schoolchildren through the church about racial isolation in Montgomery today. She had short heavily oiled hair and a round face dotted with dark brown freckles. <br /><br />"Yes," she began formally, holding her hands together in front of her blowsy white top. "It's not so much as out in the open, but it's still here. Like for instance, a couple of years ago me and my husband moved up to the east side of town, which is, which <i>was</i> predominantly white, and I'll never forget it, I had a daughter - she was about three. And this lady came down the street, she was a white lady, and my daughter said, 'Well, hey, how're you doing?,' and she kept on saying, 'Well, hey, how're you doing?' This lady looked back at my baby, when she was only three, and she just kept going. And I'm like, 'I don't understand it.' It's difficult for me to explain to my children because, like I told some of the children, if you cut me and you cut a white person, we gonna bleed. We go to church every Sunday; we say we're parishioners, but yet we don't like people because of the color of their skin? I guess that's been true all during the bible days. I thought I'd teach my children not to hate people just because of the color of their skin; judge people by their character and the way they carry themselves. But yes it's still isolated, very much so."<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-poXEafpC-q76ouIodRLIk_J6YVv1PMpznhMXDA0ma3ODIYNzFnMHTByUTFy5Nh4sIYySQYzKS2JC8pUku3-enwimYUzzC5QFb8MhVP-q54bBXgyo4_tU5898J40nK8U_svJ9EZ0tw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+racism.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ-poXEafpC-q76ouIodRLIk_J6YVv1PMpznhMXDA0ma3ODIYNzFnMHTByUTFy5Nh4sIYySQYzKS2JC8pUku3-enwimYUzzC5QFb8MhVP-q54bBXgyo4_tU5898J40nK8U_svJ9EZ0tw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+racism.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332811006690761458" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIIm1UPum8WVzgxuq_tPQPJGZfL5Zm6JbeP7Vhx6S33WRssdLpFJUXpsFy_Fn1catXwKh5LSZk3yvMyh4qH5oBahVkP7oSysgNtGu0Vtyi-LX07gWY-rlbJs3x1EXnHWZrj-YV7qbm9g/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+ASF+front.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 155px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIIm1UPum8WVzgxuq_tPQPJGZfL5Zm6JbeP7Vhx6S33WRssdLpFJUXpsFy_Fn1catXwKh5LSZk3yvMyh4qH5oBahVkP7oSysgNtGu0Vtyi-LX07gWY-rlbJs3x1EXnHWZrj-YV7qbm9g/s200/Montgomery,+AL+ASF+front.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332820055523838834" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3gKZ9_zNixZYYglZtucdPUPcauHqw03e-Ib7G42waxz9s4P7RpF5pQM2C_piIuMu-qrFgZGfgzJQS5G_5jlsvQPITJII3KbF6f0p0JuY50SwxLRWIlR6RlHKxddRUInpw10vES9m1w/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+ASF+post+card.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH3gKZ9_zNixZYYglZtucdPUPcauHqw03e-Ib7G42waxz9s4P7RpF5pQM2C_piIuMu-qrFgZGfgzJQS5G_5jlsvQPITJII3KbF6f0p0JuY50SwxLRWIlR6RlHKxddRUInpw10vES9m1w/s200/Montgomery,+AL+ASF+post+card.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332819957989164642" border="0" /></a><br />That night, I went to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Theater (ASF), home to the world's fifth-largest Shakespeare festival. The man who bought the painting also brought the town ASF. Blount's gift of the theater building was the largest donation ever made to an American theater company, and in appreciation in the circular driveway before the entrance stood a bronze statue of Blount in a business suit, one hand on a horse's-head-topped hitching post.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9gCDlbERUoRNr_1twr8N_7n3CsQ6DC-rV_v6QlvQvQy-7aYcs1JY4v1dpVIsH6wAF9YM_JGBfWyelEOLVMSzeylX2NClw4zYSRpwsko3lM7rpe1DKC_IwW6bloAaT5JmAKZnHWlUXA/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+pearl+necklace.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9gCDlbERUoRNr_1twr8N_7n3CsQ6DC-rV_v6QlvQvQy-7aYcs1JY4v1dpVIsH6wAF9YM_JGBfWyelEOLVMSzeylX2NClw4zYSRpwsko3lM7rpe1DKC_IwW6bloAaT5JmAKZnHWlUXA/s200/Montgomery,+AL+pearl+necklace.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332821015689765698" border="0" /></a><br />I interviewed an older woman working one of the shops. She was mousy with a girlish quality, though her thinning gray hair curled around her ears. She wore a white tuxedo shirt with a round gold braid around her throat punctured by a white pearl at its center.<br /><br />"That depends," she answered through slightly crooked teeth inside a small round "O" of bright red lips, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfImdsPz-ORBPa3kCRW1TIsXzLh2ecGGSbTZXeedM7pPKKpVzJP8HIl-VtVN93FwiSw3H_WW801R6GDttAP0LJcRyy60MCLXYp5DLG09CZ9SBtnfR-PxkOXtMK2ZVZP66TEOjCq3Wvw/s1600-h/Montgomery,+AL+Lips+O.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 100px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGfImdsPz-ORBPa3kCRW1TIsXzLh2ecGGSbTZXeedM7pPKKpVzJP8HIl-VtVN93FwiSw3H_WW801R6GDttAP0LJcRyy60MCLXYp5DLG09CZ9SBtnfR-PxkOXtMK2ZVZP66TEOjCq3Wvw/s200/Montgomery,+AL+Lips+O.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332821141525251826" border="0" /></a> "on where you go and what you bring to it. People are here to see the plays. If you go to the mall or something? You do your own thing. But if you happen to run into somebody, then you're like, 'Hi there,' Because we will talk a lot."<br /><br />"But here I don't think isolation is that prevalent [pre-VAIL-ant]. My parents moved here when I was like in third grade, and except for going off to school a couple times, I've pretty much been here. And, I'm happy. This is my motto: 'Land where you've landed.' Wherever you are, just take advantage of it, and do your thing there. If something takes you someplace else, you do it there. So, I'm content.<br /><br />"I've gone to New York, and that was exciting. But, a lot of people that work here [at ASF] come from New York, and they really like it here for a while, then they end up going, 'It's <i>so</i> slow here.' And sometimes I'm going, 'It's too fast!' <br /><br />"I teach school so I'm working with kids and meeting a different set of parents each year. Working with kids, you have so much to do. And I just want to sit and do nothing but look off into space. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4o_yNyOK4snrE4KXjc03QcM-cSO9lO59BAkO3VM7V6wx0KlqWh7GhsKy50Akbvr36rr69PLJpSveyplPZ2MaTmYza60t5ytbksYD2CmbtIcxgwztrzQpOfGuAd6Lzxkbc9dgfnC72g/s1600-h/Hopper+in+Paris+1907.jpeg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo4o_yNyOK4snrE4KXjc03QcM-cSO9lO59BAkO3VM7V6wx0KlqWh7GhsKy50Akbvr36rr69PLJpSveyplPZ2MaTmYza60t5ytbksYD2CmbtIcxgwztrzQpOfGuAd6Lzxkbc9dgfnC72g/s200/Hopper+in+Paris+1907.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332821448488051570" border="0" /></a> And it's hard to have time to do that, you know, but you have to do it.<br /><br />"I feel there's a little more stress on the females, especially if you're a single mom. Or even if you're married. Because you've got wife, mother, job, house. And if you try to do anything extra for yourself, is it fair? That's not a put-down to the guys; that's just the difference in men and women. Women accept the responsibility, especially of children, a bit stronger than sometimes men do. At least now it's a choice. In the old days, it was assumed that was what they were doing.<br /><br />"I think sometimes as a teacher, when you see kids all day, and you don't see adults, you feel isolated. That's why I work here part-time, so I get to see adults. You know, people who are well-mannered and polite. Working here is my chill down."<br /><br />"So" I asked, "if you saw Hopper's people sitting alone and not doing anything, you would think, 'Great, they're getting their chill-down time' instead of they look so lonely and sad; maybe it would be a good thing to be alone."<br /><br />"Right, sometimes it is. I guess if you feel it's not permanent. Sometimes you just want to have time by yourself. I don't think I feel isolated, 'cause I'm one who I go out and get involved anyway. I'm not gonna stay isolated. That's just not me. I've had a couple situations in my life where I was like single again. And I didn't stay at home. I mean, I didn't go out and <i>party</i>. But I did things, and life goes on."<br /><br />"I hope you enjoy the play," she said in parting. "We're real proud of our theater. A lot of people think, [with exaggerated accent] 'Montgomery, Alabama got something like <i>that</i>? Uh-uh.' You know? But you're in for a heck of a surprise when you come down here."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-88614162400902953862009-06-12T00:01:00.006-05:002009-06-15T09:42:53.765-05:00272 Santa Barbara, CA: November, Washington Square<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4r3DFv02_pGnVhafxO6FmhYN-taTjstkl80sNY-FGBYFH24cBcEdy6FNZss2rqhVgPpXvvgduZpQ899r440L95cuVnIf_1L5DdrV09CgK7_-aDKw2amHEQVsPAQoiP3oN6_e2dHYkGH8/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+Soap+opera+sign.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4r3DFv02_pGnVhafxO6FmhYN-taTjstkl80sNY-FGBYFH24cBcEdy6FNZss2rqhVgPpXvvgduZpQ899r440L95cuVnIf_1L5DdrV09CgK7_-aDKw2amHEQVsPAQoiP3oN6_e2dHYkGH8/s200/Santa+Barbara+Soap+opera+sign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342403294879461330" border="0" /></a><p align="center"> <a href="http://www.santabarbara.com/">Santa Barbara, California</a>: <i>November, Washington Square</i></p>Santa Barbara is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the country, a former winter getaway for the wealthy. Palm-lined beaches overlook the Pacific, and moderate breezes wash down the mountain ranges behind the city, bathing it in a mild climate year-round. Million-dollar homes abound, and double-digit million houses are common. Ronald Reagan lived in Santa Barbara, and Michael Jackson's <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mO-1BYdtFMuLecCSEgLi02SlnzNDXFRiV-qFmVA6rKEtd823N9cXt8ISkMiBF1ylukz54R3dM7VRjGuPynLNvsOAdQSwIoYIKEtHQvpJl9R1yVry2qXAXtXylw8qvOP71h-zCIMLUg/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara,+CA+Neverland.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mO-1BYdtFMuLecCSEgLi02SlnzNDXFRiV-qFmVA6rKEtd823N9cXt8ISkMiBF1ylukz54R3dM7VRjGuPynLNvsOAdQSwIoYIKEtHQvpJl9R1yVry2qXAXtXylw8qvOP71h-zCIMLUg/s200/Santa+Barbara,+CA+Neverland.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330648121852498722" border="0" /></a> Neverland was nearby. A soap opera called <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086793/">Santa Barbara</a></i> remains one of the most watched TV shows on the planet. <br /><br />Some of the wealthy associated with Santa Barbara were industrialists from other less-gentle-climated cities who retreated here in winter. It was Chicagoan Sterling Morton and his wife Preston who donated the Hopper to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. The museum began in 1933, when the U.S. Postmaster granted a special dispensation to hang an art exhibition in an abandoned post office building. The museum eventually bought the white-faced Spanish-style former post office and opened on June 5, 1941 at exactly 11:43 a.m. (in true California style, determined by an astrologer as the most auspicious time).<br /><br />February, Santa Barbara, when I visited, had warm temperatures and leaved trees. It was like a fantasy compared to the cold hard slap in the face of <i>November, Washington Square</i>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0X42VRsT5O3jJbczGTZdrm-NSnuN7bDMnO8q_iof3ZOr4r1BKLjX2XPi2ifUGDBvo99EVs091S68pHoHSY9YNZvpfbThCnPqOfqUGR23esEKw_NsFpab3P-ZR1YsTTbr5vsNO9Ln4w/s1600-h/November+Washington+Square-Santa+Barbara.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi0X42VRsT5O3jJbczGTZdrm-NSnuN7bDMnO8q_iof3ZOr4r1BKLjX2XPi2ifUGDBvo99EVs091S68pHoHSY9YNZvpfbThCnPqOfqUGR23esEKw_NsFpab3P-ZR1YsTTbr5vsNO9Ln4w/s200/November+Washington+Square-Santa+Barbara.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330649481708240258" border="0" /></a> The painting shows the Judson Church across Washington Park from Hopper's studio. The church's square tower culminates in a yellow cross atop a red tile roof. Banks of clouds bookend a swath of blue sky that leads your eye right to the belltower and plays well off of the church's yellow. The buildings are all linear, while the park spaces at bottom are circular. Prominent in the foreground is a denuded tree.<br /><br /><i>November, Washington Square</i> was unique among the Hopper paintings I was seeing, in that it was begun in 1932 but not finished until 1959. He was waiting to fill in the sky until he found one acceptable. Perhaps word that Preston Morton was in New York purchasing large blocks of art motivated him to finish an old canvas so Rehn would have one to show her. Another sign that Hopper might have been rushing the product was a condition report that noted: "The stretcher may not have been the original." This delay also possibly made this canvas unique among all of Hopper's for another reason. Hopper switched from zinc white to lead white in 1938 after he noticed that the white parts off his earlier paintings were cracking. This might be the only canvas of his to contain both types of white paint. Even Jo admitted, "Colors and canvas unknown, probably zinc white." (Not only might Santa Barbara's Hopper be unique, they might have another Hopper work. In their files, I found a curious tag on the back of a New York City dinner invite that had "November, Wash Square Edward Hopper" written on it in what looked like Hopper's writing.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi5bhA4VAfJrq0l3zhJcmmlaxH6Veezz_tmv_7kmvEnm3X91qkvkIdaAZ2qhMkMu-ZAWxgDL8rWWxjULNHeR71ZfjpoX-mQoTR5yAqAhDh-b8ZlPY_hYtldiswKqIqBeIbHObgTFteMA/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+couple+ODd.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi5bhA4VAfJrq0l3zhJcmmlaxH6Veezz_tmv_7kmvEnm3X91qkvkIdaAZ2qhMkMu-ZAWxgDL8rWWxjULNHeR71ZfjpoX-mQoTR5yAqAhDh-b8ZlPY_hYtldiswKqIqBeIbHObgTFteMA/s200/Santa+Barbara+couple+ODd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330679441880856754" border="0" /></a><br />Up strolled a couple in their 40s. She had blond hair, a bulbous nose, and tiny red lips. She wore a black-and-tan webbed dress that looked like a body stocking over the top of which her breasts spilled. Even with the extremely high stiletto heels on her black boots, she only stood about five feet tall. The man was over six feet tall, with green eyes and hair parted in the middle and swept into a duck tail in back. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved charcoal gray T-shirt covered by a light sleeveless sweater. One gold chain choked his hairy, thick-muscled forearm.<br /><br />"I don't feel that way in Santa Barbara," he looked down at the floor and answered soft-spokenly with a gravely voice, "because Santa Barbara, for me, puts on a kind of touristy, happy face. When we go out in the streets amongst everybody, we have a very quick and easy contact. By way of comparison, I might mention that I went to Montreal a couple of times--Montreal, Canada--and when I was there I noticed the people would not have eye contact on the street. And I have a friend who's sort of a 'get-in-your-face' kind of guy, and he would employ his technique to do just that. And we would many times hear from people, 'Gee I've lived in this city for many years and I've never had a conversation with somebody like we're having now.' Perhaps people are that way as a way of giving respect to the other person, so they don't obligate you to fall into a conversation with them. When I compare that with the kind of atmosphere we have here in Santa Barbara, [here] it's more open and social, and contact is easy. If somebody wants to talk to them, well, it's time to talk to them. You don't feel a chill factor here, do you?" he asked his companion. She whispered to him in an Eastern European accent something that I couldn't decipher.<br /><br />"Did we answer your question, by the way?" he followed up. "Repeat your question to me."<br /><br />"Do you feel the people in your community are as isolated as Hopper portrayed his characters?"<br /><br />"Okay," he registered. "Absolutely not. No. I would say that it's not."<br /><br />"No," the woman curtly offered. "There are a lot of connections going on. It's a good community for everybody socializes."<br /><br />"A friend of mine," the man launched into a story, "called me from Santa Barbara last night; he was in the streets. His car broke down. He realized that the last bus had left the city. When I picked him up and took him home, he said, 'My God, you don't know the strange feeling I had being downtown knowing that I didn't have transportation and there was no way that I could get home. And the streets were like empty.' I said, 'Did you feel like you were in a tin can?' And he said, 'Yeah, exactly.'"<br /><br />"There's might have been taxis," she pointed out. "Taxis will come any time."<br /><br />"Well, yeah," he conceded, "Sure. But that was the feeling he experienced. Not that it was necessarily that <i>way</i>. Maybe it was his own mood or something."<br /><br />She looked away. "Maybe you should put him in New York and see how he does there. I feel very safe in Santa Barbara. It doesn't matter what time of day or night. You know, you hear stories that things happen."<br /><br />"Well," he conciliated, "by way of contrast, I may mention that I spent some time in Mexico in some of the villages, and I was able to walk in the streets almost any time of night and never felt that feeling whatsoever. You always felt safe." He broke off and asked me, "Are you studying Edward Hopper?" And I began to think maybe he had indulged in <a href="http://www.marijuana.com/first-time-visit/">a little something</a> before coming to the museum.<br /><br />"You know," he philosophized, "I like to define artists many times as poets. Then I like to think, 'if this painter is a poet, what is he expressing or what is he talking about or what is his main theme?' And when I think of Hopper, I always think of the word 'destiny.' I have the feeling that something is coming or something is going to happen. It's as though his characters are portrayed caught up in this space where the future is out there somewhere. They're staring off into it. It's almost the experience you feel looking out of your own eyes."<br /><br />"In Santa Barbara," she objected, "you would have the mountains and trees. And the tree would never look like that [the dead one]. The tree is almost like a ghost. Santa Barbara is always crowded with people, you know. It's never, never empty like that. This thing [the park] would not be empty. There would be something on the street, either a biker or whatever. It's just like so strange. Why is nobody's there [sic]?"<br /><br />"How <i>you</i> feel about it," the man jumped back in, "and <i>the painter</i> feels about it, and how <i>I</i> feel about it could be completely different. But, therein probably lies one of the great attractions of fine art. I guess you could go on <i>ad infinitum</i> about how they make you feel."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ovcxqMWWg6MG1eOtGMeNsd3zPgcggkA-cnXc_hPsBX-VcG8BTEVM_oecvYXxJul92wfWWlJ_gGLZ8Q4SjIknw9E8sb8ETJx2_cJeFLc2ncpsOqAMhFDbGAMVH_qmCowXlwDCHPbFAg/s1600-h/yes+or+no.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-ovcxqMWWg6MG1eOtGMeNsd3zPgcggkA-cnXc_hPsBX-VcG8BTEVM_oecvYXxJul92wfWWlJ_gGLZ8Q4SjIknw9E8sb8ETJx2_cJeFLc2ncpsOqAMhFDbGAMVH_qmCowXlwDCHPbFAg/s200/yes+or+no.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332435005745551330" border="0" /></a><br />The next guy I interviewed was lanky and gaunt-cheeked, with hair graying at the temples. He wore a button-down shirt over a white T-shirt, carrying a light coat over his forearm.<br /><br />"Some are, some aren't," he answered with a slightly distracted air and a tight voice. He jerked his forearm toward the painting. "Hopper did a subject that was representative of a scene. It's not supposed to be generalized as this is all of society or this is all of anything. It's just my depiction of a <i>particular</i> subject. There are people in this town who are really out there and involved with each other, part of the community. And there are people who are on the down-and-outs who are like the people in the Hopper painting. You can't generalize. And it's not, you know, an either/or. There's some shades of one or the other."<br /><br />"So," I asked, "you might be found at a café, like in a Hopper painting, staring off into space?"<br /><br />"I could be found at a museum, too," he said, "just like a Hopper character." We both laughed, then he concluded, "I go to a museum as part of a connection to a long history of art and to culture."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mm9c-sq6Fe4-sFYRyES1GOwIsW9uIA_WVdXKaXUroJ_wadAFQVTANBYPRbKQyk2JjDEu39MVKpBlMqyKCsqUD1_nJLZE5pOcbrAqYCpxfNA8wPBBtjIV5IN-yErNjvVkcJxZYrr7yQ/s1600-h/museum+guard.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8mm9c-sq6Fe4-sFYRyES1GOwIsW9uIA_WVdXKaXUroJ_wadAFQVTANBYPRbKQyk2JjDEu39MVKpBlMqyKCsqUD1_nJLZE5pOcbrAqYCpxfNA8wPBBtjIV5IN-yErNjvVkcJxZYrr7yQ/s200/museum+guard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332436006364783410" border="0" /></a><br />That exhausted my possibilities of talking to other patrons, so I approached the guards. One was a tall blond girl from L.A. with brown eyes and freckles. "Hopper's isolation is of a city," she began. "And Santa Barbara," she emphasized, "is <i>not</i> a city. Not a 'city' city really. There's not that isolated loneliness."<br /><br />The other guard was a 50-year-old Santa Barbara native. He wore glasses, and his gray-haired head slung forward from his neck like a turtle's.<br /><br />"Art is a rich man's game," he shrugged. He had the slow nasal delivery of a well-educated effete. "The artworks here are treated better than the humans. I remember Santa Barbara in the '60s, but it's totally changed. It's become very commercialized, very touristy. It was always a haven for the wealthy. But more so now. Here it's just like rich or poor. There's nothing in between. We are the blue-collar workers."<br /><br />"My mother and my father bought their house--this was a three-bedroom Spanish-style house here in Riviera, a nice area--back in '63 for like $26,000. Two people can afford that. But now, I mean it's up there near close to a million. It's a rip-off. The cost of living is outrageous. I hate it for that. I mean I'm from here, but I don't appreciate that part. All the other people come, and they love Santa Barbara. And they tell me, 'Oh it's so beautiful; I love your city.' But they're just visiting. It's just like any place. You live here: that's another story."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxpxLKbkbKYGaBAn6J8V1EiA5hMW7IaLvJW0T9aODYAoKcAHL35LTlQT_jTi5D_GoCf5uT7NntUUbTHhY-pPillbhXenxpw5lAa3e1NevKG8reqm0ssrTxsQsNJ8CZ-E8ZK_ZgJU5ow/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+Mission+B%26W.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 136px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdxpxLKbkbKYGaBAn6J8V1EiA5hMW7IaLvJW0T9aODYAoKcAHL35LTlQT_jTi5D_GoCf5uT7NntUUbTHhY-pPillbhXenxpw5lAa3e1NevKG8reqm0ssrTxsQsNJ8CZ-E8ZK_ZgJU5ow/s200/Santa+Barbara+Mission+B%26W.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332444738933196850" border="0" /></a><br />This area has always been prime real estate. The local Chumash Indians established a town here called Syukhtun, meaning, "where the trail divides." In the 1760s, Spanish King Carlos III established Mission Santa Barbara here. The beam-and-adobe-sided mission had two bell towers that were symbols of the city and reminded me of the church tower in Hopper's <i>November, Washington Square</i>.<br /><br />Being "where the trail divides," Santa Barbara first gained notice as a travelers' stop. The first Overland Stagecoach arrived in 1861. It became a base for forays into the surrounding hills and valleys. Tired of being a stagecoach stop, in the 1920s Santa Barbara played up its relation to Colonial Spain to drum up tourism and business. Soon, Santa Barbara enjoyed a reputation as the film capital of the world. Not only were the first movies filmed here, but the original "Hollywood"--<a href="http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?id=624">Flying A Studios</a>--was located in town. There are still Hopperesque old theaters here like the Arlington <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR7wmyzLyiFO4K7sfqPu1S9i-mA-sQ6XHjwJIoNJoWXZiPnM2BgY6QscpP0bQI6d9pl8_01fTFsN1290Jcw5SsWP3ivOG79mta-wc4dRXqsez53_Avo73rsHIaXFzlw4wYuH9ZWDdu1A/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+Arlington+Theater+tix+booth.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR7wmyzLyiFO4K7sfqPu1S9i-mA-sQ6XHjwJIoNJoWXZiPnM2BgY6QscpP0bQI6d9pl8_01fTFsN1290Jcw5SsWP3ivOG79mta-wc4dRXqsez53_Avo73rsHIaXFzlw4wYuH9ZWDdu1A/s200/Santa+Barbara+Arlington+Theater+tix+booth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335734748758757042" border="0" /></a> and Granada. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGiAcHaLo3WH5l0UEydsiPL5ApBAamEsy_FY37cYRt93IFiRB4YvZpD329ptujIZB6tjHj8F7Nyw-GeTa3t6KscyQQtW7gZuBjuTItTs0uXi664sP96XgUPqA9YcLloUQejpIhuR_kQ/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+Granada+Theater+better.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 148px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpGiAcHaLo3WH5l0UEydsiPL5ApBAamEsy_FY37cYRt93IFiRB4YvZpD329ptujIZB6tjHj8F7Nyw-GeTa3t6KscyQQtW7gZuBjuTItTs0uXi664sP96XgUPqA9YcLloUQejpIhuR_kQ/s200/Santa+Barbara+Granada+Theater+better.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335735655000439586" border="0" /></a> <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagskidm2tS3Pj-5wZmaAnHGwJz9J3veB9SE1f7Qd31Y9XY8BzsObKsU9Hf7Yrft31Iwmn0EKrx4u2AmtXhy21FnzOCx4g6RX6QWcFi_UYFMjiS3pajQ4I7Epcj952Bm35jc6gjP21Vw/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+Historical+Museum.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 210px; height: 362px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjagskidm2tS3Pj-5wZmaAnHGwJz9J3veB9SE1f7Qd31Y9XY8BzsObKsU9Hf7Yrft31Iwmn0EKrx4u2AmtXhy21FnzOCx4g6RX6QWcFi_UYFMjiS3pajQ4I7Epcj952Bm35jc6gjP21Vw/s200/Santa+Barbara+Historical+Museum.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332742160644662258" border="0" /></a><br />The history museum's back patio was kept like the Mission's. Surrounded by low-eaved, Spanish-style roofs, a flat base of reddish dirt was dotted with trees, large rocks, statues, and a hexagonal fountain. The woman behind the front counter was older, matronly, and tall, enough so that I could tell even though she was sitting down. Gray hair fluffed out around her ears. She wore a gray dress with daisies hand painted on it and had on thick red lipstick.<br /><br />"The word that comes to me," she began, "is not isolation: it's loneliness. I lived in New York, and was in boarding school out here during the '30s. You know, you're kind of isolated there [at a boarding school]. So I didn't see scenes like <i>Nighthawks</i>. That's all I have to say, and that's all I know."<br /><br />"Would people in Santa Barbara be lonely like that?" I prodded.<br /><br />"Oh, I don't think so," she defended. "I think it's a period in our history. It's an era of the nineteen-what, the '30s? '20s and '30s. I remember them well. If you want to know about Santa Barbara, you should hurry to the courthouse. A girl there will be giving a tour in just a couple of minutes."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWOi57ZNHeM_qWsaT4O5I-Sf9F7INIfF1PPd16c1Z-jmLo5-IVxWjpEo4iUFggrl0PHlXpUm3wp3HaD08-A2e_Fvq2bzr5SBqxcvZ1eHOPAwasi4AeBtc1k-DfRCQvN6Pv3V9q5Q3ENqI/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+courthouse+WITHOUT+people+unknown.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWOi57ZNHeM_qWsaT4O5I-Sf9F7INIfF1PPd16c1Z-jmLo5-IVxWjpEo4iUFggrl0PHlXpUm3wp3HaD08-A2e_Fvq2bzr5SBqxcvZ1eHOPAwasi4AeBtc1k-DfRCQvN6Pv3V9q5Q3ENqI/s200/Santa+Barbara+courthouse+WITHOUT+people+unknown.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342407432443255170" border="0" /></a><br />At the courthouse, I was the only one on the "tour," and the "girl" turned out to be an older woman named Theresa. On June 29, 1925 (she informed me), a huge earthquake had leveled the old courthouse and State Street. The new courthouse was open to the elements, and lanterns had accumulated along the walls because Spanish sailors would donate a lantern to the church in any town where they landed. The designer liked the idea that a white building should be asymmetrical, so many arbitrary forms and details had been added. Theresa said someone on one of her tours asked if he was drunk when he designed it.<br /><br />The locals joked that The Statue of Justice atop the courthouse holds a California surfboard because her sword is resin-covered redwood. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM8RCviVceyLiECF9L2apYq60ged7ji1oryyp810kLFAo0jYp8UFnekQw4ifdL-wDAYJCtplrlPx8QlbbPbfsjuRXfNJXy890xCp8Jhk30octMmWjTYAA06YvwXlNjyyyRRPZsDDDi6Q/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+statue+justice.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM8RCviVceyLiECF9L2apYq60ged7ji1oryyp810kLFAo0jYp8UFnekQw4ifdL-wDAYJCtplrlPx8QlbbPbfsjuRXfNJXy890xCp8Jhk30octMmWjTYAA06YvwXlNjyyyRRPZsDDDi6Q/s200/Santa+Barbara+statue+justice.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335745544023466274" border="0" /></a> The tower attached gave a panoramic view of the city, bay and surrounding hills.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJz_3ntOJ0K3WE725wTsqwFDFTeY7n9XIeNxH2VzOhDa4xQ3f4u0XeQt-0yfLbijHHFsGy2SdSYNcxpbqb3xdy7ok69Ec8cLrUhFUiXkOEl598EZTsjJG53wI19ZJNed_9Uev92jxzrw/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+courthouse+view.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJz_3ntOJ0K3WE725wTsqwFDFTeY7n9XIeNxH2VzOhDa4xQ3f4u0XeQt-0yfLbijHHFsGy2SdSYNcxpbqb3xdy7ok69Ec8cLrUhFUiXkOEl598EZTsjJG53wI19ZJNed_9Uev92jxzrw/s200/Santa+Barbara+courthouse+view.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332744813123231682" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio53dc962IIq9cUzpA7q9BFrPpG2MfEQXmItxTy0wXI8pZ0rYDaatoRlRhqy378DIfpa_UwJwx3AyH-lD1am_g9dMDRfvJCI5R3hI1i-ml18buwkjkzO1qp7wCtYCJQ6UbeT4bIAwYYQ/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+stearns_wharf.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio53dc962IIq9cUzpA7q9BFrPpG2MfEQXmItxTy0wXI8pZ0rYDaatoRlRhqy378DIfpa_UwJwx3AyH-lD1am_g9dMDRfvJCI5R3hI1i-ml18buwkjkzO1qp7wCtYCJQ6UbeT4bIAwYYQ/s200/Santa+Barbara+stearns_wharf.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332438263917041106" border="0" /></a><br />At the visitors information center at the base of <a href="http://www.santabarbara.com/virtual_tour/stearns_wharf/">Stearns Wharf</a>--the longest, oldest working wooden wharf in California--the woman behind the counter wore a heavy brown dress with black lapels and cuffs, and she had a pinched face, making her look like the kind of girl in grade school who would rat on you.<br /><br />"No," she responded curtly about Santa Barbara being isolated. "There are so many different things going on and so much cultural activity that's all really accessible. It's not like a big city, where it's so hard to get through everything. We've got the best of both worlds. That's why people want to live here. We've got the big-city culture but the small-town ease of access. Plus there's like 900 nonprofits here. Most people are involved in one or another as volunteers."<br /><br />I asked where I might find Hopperesque people, and she said, "Oh all over downtown, you'll see a lot of creative people, a lot of semi-homeless people, a lot of just plain weird people."<br /><br />She then directed me to the restaurant Super Rica, which a friend in L.A. had recommended to me as a foodie Mecca.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinU1eJN66mqM-mpw64FJLMIf8SmuB8IM6ILFvWXCKuRIAxrjsPGWTXp59OOl5CYmLvINjAkHb1UNWZmzoJo6SqmBBFgByLHNBa-a34VsYDODRQM2BeAghloax3MP4xvpDs_YkkKsJqFg/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+superrica.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinU1eJN66mqM-mpw64FJLMIf8SmuB8IM6ILFvWXCKuRIAxrjsPGWTXp59OOl5CYmLvINjAkHb1UNWZmzoJo6SqmBBFgByLHNBa-a34VsYDODRQM2BeAghloax3MP4xvpDs_YkkKsJqFg/s200/Santa+Barbara+superrica.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332438937374306994" border="0" /></a><br />Super Rica was a white building with garish green trim; the ceiling sloped down so low I bumped my head entering. As I waited in the notorious line, I overheard behind me one older lady said to an older couple, "You're not going to Hawaii this year?" "No," the man answered, "we haven't been since that time we saw you there. It's so nice here. Why would you want to leave?"<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZjxdGRsAGKsZbw6X1kUjAxotDAqMJlXVFmtlmiELhQInh6Ysm0ITutpaik1W07xCFuj7qR5CFsmbcjwiEeCe2y67IkeP_fef8oYsv4UNwGPQU1X6csRksmh-JFph01ssHQeusGb2-iQ/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+beer+lime.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZjxdGRsAGKsZbw6X1kUjAxotDAqMJlXVFmtlmiELhQInh6Ysm0ITutpaik1W07xCFuj7qR5CFsmbcjwiEeCe2y67IkeP_fef8oYsv4UNwGPQU1X6csRksmh-JFph01ssHQeusGb2-iQ/s200/Santa+Barbara+beer+lime.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332443069897397762" border="0" /></a><br />I sat at a table with a hefty, forty-something couple drinking beers with limes in them. He was balding on top and had a gray beard. Above his dark checkered shirt beamed a big, friendly face with a round nose and brown eyes with creases underneath.<br /><br />"No," he answered assuredly. "No. And I studied art history, so… I know exactly who Edward Hopper is and what that kind of isolation is. Well," he pulled up, "Santa Barbara's very cliquish. People get really involved in their group and they end up with blinders on to a lot of other things. We're not necessarily isolated as in being all alone, but you're isolated in hanging out with the same people."<br /><br />They shook their heads as the husband told me, "It's changed in the last forty years--a lot! I was born and raised here, and all the people I knew growing up are gone, due to the cost of living and whatnot."<br /><br />"I moved here in '75," she offered, "and it's changed dramatically since then." She had light green eyes, red hair, and freckled skin. She was draped in a gray sweater on which hung a large silver pendant. "When I moved here, there was very little. When you wanted to party, you went to somebody's house 'cause there was no place to go. And now it's just ridiculous."<br /><br />"That's one of the ways its changed so dramatically," he offered. "When I grew up, there was no nightlife at all. Now, they've opened the entire downtown length of State Street. You'll find definitely a lot of very interesting Hopperesque characters down there, definitely." And he roared with laughter.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksOvlZjyLRmH-gUC0h4-VISxwf5o5wnSaNVejAmVsd0Y4aPuB07rZhEMgy9BCf_rHHSSFF-kqm_L3RlgDYC2D-UXXflzFIKqX1iaEfm6dxvDFeMSIwUbNTxz3aWAW7DSdDx1jWbQcIg/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+homeless.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgksOvlZjyLRmH-gUC0h4-VISxwf5o5wnSaNVejAmVsd0Y4aPuB07rZhEMgy9BCf_rHHSSFF-kqm_L3RlgDYC2D-UXXflzFIKqX1iaEfm6dxvDFeMSIwUbNTxz3aWAW7DSdDx1jWbQcIg/s200/Santa+Barbara+homeless.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332746847146740546" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[State Street preacher]</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFzJ_O2h3nCEv_5VFtxo8tu4x-6N9uvIepr0bA9Y3SJYhZgPad0v-Su96j0FZ2sEinHCVCn7wXbOmh-qYqF8Mk6C0CZJ_D-6TaXzJ9rNeHjTllr9OMH04ETWV8vMgWY5Ecb98dpRJ6TA/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+State+Street.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFzJ_O2h3nCEv_5VFtxo8tu4x-6N9uvIepr0bA9Y3SJYhZgPad0v-Su96j0FZ2sEinHCVCn7wXbOmh-qYqF8Mk6C0CZJ_D-6TaXzJ9rNeHjTllr9OMH04ETWV8vMgWY5Ecb98dpRJ6TA/s200/Santa+Barbara+State+Street.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332745285982728498" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[State Street landscaping]</p>State Street was the town's gathering place to overcome isolation: the passers-by were a culturally diverse polyglot. Cycling taxis plied the streets, despite ordinances restricting them. Many of their drivers were homeless people trying to make some money. The city instead set up tourist shuttle buses and hired the homeless to drive them. But the driver of the one I got on was belligerent.<br /><br />Everybody told me that Santa Barbara also had a lot of homeless and a lot of non-profit associations. (One local quipped, "It's because we have so many for-profit residents.") That tradition goes back to the Depression, when Lillian Child let hobos live on her manor grounds. When she died, the city burned her house and kicked the people off of the land. This was part of a backlash. In the 1980s, the city passed laws that allowed them to arrest many homeless, and some merchants poured bleach on their garbage to discourage foraging, earning the town a reputation as the worst place in America for the homeless. <i>November, Washington Square</i> is a cold time and place. I could see someone from Hopper's painting seeking out better fortunes in Santa Barbara. But sometimes, it seems cold wherever you go. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8hxVGnhJPodPgXdoltieS2s4r_GpMBNEkcHmbOXy6C1yZWaZHK3szQN21eNdrx14lssU_X22StSpdc5mNuOJfEmXsR1nYIQjyhyphenhyphenGh5dRWPu30Ic2h6lxa-CzoM9a3UDLH4cu4DbkkBA/s1600-h/Santa+Barbara+homeless+sign.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8hxVGnhJPodPgXdoltieS2s4r_GpMBNEkcHmbOXy6C1yZWaZHK3szQN21eNdrx14lssU_X22StSpdc5mNuOJfEmXsR1nYIQjyhyphenhyphenGh5dRWPu30Ic2h6lxa-CzoM9a3UDLH4cu4DbkkBA/s200/Santa+Barbara+homeless+sign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332746912686482530" border="0" /></a><br />Outside a coffee shop that promised "liquid culture" lounged a Goth guy in three-inch soled shoes, an all-black outfit, and a thick set of silver chains around his neck. He had a frizzy Mohawk dyed black and a lip pierced at both ends to look like vampire fangs. I imagined it took a lot of money to keep up that "outsider" look.<br /><br />Inside, a bright yellow T-shirt draped the rail-thin 6'2" frame of the guy behind the counter. His thinness lent him prominent cheek bones and a pointy chin that held the thickest part of his scruffy beard. Above his piercing green eyes, one curl of gelled hair drooped across his forehead.<br /><br />"I was born here," he answered, his thin pink lips barely moving as he spoke, "raised just outside. But once I got a car at seventeen, I was here the whole time." He leaned a hip against the café counter and leaned on his elbow on the counter. "And at nineteen, I went off to Dallas and New Orleans, and then came back. It's definitely my home town, and I love it, but I'm kind of like an outsider because I've lived in New Orleans; I know what crime is. Like walking around here all my life, I have no fear walking the streets at 3:00 in the morning. But a lot of people here don't even realize. I took a friend of mine from here to New Orleans, and she wasn't comprehending at all. She was intrigued by it. Like if someone was getting robbed right next to her, she'd stop and stare. I'm like, 'No, just lower your head and walk away. Otherwise, you'll probably get shot or robbed as well.' That's a total Santa Barbara thing. With the youth, they don't really realize it 'cause they haven't gotten out. So I would say sheltered but not like emotionally isolated. They're not emotionally mature enough to be in a Hopper painting."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-56305462207277600912009-06-11T00:01:00.008-05:002009-11-11T16:57:42.487-06:00271 San Marino, CA: The Long Leg<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFap-NLLT4NR_ATiFw6tG48G5LAOZGFzmGv3hl1akpfsZKmchIYRO4RseBvQHb0PKPdGqOYtslpfr7dnJgaXB7nvE3R51H02QlJKk3AJBQTyJaEW7pXQmEORSw0MPSHrZ7pfXW4Cw5mQ/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+police+patch.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFap-NLLT4NR_ATiFw6tG48G5LAOZGFzmGv3hl1akpfsZKmchIYRO4RseBvQHb0PKPdGqOYtslpfr7dnJgaXB7nvE3R51H02QlJKk3AJBQTyJaEW7pXQmEORSw0MPSHrZ7pfXW4Cw5mQ/s200/San+Marino,+CA+police+patch.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330585133402859362" border="0" /></a><p align="center"><a href="http://pasadenaviews.com/san-marino-city-guide/">San Marino, CA</a>: <i>The Long Leg</i></p>San Marino, Pasadena's neighbor outside of Los Angeles, looked like a town you might see in a Hopper painting. The houses were all built before the 1950s, and no one was visible on the streets, sidewalks, or lawns. It made me wonder if there was not a law against being seen in public. There was a law against everything else. San Marino was described as "the strictest city in America." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjckFODXjtz_-31rFuXmVk8rjrYk3nBqEYWT2V_QvNMWigdOQ2bFsFSmgDA254Z_PUqiZUxa3LzEg994BQIoLwv3uxOOYXd-X6kmc1YJ8L0eeGajKyEAeCfUGkrpjHzv6NRjeQX67_4Ag/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+police+dogs.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 125px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjckFODXjtz_-31rFuXmVk8rjrYk3nBqEYWT2V_QvNMWigdOQ2bFsFSmgDA254Z_PUqiZUxa3LzEg994BQIoLwv3uxOOYXd-X6kmc1YJ8L0eeGajKyEAeCfUGkrpjHzv6NRjeQX67_4Ag/s200/San+Marino,+CA+police+dogs.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330587480346673474" border="0" /></a> "If you have to ask," said the former mayor, "it's probably illegal here." The city's handout for new residents, <i>Do's and Don'ts</i>, was subtitled "Mostly Don'ts." All Hopper subjects are outlawed: no theaters, hotels, or apartments, no industry, and no nighttime business hours so no <i>Nighthawks</i>.<br /><br />The prohibitions against everything might be a legacy of the wealthy founders. The town was originally a Gabrielino Indian village that became part of a Spanish mission eventually included in a land grant that became the ranch of J. de Barth Shorb. In 1903, the Shorb Estate was purchased by Edward Huntington, nephew of one of the Central Pacific railway's "Big Four" owners, Collis Huntington. Edward took his $12 million inheritance from Collis and moved to Los Angeles to develop train lines that brought suburban sprawl to the region. In 1913, Huntington and his two neighbors with huge ranches, D.B. Wilson and George S. Patton Sr. (yes, THAT George S. Patton), incorporated as the city of San Marino.<br /><br />It was Shorb who had named his ranch "San Marino," after his grandfather's plantation in Maryland, which in turn had been named for Italy's <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/emilia-romagna-and-san-marino/san-marino">Republic of San Marino</a>, a similarly isolated town. A fourth-century Dalmatian stone-cutter named Marino fled his home during a Turkish invasion and took refuge on Monte Titano along the Adriatic Sea where the local Monastery canonized him as San Marino. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QefgBCEGdCSd7V3j_6cJKkfY1So1buw9kC2t2jNCl6TSdIDf74jpqfBYwEBp6zF75AjXqtAoh_2oO5cIBsADF16zPVuJ7enRcy6Tn7VPbvTpxOHDHfbE56_eGEE9A11QX4PCnu_QUQ/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+in+Italy.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QefgBCEGdCSd7V3j_6cJKkfY1So1buw9kC2t2jNCl6TSdIDf74jpqfBYwEBp6zF75AjXqtAoh_2oO5cIBsADF16zPVuJ7enRcy6Tn7VPbvTpxOHDHfbE56_eGEE9A11QX4PCnu_QUQ/s200/San+Marino,+CA+in+Italy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330587966215747154" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I had called the San Marino (California) Historical Society assuming that one of the reclusive residents would be running it and I could get at least one interview. Paul, the man who answered, said that the historical society was history: defunct. Perhaps it had been outlawed. After I explained that I was there to write about San Marino, he offered to give me a personal tour of San Marino.<br /><br />Paul lived in a white two-story house with dark wood clapboard siding and a pool out back. I parked on the street in front, worried that I was somehow breaking one of the town's many laws. I noticed that he kept his cars in the garage--as required. But Paul appeared in the front door and assured me I was OK.<br /><br />Formerly the town's mayor, he was an energetic barrel-chested older man with apple cheeks and eyes like a faithful dog. He wore blue laceless shoes, tan khakis, a half-buttoned shirt, and a white baseball cap with the San Marino Titans football logo on it. <br /><br />He invited me into a wood-lined den with floral wallpaper, and then down into the low-ceilinged basement, where World War II posters adorned the wooden walls. Pointing to one that invoked a racist stereotype, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwJIp4hfVFak1rjNqUYdMBwbeQ-Y4hI-Bw-qA4ubdBbL5XDfh9w98R1_142xC7SbA_pFjSRgO9J7h_z79HofyiQN0jongB0g4pRxpmXYFB8sjQmtczWDRkJC0D5yDUqrAvshYboLlww/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+War+poster.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 157px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwJIp4hfVFak1rjNqUYdMBwbeQ-Y4hI-Bw-qA4ubdBbL5XDfh9w98R1_142xC7SbA_pFjSRgO9J7h_z79HofyiQN0jongB0g4pRxpmXYFB8sjQmtczWDRkJC0D5yDUqrAvshYboLlww/s200/San+Marino,+CA+War+poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330590158874164402" border="0" /></a> Paul said, "Nobody paid attention to that back then. This basement has seen a lot of history. We held city meetings here." He held his hands up by his shoulders as if surrendering. "If these walls could talk," he said.<br /><br />"That continued the tradition of holding meetings in the basement, because the first mayor, Patton, held them in his basement. We're strong on traditions around here. We're making history by staying the same," he joshed and raised his eyebrows. <br /><br />"Did you have another job besides mayor?" I asked. <br /><br />"I have a family engineering business," he explained, "that my son is now president of. But I help. I'm still on the board. My dad was MIT; he got a job to build the first Southern Cal Edison Steam Plant in 1920 out here in California. So he was sent out to do that, and he got married. And I was born out here in Long Beach in '28. And then in 1930, the crash hit, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression">the Depression</a>, and he lost his job. We still have a letter saying, 'Dear Charlie, we wish we had the train fare to ship you back here to Boston, but we can't; we haven't got any money.' So he started his own business, which we still have. There wasn't anything else to do except to start your own company. It turned out to be a good thing. San Marino was a good place to live. People liked to live here so they could ride the street car into Los Angeles. It was the era of one-car families. And the wife of the family could walk to these areas on Huntington Drive (it was always a business district) and get all the goods they needed."<br /><br />Paul pulled out of a file cabinet a series of articles hailing San Marino as "the strictest city in the country." "Churches," he crowed, "were illegal 'til 1940. Whatever it is, it's not legal. We had a German newspaper come over about a year ago to talk to us 'cause they say, 'We've heard that you folks are stricter than we are in Germany. <i>Nobody's</i> stricter than we are in Germany.'" <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHXDJE-f6DiIHP5s3JhU8LDGn2fDJKvNR3gPwX3qWb9foRwWpJJI1mD_f34qIXx9G0zQGF5uOxjaw7qZ9fdO1cNMQeyhSdMP6F_Imre_Fjgmbq8qKo1T1hwb3g7RRiit3CCVGKK_K2Ng/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+German+verboten.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHXDJE-f6DiIHP5s3JhU8LDGn2fDJKvNR3gPwX3qWb9foRwWpJJI1mD_f34qIXx9G0zQGF5uOxjaw7qZ9fdO1cNMQeyhSdMP6F_Imre_Fjgmbq8qKo1T1hwb3g7RRiit3CCVGKK_K2Ng/s200/San+Marino,+CA+German+verboten.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335704814627145826" /></a> <br /><br />"Then, when this <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,856139-1,00.html">Kathy Fiscus</a> thing hit fifty years (three or four years ago it was fifty years afterwards), I got calls from South Africa, Czechoslovakia, London, reminding us it was fifty years, and this is where it happened. Her mother, who's still alive, and her sister were here. The field where it happened is right down the street. It's the upper field of the high school. I'll show you."<br /><br />He told me about the resident who brought the world to San Marino as he drove me out to the high school where a plaque read, "a little girl who brought the world together--for a moment."<br /><br />"That's where she fell into a hundred-foot abandoned water well: dropped down, three years old, just playing. For two days, they worked to get her out. Every fire department and everything in the whole area was involved. In the meantime, television had got a hold of it. It became known all over the country on television; the first television news story really ever. And Stan Chambers, he's one of our long-time TV announcers, he got famous for it. They drew a parallel shaft, and got her out, but she had died. The family physician said she had probably died within two hours of falling in the well."<br /><br />"Kathy's father David was up in Sacramento pushing to get a bill passed that all abandoned water wells would have to be capped. He had no idea that one of his own wells was sitting here uncapped. That was his well [she fell in]. And, nobody, <i>nobody</i> could believe the irony in that."<br /><br />He turned to the main high school building. "They have a thousand kids at this high school."<br /><br />"In a town of 13,000?" I flinched.<br /><br />"Well," Paul explained, "a lot of people move here just because of the schools. San Marino public schools are subsidized by the residents. Lately, with all the Chinese kids here (we're about 40 percent Chinese, but they're good people), they don't grow very big, so that cuts our football numbers in half. They don't play football. And they don't play baseball, strangely enough."<br /><br />Turning to the pool, he chuckled, "We have the only el-shaped swimming pool of any high school in the state. Perhaps any high school anywhere. So all of the other schools say, 'Hey, San Marino has an advantage; they've got a screwball pool, and we can't figure it out.' The swimming pool is el-shaped because there was no other place to put it except around this old adobe. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJpaztgNxiw-wyKs_PA0GBDrfLAUXtfUo4HF0QtEKRJ_AY7ulAKabqk8I_3Wk0tEsHOgRhkmuZt6rIvBT-VH72Cd_FzB36zcJup2FO0EAHzCfqw0ItkFsRWS799SkFWFZz5WYrHqxDPg/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+adobe.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJpaztgNxiw-wyKs_PA0GBDrfLAUXtfUo4HF0QtEKRJ_AY7ulAKabqk8I_3Wk0tEsHOgRhkmuZt6rIvBT-VH72Cd_FzB36zcJup2FO0EAHzCfqw0ItkFsRWS799SkFWFZz5WYrHqxDPg/s200/San+Marino,+CA+adobe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330592684437259458" border="0" /></a> This belonged to an Englishman the Mexicans all called Miguel Blanco. We call him Michael White."<br /><br />He drove me to Lacy Park, named not for lacey trees but for resident Mrs. Lacy, who was niece of Arthur Sullivan (of "Gilbert and"), and whose brother Frederick was a Hollywood director who used San Marino as a filming location for the Tarzan series. The park stood where once Wilson's Lake had attracted settlers. A city Web site said that San Marino currently held no surface water. Maybe it was illegal. <br /><br />Paul pointed to a chain-link baseball backstop. "That baseball field and the kids' playground here were so hotly contested," he chuckled, "you'd think we were asking to put in a brothel." We pulled up to the Old Mill, the only horizontal mill in California. The building had been redone in original style, using tarred and fired logs plus oxblood paint. A very old photo on the walls showed a woman painting in front of the mill, watched by a man. "He went on to carve Mount Rushmore," Paul informed me. <br /><br />After the park, Paul meandered through the streets, proud of the homes and meticulous grounds keeping. "We try to keep the architecture kinda, you know, historic. We are particularly vigilant against 'mansionization.' That's called breaking up a lot. That's tantamount to murder."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkM_6_FdJD8tgyWvGFmGlVdTrzrGjnucKNa0oczMM78fC9f_m8LySoV6tr_Vc6b70d-zUg_58-MsYMp_Tecm48YWSODIq8e2I8QnL69IODvtr17DyvBajaZ14KvCu83w8UqI9c86R_tg/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+san-marino-tribune-banner-ad.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 71px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkM_6_FdJD8tgyWvGFmGlVdTrzrGjnucKNa0oczMM78fC9f_m8LySoV6tr_Vc6b70d-zUg_58-MsYMp_Tecm48YWSODIq8e2I8QnL69IODvtr17DyvBajaZ14KvCu83w8UqI9c86R_tg/s200/San+Marino,+CA+san-marino-tribune-banner-ad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330599213109853394" border="0" /></a><br />For lunch, we stopped on the main drag at <a href="http://www.yelp.com/biz/san-marino-grill-san-marino">San Marino Grill and Coffee Shop</a>, one of the few diners in town that could be in a Hopper painting. The narrow Roman brick storefront had a single bay window topped by tiny half-curtains. "San Marino Grill Coffee Shop" was spelled out in red plastic letters that had faded to salmon on a red and yellow awning now paled to pink and white. <br /><br />Inside, the smell of french-fries wafted from the back, where the wall behind the grill was quilted in pristine aluminum. Red Naugahyde seats lined the counter, and booths lined the walls. The waitresses' uniforms were black with gray pinstripes and included very short mini-skirts. On the wall was the <i>San Marino Tribune</i> article from 1980, announcing <i>"Walter" celebrates 25th Anniversary</i>.<br /><br />"Walter" was the diner's owner, and Paul introduced me and explained my visit. Walter had striking blue eyes and wispy white hair. He smiled feebly, and I noticed a dark mole on his lip. I asked Walter if he was from San Marino, and he replied that he was from Croatia (where the town's namesake Marino had been born). Like the original Marino, Walter fled because of war. <br /><br />"I left Croatia," Walter explained, "to avoid the Communists. I had a choice between the Communists and Germany. Communists chose Russia. I chose Germany," he added defiantly, "and I would do it all again. At that time, we had no other choices. After I fled Croatia, I was in Austria then Italy for six years, moving constantly. And I moved a lot more before I settled in San Marino."<br /><br />I asked if he felt that the people in the United States were isolated.<br /><br />"I don't think so," he answered. "Americans are more close to each other than European people. Europeans: if you are born poor, you more likely will die poor. In America, you can be born poor, die very rich. So, here it's a lot better. In Europe, educated people do not associate with not-educated people. That's wrong. Here it's different. American people, they're more friendly and more helping each other than Europeans."<br /><br />"San Marino," he continued, "is a very close community, a bedroom community. And I like it. I bought the restaurant thinking that I would spend one year working at The San Marino Grill, and I've been here thirty-seven years and a half. My wife and I have had three homes in San Marino. But I talked with my wife and we are not moving anywhere else. We settle here."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9eHTZLfFzybqrv-1ZBW-5svaVZqy1TodWZ3_zIk1wk5AK8tAfuhPQ9nEHHFidoLrOUbGFgAl-0C7DhTAG9b6wsHTdIEU3V6CUkseiOX9F201dBR0wRQnNqpigpzC2vwD2Bn2HZ8v9WA/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+patton+as+drawing.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 156px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9eHTZLfFzybqrv-1ZBW-5svaVZqy1TodWZ3_zIk1wk5AK8tAfuhPQ9nEHHFidoLrOUbGFgAl-0C7DhTAG9b6wsHTdIEU3V6CUkseiOX9F201dBR0wRQnNqpigpzC2vwD2Bn2HZ8v9WA/s200/San+Marino,+CA+patton+as+drawing.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330599971802016642" border="0" /></a><br />After lunch, Paul drove me back to my car. "[General] Patton," he said driving past one house, "although he was born here, went to a private school in Pasadena. He had a problem of dyslectia [sic] if you can imagine. I don't know how he got through West Point. I should have bought the house. It was $135,000, which at that time was a fortune. It sold recently for $3.8 million. We all have a few of those things that we let get away."<br /><br />Afterward, I had to part ways with Paul. I would miss his company. On the way back to Paul's house and my car, we passed again the high school and its markers to Kathy Fiscus. Paul waved at a new building going up on the campus. "My wife and I are sponsoring a memorial art pavilion in the new high school for our daughter. Our daughter was majoring in art at Wellesley College, and she died in a car crash her senior year." He got quiet for the first time all day, and I could think of nothing appropriate to say. It must have been tougher on him than I had known to give me a tour of the town famous for Kathy Fiscus, another daughter lost before her prime.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQLZSswiNl3hXS1ShohHRUiV93rAn6Fy-lTJm5LRNH3w0G6iKPyIIbpBSrKid6x51Vl8HeQTahFSMTgPT2GzYArRVDHsBj2hyphenhyphenKFlOnD_r-lGPFukriAHJqLcOKuEor7lpztdZdBOYZDA/s1600-h/long+leg.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQLZSswiNl3hXS1ShohHRUiV93rAn6Fy-lTJm5LRNH3w0G6iKPyIIbpBSrKid6x51Vl8HeQTahFSMTgPT2GzYArRVDHsBj2hyphenhyphenKFlOnD_r-lGPFukriAHJqLcOKuEor7lpztdZdBOYZDA/s200/long+leg.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330600221079050306" border="0" /></a><br />The Hopper here, <i>The Long Leg</i>, hung in the town's only current art pavilion, the Huntington Library and Museum. The museum was housed in a large Beaux Arts mansion built by Huntington. At the age of 60, he retired from business and devoted himself to collecting art, books, and maps. He married his uncle's widow, one of the most important art collectors of her generation, and lived for a few years at the San Marino estate then sold off more than half of the land, which was soon parceled into the neighborhoods Paul had just driven me through. He turned the estate into a museum that opened to the public after his death.<br /><br />Walking around the Huntington's world-famous gardens, it was easy to forget I was still within the city of San Marino. There was water here: The Huntington's lily pond and Japanese garden ponds. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtU_f5XT-XL44BnmFL4wsv1Up6pjQGW9SSJMWh0uTUkJIbaNoyg1EyK55DKpiY6P_pc0DwsIwW7Op0MoO2WNOXXho2TNAGrK41NYc-maf4EswDezfl4gRGfba8xfHjOOo8i6KXAD6Ew/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+Huntington+Japan+Garden.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidtU_f5XT-XL44BnmFL4wsv1Up6pjQGW9SSJMWh0uTUkJIbaNoyg1EyK55DKpiY6P_pc0DwsIwW7Op0MoO2WNOXXho2TNAGrK41NYc-maf4EswDezfl4gRGfba8xfHjOOo8i6KXAD6Ew/s200/San+Marino,+CA+Huntington+Japan+Garden.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330600562513832050" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Indoor highlights included a 1410 manuscript of Chaucer's <i>The Canterbury Tales</i>, a Gutenberg Bible, and Thomas Gainsborough's masterpiece <i>The Blue Boy</i>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhniR5-P9xuHX189GYUCDc7pnTC2qLI3jcOT5f2ntGL7BDbyf20lfbcSvZEKXcJC3T5tzLQ_-TZXjZbUi_cWfy2nfpnSSsicrcewQpBV1-W5vXOmJNaKGG_WHz78AlNObWxoqWjhhKpQgw/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+Huntington+Blue+Boy+crop.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 147px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhniR5-P9xuHX189GYUCDc7pnTC2qLI3jcOT5f2ntGL7BDbyf20lfbcSvZEKXcJC3T5tzLQ_-TZXjZbUi_cWfy2nfpnSSsicrcewQpBV1-W5vXOmJNaKGG_WHz78AlNObWxoqWjhhKpQgw/s200/San+Marino,+CA+Huntington+Blue+Boy+crop.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342397856441888962" /></a> The museum also had a renowned map collection, including a 7.5-centimeter seventeenth-century globe that showed California as an island.<br /><br />Jessica, who showed me the painting and files, had clear green eyes and a long thin face. She greeted me in sharply cut, figure-hugging gray suit and informed me that she was newly minted that day as a curator. I congratulated her. Then the museum's newest curator went to see the painting with me.<br /><br /><i>The Long Leg</i> shows a boat sailing beneath a high bright sun, tilting on a rich cerulean sea as it passes a lighthouse on the shore behind it. The wet band of sand on the distant shore tells us the tide is going out. The boat takes a tack that sailors call "the long leg," and this was "the long leg" of my journey, the farthest town away from my hometown, at the geographic edge of the country. <br /><br />A note in the files explained: "The path that [a boat] must take to get out of the harbour consists of a series of short and long tacks, or legs, and-–with a head wind and a head tide-–such a long leg can be slow and discouraging." This was painted during the Depression, in 1935, and may represent the long slow journey of recovery that the country was on. To remove the symbolism, the long leg would also be the obvious one to paint because it would give the painter the longest amount of time in which to see the subject.<br /><br />Jo described the painting as "Provincetown in distance. Sea dark blue, with long diagonal pattern made by strips of light, (water uneffected [sic] by squall darkening the rest of it.) … Sails very taut, hard as marble in still breeze." <i>The Long Leg</i> was painted during Hopper's first summer in the studio at South Truro on Cape Cod, his first sailing picture in six years.<br /><br />I already had learned that the chances were slim of finding anyone from San Marino in San Marino, much less in front of the Hopper painting. One article I read noted that, though hardly any of LA's many celebrities lived in San Marino, "Residents are as hard to spot as movie stars." So I asked Jessica about the painting.<br /><br />"The boat, lighthouse, and hills are beautifully rendered," she gushed, "but those are the only three objects in the landscape. Compared to his other compositions, the objects are more grouped in the middle. And what's this?" she asked, pointing to what looked like a pencil line from the sail through the cabin to the water line. When she asked if I had seen similar lines on his other canvases, I realized that I had. I was still finding new things in Hopper's paintings on my long leg and one of my last. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiGIMC_37OuCif2RKzwumLgRjwIJpKFH15oV9DBMv7FLceeASc7qfRrffBteShzj1Y1dLR3b3usKTH0Z60GDPnF-TjIhWC2-E7Fsa5PM8MUrXfjUkpcQa-9LjmOgvdo9egWG3nYLEoQ/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+Chinese+Lions+club.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiGIMC_37OuCif2RKzwumLgRjwIJpKFH15oV9DBMv7FLceeASc7qfRrffBteShzj1Y1dLR3b3usKTH0Z60GDPnF-TjIhWC2-E7Fsa5PM8MUrXfjUkpcQa-9LjmOgvdo9egWG3nYLEoQ/s200/San+Marino,+CA+Chinese+Lions+club.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335726204380235570" /></a><br />After I left the Huntington, I went back downtown. I felt like I had been shown the condoned city, but I wanted to see the underbelly (such as it was) in this town where everything was prohibited. Huntington Drive was originally divided by Huntington's P&E railroad tracks, but was now a parkway lined with the town's businesses and the Chinese Club of San Marino. Someone had mentioned that San Marino may very well be the first suburban Chinatown. One store was "The Andover Shop." I laughed seeing on this long leg of my journey an outlet so far from its home in Andover, Massachusetts, where I had seen the original store three years earlier and thousands of miles away.<br /><br />I tried to find people to interview, but a woman working at the business strip's Starbucks told me, "I don't think anyone lives in San Marino." In a car culture like L.A., people I found here were driving through because everybody just <i>drives</i> through neighborhoods. They can't walk. <br /><br />At <a href="http://www.sangabrielvalleymenus.com/spotlights/freshgourmet9_21_05.htm">Fresh Gourmet</a>, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqXBQMpKp5vsVTla3B2iN_V_ELMVdAY4oMubkCf_ybg41_TCdZX3-ar03NrnoUZ4hvrDgYiscMjIpyB6b5HV8X7Iw_X3EUgK7gZlEM0Nqc_rXiGz02ev1Wk2t7uBhYa13SEeX9ydPBw/s1600-h/San+Marino,+CA+Fresh+Gourmet.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWqXBQMpKp5vsVTla3B2iN_V_ELMVdAY4oMubkCf_ybg41_TCdZX3-ar03NrnoUZ4hvrDgYiscMjIpyB6b5HV8X7Iw_X3EUgK7gZlEM0Nqc_rXiGz02ev1Wk2t7uBhYa13SEeX9ydPBw/s200/San+Marino,+CA+Fresh+Gourmet.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330606609882404450" border="0" /></a> a modest storefront deli and café in a strip mall near the end of the business district, the cook, owner, counter girl, and a patron all sat in a semi-circle around one of the dining tables. I asked if they could tell me where the local coffee shop was, and they said, "We're it! There isn't another one in town except for the San Marino Grill, which is already closed for the day."<br /><br />I told them the reason for my visit and asked, "Do most people here know the Huntington?" <br /><br />They all nodded. "Mm-hmm," Norma, the owner, said. "I should sell tickets to all the people who stop here to ask me for directions." She was a matronly, fiftyish, Hispanic woman with a large round face and short, disheveled gray hair that swayed as she spoke. <br /> <br />They all nodded again when I asked if most of the locals would know the Hopper painting. "Are people here isolated like in that painting?"<br /><br />"Isolation," Norma answered first, "in a good sense. It helps you know your neighbor. Like that lighthouse [in the painting] is there to direct all those lost souls out there at sea."<br /><br />"Right, tranquility," said Christine, the cashier, who sported diamond flower earrings and a diamond stud in her pierced nose. Her eyes were nearly black above a hawk-like nose. "You know what's great? Since I've been working here, I've seen so many people come in here. They're like, 'Oh hi Christina' It makes me feel good that they remembered me."<br /><br />"People here are isolated," Lillian, the customer, answered with a furrowed brow, "because they like it that way. I mean, it's their choice."<br /><br />Norma had finally formulated her thoughts. "The people in San Marino have more stuff. They have more money than you and I can think of. But as far as the community, there's a lot of great people here. We know one another, and I think that's a lost art. There's a little small-town mentality here. Which I love 'cause I came from a small town. And I think that San Marino wants to stay that way. I'm not saying they're closing the doors to other people. But it wants to have that small-town mentality. I can go to the hardware store, and they know my name. I can go to the pharmacy, they know my name. But of course I've also extended myself that way. I don't just want to be the local place where they come to eat. I want to be the local place where we care for one another. They accepted us with open arms. Customers have become our friends. Kids'll swing by here and all of a sudden they forgot their money. I'll say, 'Go ahead and have it. Go home and come back and bring [the money] back.' Families have people die, and we feel the loss like they do. I had a customer who came in last night and lost his wife. And we were crying on each other's shoulders."<br /><br />"If we don't succeed?" she concluded. "If tomorrow we have to close? I made some great friends."</span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-85356313313154573972009-06-10T00:01:00.009-05:002009-11-11T16:56:47.714-06:00270 Minneapolis, MN: Office at Night<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><p align="center"><a href="http://www.minneapolis.org/">Minneapolis, Minnesota</a>: <i>Office at Night</i></p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wDTAcadf2pU7SaxNvb5jFfpbw7P45oMIg4V3j8gYyZLGeRJZbLyHgPldFmt-rySViPhAUBEqsh-aKUmwxv_ZP4ge7B0c-F6r6BOOtymwW8pRF-VZgbVi7lGeu0Y0xYwDlQRUSw67xdQ/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Minnesota+nice+better.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wDTAcadf2pU7SaxNvb5jFfpbw7P45oMIg4V3j8gYyZLGeRJZbLyHgPldFmt-rySViPhAUBEqsh-aKUmwxv_ZP4ge7B0c-F6r6BOOtymwW8pRF-VZgbVi7lGeu0Y0xYwDlQRUSw67xdQ/s200/Minneapolis+Minnesota+nice+better.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342391369298463346" /></a><br />Minneapolis was closer to my home in Chicago than most of the cities in this book. But it was one of the last I got to visit. Early on in the project, I had asked about seeing their Hopper, but they said that it was in storage and a viewing could not be arranged. I asked again a bit later and was told a second time that I couldn't see it. When I called a third time, they said it was set to leave in two weeks to go on tour for a year and a half and that I had better come see it quickly.<br /><br />When I arrived, I was again made to wait a long time, so I struck up a conversation with a young museum worker who said he was also an art student. He wore a white Oxford shirt with the collar open over his blue vest. Wiry black hairs sprouted from the bottom of his acne-pitted face. His breath smelled of smoke and mint. When I asked him about how Hopper might relate to isolation in Minneapolis, he asked in return, "You've heard the phrase 'Minnesota nice,' right?<br /><br />"'Minnesota Nice'" he explained, "is, if someone asks you for an ashtray at a café, you’ll be like, 'please, yes, go ahead, take it, no problem.' You're not using it, and the person asked politely. But as they walk away, you'll both be thinking, 'Asshole.' I don't know where that comes from, maybe the weather. But I equate the solitude of Hopper's characters with quiet and strength: independence. They are strong enough to be on their own." <br /><br />Finally, I was shown upstairs to see the painting itself by Joe King, who was fresh-faced, round-shouldered, buoyant, and balding. I resisted the tempting opening line, "You must be joking." [Joe King, get it?] Instead, I asked if he thought people here were isolated. "Absolutely not," he barked. It seemed like I had unknowingly offended him: Minnesota nice. "A lot of people come here from other places in the Midwest. It's like a magnet." He seemed a little put off by my question and by having to show me the painting. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxN4gU5kmip3Jk8vZe7v493nqvGjSYrdxS5BKhB_rRO7Au5uxFmJcgaO5u7t0jCuxct9E50JqHc_lItucG8xT1FTiSZUGdB-cLJtbmjBm_jYwWvMLEa3jmJT8ZAklRGrK8KorrPPg0400/s1600-h/Office+at+Night.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 178px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxN4gU5kmip3Jk8vZe7v493nqvGjSYrdxS5BKhB_rRO7Au5uxFmJcgaO5u7t0jCuxct9E50JqHc_lItucG8xT1FTiSZUGdB-cLJtbmjBm_jYwWvMLEa3jmJT8ZAklRGrK8KorrPPg0400/s200/Office+at+Night.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342379237442112434" /></a><i>Office at Night</i> shows a man at a desk studying a piece of paper, while across the room a woman in a tight blue dress stands at a filing cabinet with her body unnaturally turned so that you can see both her breasts and her buttocks, which are disproportionately large compared to the rest of her body. Many critics see in it a scene of sexual tension. If the typewriter bottom-left is on her desk (assuming she would be the one to do the typing), then she has moved across the room and is closer to him, whether she intended to get close to him or not. Easily overlooked is a piece of paper on the floor next to his desk. Will she bend over to pick it up? <br /><br />Jo suggested other titles for the painting: "Confidentially Yours" and "Room 1005." She described it as, "'Shirley' in blue dress, white collar, flesh stockings, black pumps & black hair & plenty of lipstick."<br /><br />Edward handwrote a letter to the Walker. "The picture was probably first suggested by many rides on the 'L' trains in New York City after dark and glimpses of office interiors that were so fleeting as to leave fresh and vivid impressions on my mind. My aim was to try to give the sense of an isolated and lonely office interior rather high in the air with the office furniture which has a very definite meaning for me. …. Any more than this, the picture will have to tell, but I hope it will not tell any obvious anecdote, for none is intended."<br /><br />Hopper's <i>Office at Night</i> was shown in the Walker's 1948 "purchase exhibition," "New Paintings to Know and Buy," meant to inspire the public to buy art from well-known living painters. The show, in fact, sold only eight paintings--all to the Walker. Hopper's <i>Office at Night</i> was one, though only two of three voters recommended the purchase.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgJJwJel0Kj66hr5bbHYUUiR7iBWENbK_aAFRWZmvrZ6mYtMc5S_pqoUVCjxGsAbP0Za5sL-FuJOMEezMiJGnYwYM92PN5DQQliLiHDyZgF7BjzMhO0tIes_aoPnIY5QOunAPcvns4g/s1600-h/Minneapolis+friends+insular2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgJJwJel0Kj66hr5bbHYUUiR7iBWENbK_aAFRWZmvrZ6mYtMc5S_pqoUVCjxGsAbP0Za5sL-FuJOMEezMiJGnYwYM92PN5DQQliLiHDyZgF7BjzMhO0tIes_aoPnIY5QOunAPcvns4g/s200/Minneapolis+friends+insular2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317525363923638962" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Local friends in front of the Walker's Claes Oldenburg sculpture <i>Spoonbridge and Cherry</i>]</p>If the couple in <i>Office at Night</i> were from Minneapolis, they would already be set in their circle of friends and spouses. That’s what everyone there told me. After the museum, I had dinner at the house of John, a friend of mine who had moved from Chicago to Minneapolis eight years before my visit. When I told him my experience with the museum, he said, "I can't put it into words, but that is so Minnesota."<br /><br />John put his children to sleep, and, in order not to wake them, we stepped into the next room, an office at night.<br /><br />"Minnesotans," John began, "are some of the most insular people I've met in my time. Friendly, but insular. When we moved here, I wasn't meeting anybody, wasn't making any friends. It's harder than a lot of other cities. Minnesotans don't bond. They don't need to bond. Like three out of four were born here. They have family here and their neighborhood friends, so they don't need to get to know anybody more."<br /><br />"They don't go anywhere," he concluded. "They don't know anything else, so they think this is the best that there is."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNlHelWkPcm8EyNgI6WWP5wA6AEODY7i3I9rXBWkksD4Bm3kvJV5tAwILKjs5yn2UFjNiWjRKGVhguBUt5R97aGixmCXl5-5mdV7PVsCc29fhQeDCN9YAjEotZGTBAs13Bk3pAA_m-IQ/s1600-h/Minneapolis+mill+city+cafe+logo+better.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 94px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNlHelWkPcm8EyNgI6WWP5wA6AEODY7i3I9rXBWkksD4Bm3kvJV5tAwILKjs5yn2UFjNiWjRKGVhguBUt5R97aGixmCXl5-5mdV7PVsCc29fhQeDCN9YAjEotZGTBAs13Bk3pAA_m-IQ/s200/Minneapolis+mill+city+cafe+logo+better.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317544090347874098" border="0" /></a><br />The next morning I started my day with a good dose of coffee and Minnesota Nice. I went to the Mill City Café, a local artists' commune, in the neighborhood called Northeast (pronounced "Nordeast" by the locals). A former industrial area that was traditionally home to blue-collar Slavs, Nordeast recently had an influx of art studios and galleries. <br /><br />Inside, tall, narrow, mullioned windows let light onto a warping wooden floor worn smooth beneath a ceiling held up by large timber beams. The owner behind the counter handed a cup of coffee to a goateed young man ahead of me who started to reach in his pocket. The owner mimed taking money from him and opened the cash register and threw in the imaginary dollar bills, saying theatrically, "Thank you."<br /><br />I sat at a table with Aaron, a tall, stringy young man who had short wavy hair and green eyes. He wore glasses, a ragged sweater, and tan corduroys with fraying cuffs.<br /><br />To my question, he answered succinctly, "No."<br /><br />"Okay, thank you, that's it," I joked.<br /><br />"Well," he tried again, "those kids at the café [the characters in <i>Nighthawks</i>] aren't isolated. They don't seem like they are. A few of them are talking to each other. The bartender and the one guy may have had a conversation. But you come around here, everyone talks to each other, in Northeast Minneapolis that is. When I walk down the street, I say ‘hi’ to people; I had a great conversation with three great people on my one-block walk here."<br /><br />"People you didn't know?" I asked.<br /><br />"Well," he ahemmed, "people I kinda know but really don't know. Maybe we are isolated in that way. I don't really know who I'm talking to. But I don't really know <i>you</i>. So I don't know if that means we're isolated or not. Well, in a way we are feeling more isolated, like when it comes to computers. A lot of people work from their home. Basically, we're preoccupied but at the same time we're much more interactive with computers."<br /><br />"Before I came," I told him, "I had an image that Minneapolis would be isolated because of the clichéd Scandinavian coldness."<br /><br />"Oh, rumors," Aaron airily joked, "rumors, you know. Nobody's isolated here at the café. But superficial relationships are wide, not deep. We crave a deeper connection. It's why people couple or want to have a certain clique. If we didn't feel isolated in the first place, we wouldn't crave it."<br /><br />When I left the café, a man had his car door opened against mine. "Can I get into my car?" I asked.<br /><br />"Would have been easier if you didn't park so close to mine," he growled.<br /><br />I got confused. "Oh, was yours here when I parked?"<br /><br />"No, I just got here," he said. "But that doesn't make a difference, does it."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfc5BlAvB6D92nzP25KKaoDIUVHeLkPTp-BQo12Urb8lPD5A9AlwbEGRj3TeHt238sl_nj1M8eKJznMasy58VFDbP5kIDTKx1fkB8FoN5nW0l2A88YVs6cN2-ppdYmi62hHTm9jTtYhw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Blackeys.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 106px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfc5BlAvB6D92nzP25KKaoDIUVHeLkPTp-BQo12Urb8lPD5A9AlwbEGRj3TeHt238sl_nj1M8eKJznMasy58VFDbP5kIDTKx1fkB8FoN5nW0l2A88YVs6cN2-ppdYmi62hHTm9jTtYhw/s200/Minneapolis+Blackeys.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5317546838775502242" border="0" /></a><br />I stopped next at Blackey's Danish Bakery, a Nordeast institution since 1908. The woman behind the counter was named Michelle. She was maybe five-foot-three-inches, with dark eyes, freckled skin, and a mole on her right cheek. The strap of her red apron criss-crossed over a black T shirt. I asked her my question, and she said, "No." I waited for more, but that single word was all that was forthcoming. "I have to explain my answer?!" she asked indignantly. Maybe she thought I was just taking a poll. "I don't know," she repeated. "I just know what they <i>aren't</i> like.<br /><br />"I guess," she yielded, "that [isolated] would be the word. Not the word I would come up with. Northeast is really it's own little community. I was born and raised Northeast. It's a nice place. You probably passed Edison High back there? Everybody in Northeast went there. And everybody in Northeast has worked at Blackey's at one point or another. Any stranger stands out. When I bring friends to my bar in Northeast, everybody stares at them. They're like, 'Who's that?' because they know everybody from this neighborhood so well. My boyfriend lives in St. Paul, and he hates to drive over here to visit me. I hate to drive over to visit him. We each think that the other's town has a weird way of doing their streets. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg58MFbw6if83izcKFYErbF7BnntmltVO9fHF3LUeTjHgkPOlb_62c87Z9jiiLzWOO2eDaNIRhpLfu5rgMXlSZGuU5u_ESO3HOV9_ydBojT9UCyNvAH3_awyOqA7easaa0AA4d-rWzQM0Q/s1600-h/Minneapolis+St+Paul+rivalry+crop.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 164px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg58MFbw6if83izcKFYErbF7BnntmltVO9fHF3LUeTjHgkPOlb_62c87Z9jiiLzWOO2eDaNIRhpLfu5rgMXlSZGuU5u_ESO3HOV9_ydBojT9UCyNvAH3_awyOqA7easaa0AA4d-rWzQM0Q/s200/Minneapolis+St+Paul+rivalry+crop.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342384791696056386" /></a> <br /><br />"I live in the suburb Crystal right now, but I'm always hanging out around here. My mom still lives around here. A lot of people have moved to like South Minneapolis. Central [the main drag through Nordeast] has changed an awful lot. There was never any Mexican stores. Now, a lot of different nationalities are moving in. The new people don't seem to join in the neighborhood. Which, that's okay, too. But there was a time when I was a teenager, right across the river there were a lot of blacks. They would <i>never</i> go here, never. And now they're everywhere."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj57DzD6JEMUFiEgO8Kik1GGdIX1nkVARpdkK_XwqCXO-eiOdYwKaRcCvARRr5yLitrEf9IkEZ-Z2iJClUzxYvqCJd6Z185gbYtAkhJHoAjzuYPNKvZO1rBi9zu_T7f3jew8nDiRZVpIos/s1600-h/Minneapolis+mill.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj57DzD6JEMUFiEgO8Kik1GGdIX1nkVARpdkK_XwqCXO-eiOdYwKaRcCvARRr5yLitrEf9IkEZ-Z2iJClUzxYvqCJd6Z185gbYtAkhJHoAjzuYPNKvZO1rBi9zu_T7f3jew8nDiRZVpIos/s200/Minneapolis+mill.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342392405263789202" /></a><br />If I did find an office at night in Minneapolis, it would probably be the office of a miller, like Pillsbury or Gold Medal Flour. Minneapolis, at the edge of the Plains' wheat fields and with the Mississippi River to power mills, became the flour milling capital of the world, and earned the nickname Mill City. Because of its milling and food processing background, Minnesota was the birthplace of American icons Cream of Wheat, Wheaties, Bisquick, Green Giant, and the bundt pan. The well-known company 3M got that name as a shortened version of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing. <br /><br />Minnea-polis means "city of Minnehaha," a Native American princess immortalized by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Song of Hiawatha" and associated with Minnehaha Falls--a place that local kids beg to be taken and a symbol of the city. The name means "laughing waters." <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgAXxC1MnH-Dqk11vQE1tl-bTZkgH9y8QaymToU67qV45blfZCH8L9CCCr_T47z_Ge9evdPw2b5NZtGtBPaQkY-uJHgWcojkd9GZhOIgHaTDRJp9zESGNYK8Cqt4w3FdybMibG-zAGg/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Nicolett.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNgAXxC1MnH-Dqk11vQE1tl-bTZkgH9y8QaymToU67qV45blfZCH8L9CCCr_T47z_Ge9evdPw2b5NZtGtBPaQkY-uJHgWcojkd9GZhOIgHaTDRJp9zESGNYK8Cqt4w3FdybMibG-zAGg/s200/Minneapolis+Nicolett.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328715593416251842" border="0" /></a><br />If the couple in <i>Office at Night</i> wanted to share a romantic meal (maybe after work), they might head for Basil's on Nicollet Mall, a 12-block pedestrian mall downtown. That's where <a href="http://www.mtmshow.com/">Mary Tyler Moore</a> ate. You can find it by the Bronze statue of Mary throwing her hat in the air like at the end of the show's intro. The hostess said that they constantly get requests for "Mary's" table, which is exactly in the middle of the balcony and labeled with a bronze plaque. <br /><br />It was not yet noon and the temperature was not quite in the 60s, but the outdoor restaurants in Nicolette Mall were filled with Minnesotans out to enjoy the "nice" weather. I interviewed two women at a sidewalk cafe. One was fortyish. The other was old enough to be her mother and probably was her mother. The younger one said, "A lot of people who move here might feel that way [isolated]."<br /><br />"I don't think so," the mother objected. "I think that most people who move here are happy here."<br /><br />"If you move here with a family," the daughter clarified, "it's fine. But if you're single, it's more difficult. It is a cliquey kind of town."<br /><br />"Is this a hard-working city?" I asked, "Would people be in their offices at night?" <br /><br />"No," the mother said, "it's a cultural city. They'd be out at a show of some sort."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj308MN_cJGoJML4hzIOhSrBiS141HnDODZNlI3UKvF2KjcN1fbCtjzfS3tgFbwR9YCLC3ETdXLFgXGjIt3TF_A9_N_JPr4wblW6zFzqyRwLSnXsAY8Ld8S9v-4B0ypa_SMprrMUp79gw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+MIA.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj308MN_cJGoJML4hzIOhSrBiS141HnDODZNlI3UKvF2KjcN1fbCtjzfS3tgFbwR9YCLC3ETdXLFgXGjIt3TF_A9_N_JPr4wblW6zFzqyRwLSnXsAY8Ld8S9v-4B0ypa_SMprrMUp79gw/s200/Minneapolis+MIA.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328716499084427442" border="0" /></a><br />The city’s "other" art museum was the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). In one of its small scattered galleries, I found a squat little man with a graying goatee and bushy black eyebrows. He wore tri-focal-lensed glasses, creased gray slacks, a crisp white shirt, and a tie with no suit coat. His crooked front teeth stuck out like a rabbit's. Two young women approached, and he answered their questions about a painting in a way that I knew he was their art teacher. So I asked him about Hopper.<br /><br />"Well," he hesitated, "there's some question about if he was actually painting isolation and alienation of modern people. I think that he was actually just painting light at different times of day. And the most interesting kind of light is early in the morning or late in the evening. If you're trying to get a dramatic lighting early in the morning, there's not people around then. I think if he was alive and you could grab him and talk to him... Well, he didn't say much, so it's hard to know. His wife was the talker for the family. She was like a rocket; she was like a mosquito going around in the room.<br /><br />"I think people look at his everyday deserted streets of America or people sitting at a diner or people looking out a window, and they think that he's making some kind of social commentary about the alienation of modern man and so on. I think people, when you hear their comments, they're talking more about themselves than they're talking about what's in the painting. That's the good thing about art: that interpretation. You know, people look at it from their own psychological makeup, and cultural background and expectations, state of health. All of that stuff influences what you see. I just think that the art historians and people looking at that art are projecting some of their feelings."<br /><br />"People who write in books about Edward Hopper," he noted, "may be wrong, too. Education, of course, is about synthesizing everybody's view so you come to a kind of a consensus. But we learn through that; the critics and commentators have often been wrong. We know that, but still why do we accept everything they say?<br /><br />"I have a friend who does Raku sculptures. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNI1jZsxL4HivN8Ki_Y9JK7vu6rIwukI4DA4y93RDFfx2mihlaQ7eoQN-BM1bSu0qn6PDQQ7WMMvhgfUZKUWI_Ups8diB89G44CnGPQTeZc3jIB57YDhP4g0zkEeghzvWlTiUom-E8Ng/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Raku.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNI1jZsxL4HivN8Ki_Y9JK7vu6rIwukI4DA4y93RDFfx2mihlaQ7eoQN-BM1bSu0qn6PDQQ7WMMvhgfUZKUWI_Ups8diB89G44CnGPQTeZc3jIB57YDhP4g0zkEeghzvWlTiUom-E8Ng/s200/Minneapolis+Raku.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328717780204934210" border="0" /></a> It's a very iffy kind of thing. You're at the mercy of the smoking and the rapid cooling, and the crackling. And he says that two out of three just don't work. So behind his house he had dug a pit. And over the years, he's been discarding these clunkers into this pit. Then he moved recently, and he covered this pit. Well, you could imagine two thousand years from now some anthropologist or archaeologist would dig this up and go, 'Oh my God. It was a ceremonial center, and they made offerings here.' <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWHrTaQ8cmpk4dwGgykW419wHaE3J51dUb-1Q2aQC7x0CQEyqiACzDbQOkNzg3tuMo8QU5HFPw1pimTSPuzmSfLkCiF92HYKJh6hatVYaHu_DFgEbniT6an2mWr6nQlR0u3JAdQU8CGg/s1600-h/Minneapolis+offerings.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWHrTaQ8cmpk4dwGgykW419wHaE3J51dUb-1Q2aQC7x0CQEyqiACzDbQOkNzg3tuMo8QU5HFPw1pimTSPuzmSfLkCiF92HYKJh6hatVYaHu_DFgEbniT6an2mWr6nQlR0u3JAdQU8CGg/s200/Minneapolis+offerings.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328718575875436290" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"Minnesota," he continued, "is more isolated. I mean, it being in the interior of the country. The people obviously have a different perspective than people who live on the coast who run into and are connected with and see lots of influences from other parts of the world. By the time it gets filtered into the Midwest, I think people in the Midwest have a different slant of things."<br /><br />"Probably," he mused, "Minnesota has a better chance of that [looking like a Hopper painting] because there is the time of day where there's no one on the street. In the Midwest where they have smaller communities and small towns, five-thirty in the morning, you're the only one on the street. If you lived in Los Angeles: four in the morning, there's a hundred thousand other people with you on the freeway. When I had moved from Minnesota to Los Angeles, I felt like I was going into another planet. In the days when I moved there, in Minnesota there weren't any stores open on Sunday. Sunday was a forbidden kind of thing. And the day I arrived there, I went to a grocery store that was open on Sunday, and they sold liquor. There was a woman in a bikini buying a quart of Scotch and a watermelon, and she had no shoes on. I was just aghast. And of course she was about eighty. In a bikini! I couldn't have been any more surprised if she was purple with green hair and antennae growing out of her head. <i>There</i> is a difference from Minnesota."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zi7YHTaWWjViKXmpKd6n27NdSOBCroMJwKOolIoOF5ICSBd-jyI33ZGZEoDW_BLYiI0-UCbCggnaMpycFbs7umo-ZZnSnukxPhJ1qAzMFc7LL1xKmiUw3AMpOR9SP2X1wV7kmFHjgA/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Weisman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6zi7YHTaWWjViKXmpKd6n27NdSOBCroMJwKOolIoOF5ICSBd-jyI33ZGZEoDW_BLYiI0-UCbCggnaMpycFbs7umo-ZZnSnukxPhJ1qAzMFc7LL1xKmiUw3AMpOR9SP2X1wV7kmFHjgA/s200/Minneapolis+Weisman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328719646278198034" border="0" /></a><br />There's even an "other other" museum here. The University of Minnesota Weisman Art Museum was designed by noted architect Frank Gehry and thus nicknamed "MinneaGuggenheim" after his most famous design: Bilbao's Guggenheim Museum. The bending silver building looked like he gave a child a series of tin pie plates and asked him to put together a building of the future.<br /><br />The Museum was set on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi beside a two-tiered bridge, painted University of Minnesota Gopher maroon with yellow "M"s. I visited just a couple months after the closing of a show the Weisman organized about vaudeville that included Hopper's <i>Two on the Aisle</i> and <i>Sheridan Theater</i>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiik6VbUnNpT8U0qA7onN19W4Vbfe38YCBnQtpHxfpzdYLP7ZRIvZX0gvnwPZArPflS0Nv-MaE5En6SJK-7Jh91NpTzZMWw6qsagNTpXckxQLrF__TsA9KCzGE8gh-x-0PwiMXQUhyphenhyphengfA/s1600-h/Sheridan+Theater.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 135px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiik6VbUnNpT8U0qA7onN19W4Vbfe38YCBnQtpHxfpzdYLP7ZRIvZX0gvnwPZArPflS0Nv-MaE5En6SJK-7Jh91NpTzZMWw6qsagNTpXckxQLrF__TsA9KCzGE8gh-x-0PwiMXQUhyphenhyphengfA/s200/Sheridan+Theater.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328720039424159618" border="0" /></a> Now on exhibit was "<a href="http://www.weisman.umn.edu/exhibits/springsteen/springsteen.htm">Springsteen: Troubadour of the Highway</a>." The aural complement to Hopper's visuals.<br /><br />At the front desk, below a huge Warhol portrait of Weisman himself, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhM-s56sClNLDrZ1hX7nA4HN0lfzOrIOMzFVV8SktXp5Zbm6nKt8zRgMk_22Vxm5hdypnLSbTMDO6T1v9YsldrWXwiFXLrwJdLsVhXq6CFttT0pndjFzrmLUcjw7zsuacrP7L41mHj6A/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Weisman+Warhol.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhM-s56sClNLDrZ1hX7nA4HN0lfzOrIOMzFVV8SktXp5Zbm6nKt8zRgMk_22Vxm5hdypnLSbTMDO6T1v9YsldrWXwiFXLrwJdLsVhXq6CFttT0pndjFzrmLUcjw7zsuacrP7L41mHj6A/s200/Minneapolis+Weisman+Warhol.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328720969693075058" border="0" /></a> sat a jowly young man with a beard coming in in patches, wearing the museum uniform: a black T-shirt with a red silhouette of the Weisman building. He had shoulder-length hair, thick on the side, so that his hair looked as dumpy as his body, and the way he rested his arms on the table in front of him made him look even frumpier.<br /><br />"I guess I don't feel that way," he answered. "My experience of the city has been it's a very vibrant and changing community. It's got a lot of diversity, and there's a lot of action. And I guess I view a lot more interaction between Hopper's characters, so I don't view us as <i>less</i> isolated. Maybe it's just that I haven't had the experience of being alone with a lot of very lonely nights as much. I'm around more during the day, but it doesn't seem to me that Minneapolis people have the cold distraughtness of Hopper's characters." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJnTXrV1ozwl4uJxPUe5V0N0wy1HJffRTv25HB-e7H7zl0MxV3Z-jXWGaWHZdcA0-n6xzzt707Nm-7OpBfkDDI5c8P27D9EoWEgOHDwamATs61CMm6FxIsweTqlocbACRbqaCBdS6SGw/s1600-h/nighthawks.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJnTXrV1ozwl4uJxPUe5V0N0wy1HJffRTv25HB-e7H7zl0MxV3Z-jXWGaWHZdcA0-n6xzzt707Nm-7OpBfkDDI5c8P27D9EoWEgOHDwamATs61CMm6FxIsweTqlocbACRbqaCBdS6SGw/s200/nighthawks.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328721480272272418" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"I'm an art history major, and I think Hopper's a brilliant painter. I think he's one of the best painters before 1950 in America. His figures and their expressions express solemn-ness brilliantly. There's just this quality about his characters that their isolation within the city really speaks more than most of the American painters that were working at that time."<br /><br />I accosted another student looking at the art whose short blond hair was pulled back and held down by a white macramé tiara. She had blue eyes, tiny ears, a bump on the bridge of her nose, and straight white teeth. "People in Minneapolis," she answered, soft-spoken, "are isolated, but that is a measure of protection against perceived danger. I grew up on a sheep farm, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdRZWM0gi8Ko_RFSuNjYOOnItoOXjyJkAv9d0hAY1KKQpKy0SXjEIN4YqkM2MAGWS0IzN7Gle4nb2IsVQQNu_IMRufzsEmyPfHELaWim_B6YusRPQOmjtdWm7RTaOlBRTInCu8GVOaw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+sheep.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdRZWM0gi8Ko_RFSuNjYOOnItoOXjyJkAv9d0hAY1KKQpKy0SXjEIN4YqkM2MAGWS0IzN7Gle4nb2IsVQQNu_IMRufzsEmyPfHELaWim_B6YusRPQOmjtdWm7RTaOlBRTInCu8GVOaw/s200/Minneapolis+sheep.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328721958921591442" border="0" /></a> I hope some day to return. In the country people say hello to each other when they walk past. Here, we just go," and she made blinders with her hands beside her eyes. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjFxzGZMNnoVsd4xl_fUWOJQQP7szElv6TICXw7hCzxhEvfixnim8VWctP08zAnDxkIkHQogZyozK98tXk0q_-g5Mp4MGc9DkacXS7JOuIKj0Vln0YQiqmIQQvOopbJ5DP_AdcGvWKA/s1600-h/Minneapolis+man+with+blinders.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 162px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjFxzGZMNnoVsd4xl_fUWOJQQP7szElv6TICXw7hCzxhEvfixnim8VWctP08zAnDxkIkHQogZyozK98tXk0q_-g5Mp4MGc9DkacXS7JOuIKj0Vln0YQiqmIQQvOopbJ5DP_AdcGvWKA/s200/Minneapolis+man+with+blinders.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328722453410967330" border="0" /></a> "I think it's sort of a measure of protection, though, maybe from being overwhelmed? Cause in the country it's easy to said 'Hi' to the ten people. Here, there's hundreds of thousands of them. And you never know what people are gonna do, either. There's more danger, I guess. More danger perceived."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZB2SVbJ2EL5EdhMEZ9ej_MwNaHEHs4ZqTnkTnsHBHihpN-a4zIYkxrcnW48QVvQwalLp_FuwuAAH3yjkCmtVI8x5gLXqXlswqkyH9A0yfkZFNsFdDFFx4qn6TOGGJjmQQOheVBLsk-Q/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Bob%27s.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZB2SVbJ2EL5EdhMEZ9ej_MwNaHEHs4ZqTnkTnsHBHihpN-a4zIYkxrcnW48QVvQwalLp_FuwuAAH3yjkCmtVI8x5gLXqXlswqkyH9A0yfkZFNsFdDFFx4qn6TOGGJjmQQOheVBLsk-Q/s200/Minneapolis+Bob%27s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328722948437359714" border="0" /></a><br />Minneapolis was known for coffee shops, so I headed off to a local fave. Bob's Java Hut still had tables out front, despite the fifty-degree weather. Sprawled at one was a tall, lanky man about 50, wearing a brown leather beret and green corduroys. His face looked like one you would see in a Dutch Masters painting. He had yellowing teeth, high cheek bones, and sad brown eyes with a cigarette-ash mark right above the brow that I wanted to brush away. His black sweatshirt bore a large ornate dragon, and around his waist nestled a fanny pack with a Chinese symbol on it. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2iCL2-aTrz_hAFM7EwJYZ8khIlNb5xbMVueEtdKiz4fiGcBppW5ryaLfvdQKpSWyTkyvsOql9cqX8MHjUsLt5OQAJ4zUf4Rl_kX947s_ytOUwXif0nXUzvouSXLJyfvavpAcxO85Nw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Chinese+symbol+2.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 141px; height: 156px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv2iCL2-aTrz_hAFM7EwJYZ8khIlNb5xbMVueEtdKiz4fiGcBppW5ryaLfvdQKpSWyTkyvsOql9cqX8MHjUsLt5OQAJ4zUf4Rl_kX947s_ytOUwXif0nXUzvouSXLJyfvavpAcxO85Nw/s200/Minneapolis+Chinese+symbol+2.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328724127826307378" border="0" /></a><br />When I asked him if it was okay to ask him some questions about Minneapolis for a book I was writing, he stared evenly at me, blew smoke, and croaked, "No names, right?" <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcTDCiwI29_2UeG-pyPNnP6SbXMwxeDf7_xyM7Im_xxQtd2GvzsxYfVDrGqwva85zOOEEc6ir9Bxy3MmX9_42zjTGvF5gRv8XL-jZi6jSw-X_2PWl4g0enmUZPPizFVmKiucS_L4MVw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+anonymous.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDcTDCiwI29_2UeG-pyPNnP6SbXMwxeDf7_xyM7Im_xxQtd2GvzsxYfVDrGqwva85zOOEEc6ir9Bxy3MmX9_42zjTGvF5gRv8XL-jZi6jSw-X_2PWl4g0enmUZPPizFVmKiucS_L4MVw/s200/Minneapolis+anonymous.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328724847201687298" border="0" /></a> He talked in fits and starts.<br /><br />"Well," he thought, "I would probably say a yes and a no. For the most part, no. In Minnesota, the whole upper-Midwest, it's easy for people to join groups: sports, cultural, religious, whatever. In that way, they're not isolated. But they are isolated, in that the groups are isolated.<br /><br />"In some senses, people are very isolated in how deeply they are aligned or committed to any one particular group, and whether they really know what they are committed to--other than living this nice little upper-middle-class lifestyle free from economic worries, you know? It'll be interesting in the next year to find out how that changes. Many things since 9/11 have played for and against that. And it's going to be very interesting now to see what's going to happen with respect to Iraq in the next year and the economy and everything else that's going on; how these things are going to break us and pull us again into something else.<br /><br />"I spent twelve-and-a-half years as a tour guide in China. I always end up back in Minneapolis. I've been here pretty much continuously since 1967. Minneapolis is a hell of a cultural node. We have <a href="http://www.minneapolis.com/theater/">more repertory theater seats than New York</a>, and we have a better music and art scene than Chicago. It's hard to leave it for that reason. But it also has a lot of cliqueyness. Most natives stay in the metropolitan area. I would throw out a figure of anywhere from ten to fifteen percent that would be attracted to Chicago and New York and larger urban areas with an East Coast-type of mentality.<br /><br />"There's still a lot of people," he went on, "that believe, or try to believe it, that Minneapolis and St. Paul are really 'big small towns.' The wave of immigration, population growth, overpopulation in the urban areas, the huge blow-up of the outer ring of suburbs and everything has changed that dramatically. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNUO-50kAzQWLPhAwx4GMz-DBN7w72jVTD539xwnuGn-Cx1Fwa9q1-knTpScxiIcvorouZ05DHH-bbAKKlT8oJYqztVxl84zOmYbYacsrszJZ0TFd0T435ztX6r6UdL3nQK8lQyMzr8A/s1600-h/Minneapolis+diversity.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNUO-50kAzQWLPhAwx4GMz-DBN7w72jVTD539xwnuGn-Cx1Fwa9q1-knTpScxiIcvorouZ05DHH-bbAKKlT8oJYqztVxl84zOmYbYacsrszJZ0TFd0T435ztX6r6UdL3nQK8lQyMzr8A/s200/Minneapolis+diversity.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335687018113259234" /></a> But a lot of people are not aware of it. The kids, teenagers now, early twenties; they don't see it at all. This is a large city to them."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8LVL5nc9D5QYYM1lrahtBrXUi4Ejeow50P8-rHruSN6Rb9b92HGhdkxIQPGwi_XF_cUMw5ygieOhGhua2okqdkVDqsY41KQf8GxXF3mNobfLmbs03TsJ5JI9exI3fvTiKSF_Lm-rJA/s1600-h/Minneapolis+typewriter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8LVL5nc9D5QYYM1lrahtBrXUi4Ejeow50P8-rHruSN6Rb9b92HGhdkxIQPGwi_XF_cUMw5ygieOhGhua2okqdkVDqsY41KQf8GxXF3mNobfLmbs03TsJ5JI9exI3fvTiKSF_Lm-rJA/s200/Minneapolis+typewriter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328726936427343954" border="0" /></a><br />The typewriter in <i>Office at Night</i> has been the subject of a surprising amount of scrutiny, and many are used here in Minneapolis, which has a reputation as a writers' city. The Loft was a legendary gathering place for them,<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41LIkODCeyGL7GIdUxQwAgnflpfkaoGGRkFHXDcachb-9Jfrqu657UKOoXt1AcrF9LuaB4xYsJK6j-IIjw5G_HmPQ8AoSS9odI6UXOgM_3IY2_DO25E3-RByWz8Z0acTBrF6EBYE1kA/s1600-h/Minneapolis+ruminator.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 100px; height: 103px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41LIkODCeyGL7GIdUxQwAgnflpfkaoGGRkFHXDcachb-9Jfrqu657UKOoXt1AcrF9LuaB4xYsJK6j-IIjw5G_HmPQ8AoSS9odI6UXOgM_3IY2_DO25E3-RByWz8Z0acTBrF6EBYE1kA/s200/Minneapolis+ruminator.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328727508610307954" border="0" /></a> and I popped into Ruminator Bookstore there and bought as a memento a book of poems by Mark Strand, who also wrote the brilliant <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hopper-Mark-Strand/dp/0375709711"><i>Hopper</i></a>. As I was paying, I interviewed the stocky woman behind the counter. Dark hair spilled out from the bun it had been pulled into atop her head above blue eyes. She had a big red nose, and her two front teeth had chiseled out of them an upside-down "V." <br /><br />"I guess," she hedged, "I would qualify it with I don't really know. Do you mean isolated from each other or more just sort of interior? Because I think that there may be some of that here because of weather. And so you can have a sort of heavy inner-life. But I don't necessarily think that they're isolated. There's this stereotype about Minnesota says the opposite, which is like they're the most over-friendly nice people in America. So I would tend towards that being more true than isolated. But I think that also these are different times. It's changed [since 9/11]; there's more of a sense of community now. I guess that you do see people who live very isolated lives. I drive past the White Castle on my street, and it's like a Hopper painting. You know, it's like an old man at every table.<br /><br />"There is a community of writers," she put forth, "that are very social, that are very connected. But there is also many writers who work in total isolation because they can't become a part of that community. Because, as welcoming as that community tries to be, there is a certain type of writer, type of writing, type of interaction and personality, that a community attracts. And if you fall outside of that community, you'll still feel isolated. And some of the better creative minds, I think, are part of that outsider contingent. But it's always hard to get to know who they are because the money and the grants and the coverage and the publishing and everything goes to the known writers. I find that a little tiring. I think that some of the better creative work actually happens in isolation."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenZ7cBVykVsN0vKhQvN9kRQxpmmyaHsrhZ-q_gSlx18JEgGyIz8YdN210U1z8j0FW7ZN6o20SsREZknHU6PM8hyBv2940E0JP9uhtk4FaPSs9oDhNzcH-4T-pOZvpac9BNq8gPqdEVQ/s1600-h/Corn+Belt+City.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 114px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphenZ7cBVykVsN0vKhQvN9kRQxpmmyaHsrhZ-q_gSlx18JEgGyIz8YdN210U1z8j0FW7ZN6o20SsREZknHU6PM8hyBv2940E0JP9uhtk4FaPSs9oDhNzcH-4T-pOZvpac9BNq8gPqdEVQ/s200/Corn+Belt+City.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329829281636601858" border="0" /></a><p align ="center">[Hopper's <i>Corn Belt City</i>]</p>Like writers, coffee houses, art museums, and "nice" people, Minneapolis also as a bevy of old Hopperesque diners. Many had Hopperesque names. The Ideal Diner, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UvJGeRATJ5Hp52-vDAiZ2HwR5Bt0X9BXynlXPxEUVPzDC2Cyc7QcMxc1c5Evx0hyphenhyphenBfPDQwlG9LREIcXsXYu7oZtKkNaDfNwzKY0RAysleAWKf2H9MchYpSx-zm28Yl4EtBxczzx5xw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+diner+Ideal.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1UvJGeRATJ5Hp52-vDAiZ2HwR5Bt0X9BXynlXPxEUVPzDC2Cyc7QcMxc1c5Evx0hyphenhyphenBfPDQwlG9LREIcXsXYu7oZtKkNaDfNwzKY0RAysleAWKf2H9MchYpSx-zm28Yl4EtBxczzx5xw/s200/Minneapolis+diner+Ideal.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329829632745619362" border="0" /></a> or The Modern Café. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF79EHJb4U77OrzJG_-SvTr-R2wrJB8fhzmw3zlvL_siuyVdO6n1Gy4sqKU-4KwZsHTuZuRDMf1DYfTPp_X-br_R6glNSlkGlpn1-_mheVITGfHbWGPMIUT-u0i5CHLhw3ujJaIztBAA/s1600-h/Minneapolis+diner+Modern+day.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF79EHJb4U77OrzJG_-SvTr-R2wrJB8fhzmw3zlvL_siuyVdO6n1Gy4sqKU-4KwZsHTuZuRDMf1DYfTPp_X-br_R6glNSlkGlpn1-_mheVITGfHbWGPMIUT-u0i5CHLhw3ujJaIztBAA/s200/Minneapolis+diner+Modern+day.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5329833359540301858" border="0" /></a> I chose the generically named The Diner. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTc6p9A7l330au0wVP4bJEzw_Xr7maDhkb5w__maXgmMcmDKopCQesgXtmXLqP1MSKijtzbwH7okII2YsgJtUKNFVxAGaDcK-hMsYB3ooQsJYejnm5sirVplFb_0wAMwVIFO8MC7D2EQ/s1600-h/Minneapolis+diner+THE.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTc6p9A7l330au0wVP4bJEzw_Xr7maDhkb5w__maXgmMcmDKopCQesgXtmXLqP1MSKijtzbwH7okII2YsgJtUKNFVxAGaDcK-hMsYB3ooQsJYejnm5sirVplFb_0wAMwVIFO8MC7D2EQ/s200/Minneapolis+diner+THE.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330234315697452882" border="0" /></a> By the back door as I entered I spied a tile painted with a scene like <i>Nighthawks</i>, titled "The All-Night Diner." Inside, red Naugahyde stools on tin stands fronted the bar, and booths with wooden backs lined the walls. All the customers were lone men--smoking, bearded, bald, and wearing oil-stained sweatshirts, jackets, and hats. The older waitress, whose teenage granddaughter worked beside her, said she didn't think people in Minneapolis, were isolated from each other. "I can't tell you why I think that, but I just do." That was all I could cajole out of any of the nice people in there. <br /><br />One of Minneapolis's many theaters that the guy at Bob's had mentioned was in a bowling alley. Actually, several Hopper subjects co-existed at Bryant-Lake Bowl: behind the chic diner/bar was an eight-lane bowling alley with a little theater off to one side. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6KPxoDrw0NNdHJ69ctv0qoiKc29mUbZEP0t88XLQVKxm3tFyFVbJrPVkbEl6_tdugD1NYagOCOrS0acRkoBSZfwuc8d-gZYapAUpDqfCi9cqMyxi_lGX0dT3_6BkSDJX49gGvzmAwXQ/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Bryant+Lake+Bowl.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6KPxoDrw0NNdHJ69ctv0qoiKc29mUbZEP0t88XLQVKxm3tFyFVbJrPVkbEl6_tdugD1NYagOCOrS0acRkoBSZfwuc8d-gZYapAUpDqfCi9cqMyxi_lGX0dT3_6BkSDJX49gGvzmAwXQ/s200/Minneapolis+Bryant+Lake+Bowl.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330236033279194546" border="0" /></a> This was a local institution. But, like several places touted as "local hangouts," it was more "local" than I cared for. When I entered, it was like a scene from a comedy where a stranger enters and the noise stops and all the locals turn critical gazes on the out-of-towner. Maybe the music didn't really stop when I entered, but every face did turn toward me. The only person who would talk to me was soliciting me to come in and see a comedy improv show. The show was titled <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4sGpZ7QHG7t_brrQSXkZS6lVx4Vx2DJ2o_5Uzs3ShMBA1dnpIXBOtrKYEpV46uI5kqThRMW7xDelK70t2noV-qOdD2NGcafrHS_oflG8eopcT-wHSdxGBUBbnZuK5nDNBAsEk5mK-zg/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Send+Help+crop.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4sGpZ7QHG7t_brrQSXkZS6lVx4Vx2DJ2o_5Uzs3ShMBA1dnpIXBOtrKYEpV46uI5kqThRMW7xDelK70t2noV-qOdD2NGcafrHS_oflG8eopcT-wHSdxGBUBbnZuK5nDNBAsEk5mK-zg/s200/Minneapolis+Send+Help+crop.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330236876904101938" border="0" /></a> "Send Help," and that's how I felt after trying to interview at such impenetrable in-crowd places.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqeVk2uPOzPMLQ4L2TkAvHYkxyk8vAOHB1LIre3ZeSdWQ47GSf7fOk3c4qA_zGAjwTYTg6ho2icnEkgGKkBlfhcJa3QtxFj8B5y7gXampTE9B0b3qfRHHP1UQIG3kOAOI4MEYKtFi88g/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Lee%27s+Liquor+sign.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqeVk2uPOzPMLQ4L2TkAvHYkxyk8vAOHB1LIre3ZeSdWQ47GSf7fOk3c4qA_zGAjwTYTg6ho2icnEkgGKkBlfhcJa3QtxFj8B5y7gXampTE9B0b3qfRHHP1UQIG3kOAOI4MEYKtFi88g/s200/Minneapolis+Lee%27s+Liquor+sign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330238089666414098" border="0" /></a><br />At another local spot, folks were a little friendlier. But that could have been because they wanted my vote. A political fund-raiser was being held at Lee's Liquor Lounge by a Napoleonic, boyish, man with a thick beard and hair that made him look like an Irish leprechaun. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFzf-wO0MXYm1YOPAVhaH7WMu2q-P6RH8KFAQr5uWP0cD2i0M8vGXnBgStx9rfSjUBwxYRGK_iRhhp7BrzK1HrTEGgHUoI8fgHJ4DM10SufGuDUR9HPn4YfxKAf4FT28ghdQ5rOE49Q/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Leprechaun.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIFzf-wO0MXYm1YOPAVhaH7WMu2q-P6RH8KFAQr5uWP0cD2i0M8vGXnBgStx9rfSjUBwxYRGK_iRhhp7BrzK1HrTEGgHUoI8fgHJ4DM10SufGuDUR9HPn4YfxKAf4FT28ghdQ5rOE49Q/s200/Minneapolis+Leprechaun.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330237796809303458" border="0" /></a> He was running for soil and water supervisor.<br /><br />Lee's Liquor Lounge had Naugahyde stools, yellowing foam ceiling tiles, yellow canned lighting, a huge Vikings flag on the wall, and a niche filled with Elvis memorabilia. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQakbNTVyqGC_liwv1NM9crABgJcjj13f81I6siEiltXi4nx00wn9Uy9-4klB_4pPTKCnJm7u3VajBrbnlvlWe_wz7Y3XsZtdEOuq2hOY_lhwL6MoTJL2y4rSK6Rip2iv8zsdXv5IpIw/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Lee%27s+Liquor.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQakbNTVyqGC_liwv1NM9crABgJcjj13f81I6siEiltXi4nx00wn9Uy9-4klB_4pPTKCnJm7u3VajBrbnlvlWe_wz7Y3XsZtdEOuq2hOY_lhwL6MoTJL2y4rSK6Rip2iv8zsdXv5IpIw/s200/Minneapolis+Lee%27s+Liquor.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330238235705003794" border="0" /></a> One of the women working the candidate's table was Abby, an urban studies major and Hopper fan. "I love Hopper," she roared, and then named and described several of his paintings. She wore a brown leather jacket over a shirt of a soft material swirled with mauve and lime. She had a round face, brown eyes, and brown hair swirled around her head with an extra curl at the base of her neck as if she had not cut it in a long time. "I also love Tom Waits, and there's a definite connection between their two arts. <br /><br />"In the winter," Abby downed her drink and shrieked, "downtown Minneapolis <i>is</i> a Hopper painting. Minneapolis has the largest skyway system in the U.S. and is really known for it. You can live, eat, work and shop without going outside."<br /><br />I mentioned that Des Moines claimed to have the largest, and she said, "Well, Minneapolis is really known for it." <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbp44D1WZFBHADoyxuD8QRJdMCXGlGkj4zWP4Gq0hMxS4fPZE54lZOvfE8z0L_URFXvXDvg-FxvYqsvJil5h21F9Ei-jsgAlACHFbP6Cfs6t66ZdVXvyK8dTC5zQaSQVX7x2ecS4sng/s1600-h/Minneapolis+Museum+of+Questionable+Devices.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 190px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTbp44D1WZFBHADoyxuD8QRJdMCXGlGkj4zWP4Gq0hMxS4fPZE54lZOvfE8z0L_URFXvXDvg-FxvYqsvJil5h21F9Ei-jsgAlACHFbP6Cfs6t66ZdVXvyK8dTC5zQaSQVX7x2ecS4sng/s200/Minneapolis+Museum+of+Questionable+Devices.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5330238617781587474" border="0" /></a><br />I was eager to visit the Museum of Questionable Medical Devices to get the bumps on my head read in the neighborhood of St. Anthony Main (also called St. Anthony Falls). I also read that there were unbelievable "curing" devices and a real fun owner who had been on David Letterman and other talk shows. But when I went to the new address, the building was locked. I went to three restaurants nearby asking direction. No one knew where the museum was. I renamed it the Museum of Questionable Location.<br /><br />At one bar, I finally was told that it was no longer in business. Maybe as a consolation to myself for the fruitless search, I asked the waitress for an interview.<br /><br />"As long as it won't take really long," she rolled her eyes. <br /><br />She was, like everyone I met here, willing enough to be interviewed. But because of "Minnesota nice," I couldn't help but worry as I left if they weren't thinking, "Asshole."</span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-6159336161961247132009-06-09T00:01:00.010-05:002009-06-09T00:01:01.609-05:00269 Lynchburg, VA: Mrs. Scott's House<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><p align="center"><a href="http://www.lynchburgonline.com/">Lynchburg, Virginia</a>: <i>Mrs. Scott's House</i></p>Mrs. Scott's House in Lynchburg has two blocky, wood-sided floors topped by a gable. Ornate iron railwork lines the porch whose floor, ceiling, and sides are otherwise wooden. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvzTSGSmKTA14CBG7l6H-qqTulaIKMygNdwpJ_G6mOFVlavoYuscvcrnGww0M3wsrgldJHu-6Cx0Z7MJ_N4z7Rg5tf7uD4a3pJFQH59w5iZImrw1DoqDJOvlQWMFQvfVMkeSwWznhBw/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+Mrs+Scott%27s+House2.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvzTSGSmKTA14CBG7l6H-qqTulaIKMygNdwpJ_G6mOFVlavoYuscvcrnGww0M3wsrgldJHu-6Cx0Z7MJ_N4z7Rg5tf7uD4a3pJFQH59w5iZImrw1DoqDJOvlQWMFQvfVMkeSwWznhBw/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+Mrs+Scott%27s+House2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308698934076863890" border="0" /></a> A Mrs. Scott lived there, but it's not <i>called</i> Mrs. Scott's House. <br /><br />Mrs. Scott's House in Lynchburg is a modest, beige, stucco-sided house with a quaint dormer over the front door. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmGR4_g-2G5n4x0XZuKtWn_WXeqlRLoAI0vmzULgSazDE54krWWZ8cy8UH-6uQArKj-q2DMbNtPZyj_PhwIWCD4ifFcR5zzi_Ds7OXLNCBffh8BKebb8cuoavFgKI3CjFklMgRFLFC_w/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+Mrs+Scott%27s+House1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmGR4_g-2G5n4x0XZuKtWn_WXeqlRLoAI0vmzULgSazDE54krWWZ8cy8UH-6uQArKj-q2DMbNtPZyj_PhwIWCD4ifFcR5zzi_Ds7OXLNCBffh8BKebb8cuoavFgKI3CjFklMgRFLFC_w/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+Mrs+Scott%27s+House1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308698866502503810" border="0" /></a> It was built in 1887 for a founder of an early Lynchburg telephone company. It is actually called just "The Scott House." <br /><br /><i>Mrs. Scott's House</i> in Lynchburg is a couple of gray, barn-like buildings connected by a one-story hallway and topped by a red roof with two chimneys. It is actually called <i>Mrs. Scott's House</i>, and it exists only in Edward Hopper's painting here, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKHMtN1OwdZPQj4egwRc4G1Z1pyAdDM9FYgzOdjAGcVKdReDWl2YHQSTMlY5K2Lgk12InDLJvVgm-VMqiWJnqxTG9828bk-BrrntFXRkQ-91dqrHgedaoQyODqRm86OGweGFOoSnQ-A/s1600-h/Mrs+Scott%27s+House.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKHMtN1OwdZPQj4egwRc4G1Z1pyAdDM9FYgzOdjAGcVKdReDWl2YHQSTMlY5K2Lgk12InDLJvVgm-VMqiWJnqxTG9828bk-BrrntFXRkQ-91dqrHgedaoQyODqRm86OGweGFOoSnQ-A/s200/Mrs+Scott%27s+House.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308699399395314002" border="0" /></a> which hung at <a href="http://www.randolphcollege.edu/x44.xml">Randolph Macon Women's College (RMWC)</a> in a museum called the Maier, which locals pronounced like a female horse. <br /><br />In the painting, bright yellow-green grass angles up a valley between hills topped in salmony seagrass and sunlit buildings. At back, beneath a watery blue sky, white clouds hug the dusky horizon above a set of darkening hills. Jo wrote of the painting, "We feel <i>Mrs. Scott's House</i> is among the 15 or so finest canvases of E. H. ... Late Sept., tall grasses changing colors--pink in light. Hills roll for dear life! … Glorious! ... No weeds grow on Cape Cod, everything that comes out of the ground is beautiful. The house, kept in good repair, is old, it is quite humble, as is the best of this Cape (to our point of view) & doubtlessly built by the people who fished or sailed on its seas, but it is no proud Captain's house." <br /><br />I asked my question of the only other person in front of the painting, an African American woman with crisp, graying black hair combed straight back over double loop earrings. Gold glasses rested on her flat nose in front of intense brown eyes. Out of her black shirt extended graceful arms dotted with liver spots and small pock marks.<br /><br />"To me," she answered, "I don't see isolation in these pictures. To me, I see privacy. Because to be isolated, I don't think they would be near a beach. Because peoples gonna come to a beach."<br /><br />About people in Lynchburg, she ventured, "I don't think they're isolated from one another. We all just a sweet little retirement place. Especially since all our big job places like GE and Lynchburg Foundry, all of those is gone. We don't have a lot of active social life, but we do socialize. It's just not a formal thing; you have gatherings. I've got all my family to my house. And my family and me will go to maybe a friend's house, coworker's house, church member's house. <br /><br />"The only social thing that we have is the clubs, though the Piedmont Club just closed. But we still have the Oakwood Country Club." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMShQ86sz9E-YK-xwxDO7PZ4T_O-pZWjaWsW-ylh1SKtmh2sFV4Z8lp0eFMEsQ2lVPQIqg3hpYhZEoLY-c3yOuQSRyk1k7qOIHxFRnI2qy6C-CcEHFPzKBgKhjE6NJ2kWcLrQzPFRzAA/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+oakwood.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMShQ86sz9E-YK-xwxDO7PZ4T_O-pZWjaWsW-ylh1SKtmh2sFV4Z8lp0eFMEsQ2lVPQIqg3hpYhZEoLY-c3yOuQSRyk1k7qOIHxFRnI2qy6C-CcEHFPzKBgKhjE6NJ2kWcLrQzPFRzAA/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+oakwood.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308704148320225106" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"Are they country clubs or social clubs?" I clarified.<br /><br />"Private country clubs. They have, during the year, what they call a Night of Elegance. They sell tickets, and you can get all dressed up. We have what they call Friday Cheers. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj016521ImZzhpzt1ZAicrw4OZyX0ymRcTCb_hauij5XTY0B31ZcTBZVqBxw9_HnYo8NrY9H9U4WLGwanUMdCaGf3U8oH2KcBcCvf8k8MhmnmtFMQs0HeG-PvUr2UxmODEcYeivCuk2wg/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+Friday+Cheers.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 191px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj016521ImZzhpzt1ZAicrw4OZyX0ymRcTCb_hauij5XTY0B31ZcTBZVqBxw9_HnYo8NrY9H9U4WLGwanUMdCaGf3U8oH2KcBcCvf8k8MhmnmtFMQs0HeG-PvUr2UxmODEcYeivCuk2wg/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+Friday+Cheers.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308705909054143698" border="0" /></a> Every Friday night, you go to the community market downtown and you socialize down there. We have what we call the Bateaux [a boat race] is getting ready to start out at Bateaux Landing." <br /><br />"What about the African American and white communities?" I asked. <br /><br />"As a whole, we do pretty good together," she said. "We work together, we dine together. The students do pretty good. Its, you know, a little biased. As a matter of fact, my grandson played with the City of Lynchburg Little League, and it's two teams. That has always been segregated. But we live with that. We got our team, and we always beat them. It's bad, but not as bad as it could be. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHt1Hw-61SIrcszzY8S0-ecvCvBa3HjBCnoWiKyhGK2nWPOcAt7Cr0DdgfLsFSe03KwgdDJPZI4kmjyl1RpR5W1DnglrnKbiowuR4ZWF8XvTluxQZQuENbgND4YBfZDN4A4Mx_nEixg/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+race-racism.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggHt1Hw-61SIrcszzY8S0-ecvCvBa3HjBCnoWiKyhGK2nWPOcAt7Cr0DdgfLsFSe03KwgdDJPZI4kmjyl1RpR5W1DnglrnKbiowuR4ZWF8XvTluxQZQuENbgND4YBfZDN4A4Mx_nEixg/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+race-racism.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308707769287727778" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"I," she continued, "as a fact do not see color, but that's the way my mom raised me. My uncle worked on the neighboring farm. I grew up with white kids. I didn't know they were white. They didn't know I was black. I didn't know that they were rich. They didn't know that I was poor, you know. And so that's the way I grew up. <br /><br />"My children was raised not to see color. Like I said, I do love people. But I was always a child of God. I'm not quoting 'what would Jesus do?' I hate that statement. But as the Bible teaches, you're supposed to love your neighbors. And if you don't love yourself, we know you don't love your neighbor, and if you don't love your neighbor then you don't love yourself. So you're back to love. <br /><br />"Most peoples know if you genuine. Most peoples know that you got love in your heart. And if you ain't got it, they're not going to mess with you. And my momma always taught us: 'I don't care how much money you have. If you've got good manners, that will get you further then anything in the world. You treat people the way they treat you.' And so this is why I got so much mouth, because if you talk to me I'm going to talk back to you. You see, you shouldn't have asked me."<br /><br />"No," I blurted, "I should have. I definitely should have."<br /><br />"The only isolation that I can really see," she reconsidered, "is in the churches. Each group has its own church. The churches are starting to intermingle now, and you might have maybe three or four families in a white church of maybe three or four hundred families. But it comes down to that: race. You know we haven't broke through the religious barrier yet. We haven't faced the fact that, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud-Amaury">if we all die and go to heaven, which one of us is going to leave if the other is there</a>?"<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWvBxXkCbaBJMqu8ZMu9ei6zx6QHW-ldvOKqirmBzQk2yJL9JlyKPGkNWvICyZWU68P7W7YwmGGWOpk1spTDGqYtmQ4MReze-Yq8qhwXw3tSm78WECkXhQ5O4brmWoYMbXdxqj4hsvaQ/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+Maier.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWvBxXkCbaBJMqu8ZMu9ei6zx6QHW-ldvOKqirmBzQk2yJL9JlyKPGkNWvICyZWU68P7W7YwmGGWOpk1spTDGqYtmQ4MReze-Yq8qhwXw3tSm78WECkXhQ5O4brmWoYMbXdxqj4hsvaQ/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+Maier.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308710611014367634" border="0" /></a><br />The Maier was a small museum and nearly deserted, so the statuesque woman behind the front reception desk listening to our conversation stepped forward when she heard my question about blacks and whites. Her long face was haloed by dozens of fine dreadlocks. <br /><br />"My husband is white," she informed me and primly clasped her hands in front of modest, full-length white blouse. "We don't have any problems. My in-laws are from up North. They're from the Tiffanys of New York. They treat me fine. And in Lynchburg, as we move around, should anyone have a problem, they don't face us with it. We don't hear a lot of remarks. I was raised Baptist, and my husband was raised Baptist. Actually, there are two or three churches that are inter-denominational, blacks and whites attend. We attend those churches. Because the children, they're all blacks <i>and</i> whites." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0r8pmVOB5V0CLQamlFBgevrb3KXGzooP_KehEelvA82paCt5O9AyOfKgFkCpH8NeiLwBPZ34mwYs8C9TZKnlmJpF-zMuhEDYLkHYgghYUgOlXWKFVGUvZKgyOiax-_wVTOshjm6TIeQ/s1600-h/Toledo,+OH+census+faces+half.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 140px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0r8pmVOB5V0CLQamlFBgevrb3KXGzooP_KehEelvA82paCt5O9AyOfKgFkCpH8NeiLwBPZ34mwYs8C9TZKnlmJpF-zMuhEDYLkHYgghYUgOlXWKFVGUvZKgyOiax-_wVTOshjm6TIeQ/s200/Toledo,+OH+census+faces+half.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308711107308240530" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcDBT3tyg_HPI6KJQXs329gj3dernxlyITGEQnVyJkQ7eVyGQZAAlQLUbH8jzHbRB_FNdnzPIobbKOkPMPRtalofo49RPur2384Yu1vQzhKHi83tksSo5H5M9GrqhhOY754fB4idnI35g/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+art+bunker+B%26W.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 145px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcDBT3tyg_HPI6KJQXs329gj3dernxlyITGEQnVyJkQ7eVyGQZAAlQLUbH8jzHbRB_FNdnzPIobbKOkPMPRtalofo49RPur2384Yu1vQzhKHi83tksSo5H5M9GrqhhOY754fB4idnI35g/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+art+bunker+B%26W.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340526356354423250" /></a><br />The National Gallery of Art constructed the Maier in 1952 to store its most valuable works in case of national emergency. I assumed that there was a bunker in the hill upon which it sat. One thing that I found in its vaults were the handwritten letters to the Maier from Jo Hopper. They were written on odd-colored pumpkin and green paper--faded to even odder colors. Given Ed and Jo's frugality, these might have been the cheapest in the stationery store--or even paper they scavenged for free. Jo wrote the museum, "That foreground of tall grass would wring the heart of anyone who feels strongly about this Indian part of the Cape." Added in tiny script at the bottom of the page was, "Quite on my own I add - that picture surely is destined to outlive much of the dense fog of ignorance + arrogance that has ["come"] to gain ground in our day. You will do well to guard a relic of the spiritual, yet <u>unobtrusive</u> whose <u>value belongs to time + history</u>." On a separate line, she added, "You have a responsibility." And on another separate line for even further emphasis, she added, "And do not change frames."<br /><br />In another letter in the files, a Lynchburg woman described her run-in with Edward. "On one of my trips to Boston years ago I attended a Hopper exhibit at the Boston Museum. I do not remember the year. [It was probably 1950.] When I stopped in front of the painting <i>Mrs. Scott's House</i>, I found a man had pulled up a seat and was intently studying the painting. In typical Southern fashion I volunteered that <i>Mrs. Scott's House</i> was a favorite of mine from the collection at a college where I lived. The man replied, 'it is a favorite of mine too. I am Edward Hopper.'" <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv4g4LyRK6ONrWCrlAWObTrrVwAYIa-g6DHmbKOas50VGUl9QgnkB1D0Eim98KdixIUyCZ_-FJon0ciQgLMYWLODPGUn2QMwsw0ujmluADj1p2-xVfpw2l2qXt6IJCsFiDP8cK7Dl7sg/s1600-h/Hopper+in+studio+legs+sprawled.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 184px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv4g4LyRK6ONrWCrlAWObTrrVwAYIa-g6DHmbKOas50VGUl9QgnkB1D0Eim98KdixIUyCZ_-FJon0ciQgLMYWLODPGUn2QMwsw0ujmluADj1p2-xVfpw2l2qXt6IJCsFiDP8cK7Dl7sg/s200/Hopper+in+studio+legs+sprawled.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308712227397596482" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzCrNWdmTC00a3MtpbNd_EggKbW3DX5SLaiN8CLMEXDkIonlgm5Ez__cplC715jLqL9u-8z1fUmd4ltWiFdcbn8LRKuOT5lRRvO1-ugabuRaBY11Vg8CE1_CTaBDX5JtDVEaXLhKF1w/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+RMWC.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkzCrNWdmTC00a3MtpbNd_EggKbW3DX5SLaiN8CLMEXDkIonlgm5Ez__cplC715jLqL9u-8z1fUmd4ltWiFdcbn8LRKuOT5lRRvO1-ugabuRaBY11Vg8CE1_CTaBDX5JtDVEaXLhKF1w/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+RMWC.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308715433778699810" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.randolphcollege.edu/x44.xml">Randolph-Macon Women's College (RMWC)</a> was founded in 1891, when Randolph-Macon College in nearby Ashland refused to admit women. RMWC's most famous alumna might be Nobel Prize-winning author of <i>The Good Earth</i> Pearl S. Buck. She wrote, "We were very proud of our College. We still exulted when I was there in the knowledge that we were being taught what men were taught... We came out ready to use our heads and accustomed to work. I have always been glad of that." However, as a relic of her era, she is billed in school publications as "Mrs. Richard J. Walsh" (still better than her given name of Pearl Sydenstricker, with which she graduated in 1914).<br /><br />RMWC's total enrollment was a mere 721. Fewer than 1.5% of females attend women's colleges, but one-third of the female board members of Fortune 1000 companies, and one-fifth of the women serving in the U.S. Congress, are graduates of women's colleges. The 2002 Princeton Review Guide ranked RMWC 20th for "Beautiful Campus." The complex of 18 NeoGothic or Georgian Colonial buildings on 100 acres of lawns and groves overlooks the James River and commands a distant view of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Covered walkways dubbed "trolleys" connect the buildings. <br /><br />I stopped for some lunch at the café nearest the Maier. The place was full, but this worked in my favor, as I had to share a table and therefore had a handy interview subject. I sat beside a large, pleasant-looking young man, weighing about 250 pounds. He had red-skinned jowls, a scab on his upper lip, and short blond hair flipped up into a tiny curl in front. He wore a blue-and-white-striped shirt with three fancy pens in the pocket. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAc0iKEBRgKpdE9OdKALiukKkyBa3aTZwTSOHsFwpBGhPkY-FVvHL5GNuD7UwEIBAe1cENxiJonjb_Qaq_xmNnSabAXgfxAmOvnMN2YBVAHFjBcB-kzN4TWYuYMVXw90UXQpx0QeSMA/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+blue+stripes.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihAc0iKEBRgKpdE9OdKALiukKkyBa3aTZwTSOHsFwpBGhPkY-FVvHL5GNuD7UwEIBAe1cENxiJonjb_Qaq_xmNnSabAXgfxAmOvnMN2YBVAHFjBcB-kzN4TWYuYMVXw90UXQpx0QeSMA/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+blue+stripes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308725715326178386" border="0" /></a> He set aside his <i>Washington Post</i> and smiled through small lips as he began answering my question by explaining that he moved here because his wife got a job at a local hospital.<br /><br />"People here are definitely isolated," he affirmed. "In a socioeconomic way, where you know how much money people have. People will even refer to what zip code they live in here. 'Oh, you live in oh-three.' They feel like they know something about you that way. My wife really likes it here. She thinks everybody is open and they'll talk to you in the store for a long time (which they will)," he conceded. "But I'm more cynical. I think they're just more polite. But it's all like external. Well, there's southern hospitality here; they'll invite you in for a glass of iced tea. When we bought life insurance, it was from a neighbor's friend. That is how things are done here. Everybody here knows one another. Their families are related. They live near each other. They went to school together. People don't go out to dinner here. They entertain in their homes. That's not always a good thing. <br /><br />"Hopper's isolation is associated with big towns, but I think that small towns are getting more isolated as well. It used to be that a small town like Lynchburg would be a lot more friendly, but now," he shook his head, "everybody stays to themselves."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf0fUiuCxret0DNKKsJjsnO-8DM6kxvOMmKrIi_9yhz2TX0upsmZ_7oygLpOZxTBTwDRVY4LMbr0AvAHMjo4PaG7LkD61x51dAAD6diYftQq3l0E-i7eAwgkeMXlisjAIX2IzhtEGl9Q/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+dot+dress.bmp"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 125px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf0fUiuCxret0DNKKsJjsnO-8DM6kxvOMmKrIi_9yhz2TX0upsmZ_7oygLpOZxTBTwDRVY4LMbr0AvAHMjo4PaG7LkD61x51dAAD6diYftQq3l0E-i7eAwgkeMXlisjAIX2IzhtEGl9Q/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+dot+dress.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308725546093210434" border="0" /></a><br />In the bookstore next to the café, I asked the woman behind the information desk for a request she had never heard before: a recommendation who to interview. "Well, you could interview me," she said, sounding slightly offended. "I live here."<br /><br />She had bronzed, weathered skin and close-cropped dark hair highlighted with blonde curls, atop which rested her glasses. Her knee-length white dress was dotted with watermelon colors (black, red, and green).<br /><br />"I've lived here for 32 years," she barreled on. "I don't think it's isolated. There are a lot of people here networking and agencies that are responsible for different people. I'm not religious, but there are a lot of religious organizations in town that look after people and try to get their attention. When I moved here, I was really put off by everyone grabbing at me. I mean, that's the first thing people asked us when we moved to town: our church. And I said, 'Hold on there, cowboy. It's nice to meet you, but keep your hands off me.' Anyway, it's just interesting. I had never been in the South before for one thing. I wasn't used to small towns. Of course, we have a very big influence of the Christian right. Now, after <a href="http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-1285093371.html">Jerry Falwell</a>, it has grown. He was not here when we moved here. There are several factions, and the one which we adhere to is we are <i>not</i>," she said laughing, "fans of Jerry Falwell. A lot of people are against him."<br /><br />"If you are looking for RMWC students," she raised an eyebrow, "that lady working at the coffee shop just graduated last year." She pointed to a girl wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the Book Shoppe insignia: book pages in the form of a coffee cup with a wisp of yellow steam rising from the cup. Her hair was tucked under a green kerchief, and her nose looked like it had been broken.<br /><br />"I think I did a report on the Hopper painting for a Spanish class," the recent grad began, "and I think I wrote about the isolation. Students only know the town if they rent an apartment in it. All my time in school was spent on campus or here at the local strip of businesses. I'm just getting to know the city. I had this job, and my girlfriend's graduating next year. So I thought I'd stay for a year." <br /><br />"It seems," she went on, "like people [RMWC students] don't realize about the community that exists. People always make fun of it. Everyone has something that they don't like in the city. And most people don't like the city without really exploring it. It happens wherever you are. People will find something to complain about."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJ3vB4j6WyNd_UzSYBCre7scIghfKwbLsCCTKEpS9t3Odam7nhXUmz2aPO_J2-itFJgwXyohvbU8dtLscm0gZNhRDIXkAX6K0-EVPOpYur2TJbNoxSZPn5faQ1dsx2MUiTOD8Rp2VHg/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+skyline.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIJ3vB4j6WyNd_UzSYBCre7scIghfKwbLsCCTKEpS9t3Odam7nhXUmz2aPO_J2-itFJgwXyohvbU8dtLscm0gZNhRDIXkAX6K0-EVPOpYur2TJbNoxSZPn5faQ1dsx2MUiTOD8Rp2VHg/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+skyline.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308726161217780338" border="0" /></a><br />Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and bordered by the James River, this city of 65,000 was founded in 1757 when 17-year-old Quaker John Lynch established a ferry here. Lynch later renounced his Quaker membership in order to fight in the Revolutionary War. The city's early days were spent making millionaires of those who mined the local hills, and, by 1850, Lynchburg had the second highest per capita income of any city in the U.S.<br /><br />During the Civil War, Lynchburg was a Confederate transport hub. It was successfully defended in June 1864 but surrendered in April 1865 while serving as the capital of Virginia for the few days between the fall of Richmond and the fall of the Confederacy. (A local book shop had a section titled, "War For Southern Independence.") <br /><br />Afterwards, Lynchburg became an important tobacco market. (Lynch's renunciation of Quaker religion might have made him rich because Quakers could not own slaves, and tobacco growers needed slaves to work this labor-intensive crop.) In 1882, local James A. Bonsack revolutionized the tobacco industry by inventing a cigarette-making machine. By 1886, more than 30 million pounds of tobacco were marketed from Lynchburg. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-McyFrsJqZg9OeOfjAIy0kNnHwVFvaiPa9mdZYmOdWhw7PdMvbLOnbZC1IHCja3r4iiK_3Xp-u9zmAYvl7wN0SDw8tUBD0FeJ3Ad69RPqsbrTqrheytLoD2eSjrqPP0J9zljbIlDJg/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+tobacco.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 120px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg-McyFrsJqZg9OeOfjAIy0kNnHwVFvaiPa9mdZYmOdWhw7PdMvbLOnbZC1IHCja3r4iiK_3Xp-u9zmAYvl7wN0SDw8tUBD0FeJ3Ad69RPqsbrTqrheytLoD2eSjrqPP0J9zljbIlDJg/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+tobacco.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308727035388250898" border="0" /></a> <br /><br />Other local industries included the world's largest tannin extract plant, cotton, silk, and hosiery mills. In 1889, local pharmacist Charles Brown Fleet invented Fleet's Chap-Stick lip balm and the local company later developed the Fleet Enema and the first disposable douche. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGndLJW-j80yNqrNhs35vmNI9rTDN1pMaBadeS1EXjqGn9ShqGN0Iq0sAufYjb3Ewmk3jlaBkUs5w9kOMfd7B76FONyg1P2cRf6AP6gsStiiYatD2hKXoL-F4ljvnw1pjG8HxPoEYDg/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+Fleet+enema.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGndLJW-j80yNqrNhs35vmNI9rTDN1pMaBadeS1EXjqGn9ShqGN0Iq0sAufYjb3Ewmk3jlaBkUs5w9kOMfd7B76FONyg1P2cRf6AP6gsStiiYatD2hKXoL-F4ljvnw1pjG8HxPoEYDg/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+Fleet+enema.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308727381091631890" border="0" /></a> <br /><br />RMWC was out on the edge of town, in a section called Boonsboro, where still stood gargantuan old houses like Hopper painted. It was one of several such areas in town, and each constituted a historic district with a name ending in "hill," lending the town its nickname "City of Seven Hills." The hills isolated each neighborhood just as the house in Hopper's painting here sits on a hill that seems to float (isolated) between the hill in the foreground and the hill in the background. <br /><br />I started walking the cobbled side streets that traipse up and down the steep streets of downtown Lynchburg. Lynchburg was set out on a grid, but the many steep hills threw any regularity catterwhumpus. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-C2O9ouwKX0Dzgll6oCqGhdsvELPgIArFUoFNQkANSUEFswEou8f7bVtwfG8qPCeXM8caIl8LFuHqY06rNglUhgk2OEpsKEu6WbkM_M3qJ9zREQVjTLDwzSwY664DCVJjx6OglnIQMw/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+hills.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-C2O9ouwKX0Dzgll6oCqGhdsvELPgIArFUoFNQkANSUEFswEou8f7bVtwfG8qPCeXM8caIl8LFuHqY06rNglUhgk2OEpsKEu6WbkM_M3qJ9zREQVjTLDwzSwY664DCVJjx6OglnIQMw/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+hills.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308728419236498914" border="0" /></a> A sign on 12th Street right downtown said "watch for falling rocks." Downtown was virtually deserted. In a family-run jeweler, a clerk absentmindedly tapped her fingers on the display case. Slum sections turned up unexpectedly around the corner from treelined avenues. <br /><br />Around town, signs announced what the woman at the museum had told me: that the Bateaux Festival was going on. Before canals and railroads, tobacco was transported from here down to Richmond on fleets of bateaux, exceptionally flat boats designed for the James River’s low waters. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJW24CqPczXOC6byIkO4Af-4CXEYGGHkGRuchevNQLJmiVCJwxFb-pHBnqDD2F_xU78xGfeBjFbhfdjjn712sOD87m7jEzh36TqlfZVSMsL8H2fnNAhz7t60NCZZuEkxpPUmumaZJO_dc/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+Bateaux.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJW24CqPczXOC6byIkO4Af-4CXEYGGHkGRuchevNQLJmiVCJwxFb-pHBnqDD2F_xU78xGfeBjFbhfdjjn712sOD87m7jEzh36TqlfZVSMsL8H2fnNAhz7t60NCZZuEkxpPUmumaZJO_dc/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+Bateaux.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5342374591301778098" /></a> It took three husky slaves to propel the boat with long iron-shod poles and a large oar as rudder--six days down river and ten days up. The eight-day bateaux festival (called the River of Time) features authentic replicas and costumed crews poling from Lynchburg to Richmond, camping each night along the way. J. Canaday, in his article <i>Edward Hopper: American Realist</i>, noted that while in Paris Hopper liked to paint "<i>bateaux-mouches</i>, which still plied the Seine as a form of public transportation instead of serving as tourist sight-seeing boats as they now do."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFsS3674taxL2g2q6MtGup6arOKKaqYyhkD4EFaC4FybOBWBtbny1UzZQEMNvQKcU0cHmcR7B4K4HRNbZLCoT28nzEBD_AowjKmQZf0sTu5OfbYVunYI3wdcjBWun6fddu9PjPVbXz6Q/s1600-h/Lynchburg,+VA+DrowsyPoet1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 110px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFsS3674taxL2g2q6MtGup6arOKKaqYyhkD4EFaC4FybOBWBtbny1UzZQEMNvQKcU0cHmcR7B4K4HRNbZLCoT28nzEBD_AowjKmQZf0sTu5OfbYVunYI3wdcjBWun6fddu9PjPVbXz6Q/s200/Lynchburg,+VA+DrowsyPoet1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308731303397655042" border="0" /></a><br />Lynchburg was (as everybody I interviewed mentioned) notorious for being home to Jerry Falwell's headquarters and his Liberty University (LU). Down the hill from it, I found one of its graduates, the owner of the Drowsy Poet café. She had a long thin neck and short, copper-colored hair. Her fresh, freckled face held big brown eyes and a wry smile.<br /><br />"Me and my husband moved here from West Virginia. I wanted a master's. We went to Liberty, but I like to tell people that I did most of the work in West Virginia. Me and my husband went to Drowsy Poet as students. We moved away to see where we would move after school. Then the owners called and asked if we wanted to buy it. So we did."<br /><br />When I asked if people here were isolated, she jumped to answer, "Oh yes. In my café, I have seen that. If one person sits in the café, it draws a crowd. But if it stays empty, it stays empty. There are definitely seats you sit in if you want to be seen and approached, and seats you sit in if you don't want to be approached. The one you chose by the window, this is one you would be in if you <i>don't</i> want to be approached. I see people sit in here at the table you're at and look outside at people. People like to sit in that nook and watch everyone else, and they think no one can see them. They think, 'I'm invisible.' Nobody's invisible."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-3028702299086083952009-06-08T00:01:00.006-05:002009-06-10T10:43:58.174-05:00268 Richmond, VA: Traditions<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrvGRjbm0A-TryUFTK-ys057_QQPhtJrGWmbLD4-3BJiDFjLt6J7UEHBHC_DEGCzsm9h__QHLMd2-rn6mUEWcceyAZ5AamsQ0BRbVSHNpELSuqIGaOEle2mEwkLdjoS0CxoWBkNT16i2k/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Main+St+station.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrvGRjbm0A-TryUFTK-ys057_QQPhtJrGWmbLD4-3BJiDFjLt6J7UEHBHC_DEGCzsm9h__QHLMd2-rn6mUEWcceyAZ5AamsQ0BRbVSHNpELSuqIGaOEle2mEwkLdjoS0CxoWBkNT16i2k/s200/Richmond,+VA+Main+St+station.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340228899537510338" /></a><br />Richmond had long been a train hub; one of the first railroad lines in America was constructed here. The locals claim it's the only place in the world where three railroads intersect at one place, a place they call "Triple Train." <br /><br />Main Street Station was a train station Hopper would love. They built the highway around it, because it was so cherished of a landmark. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM1gIN1uIHU5ScyOa95AClHddEhJ3cUoerNHxPs9BWrFAvhHL9ZY7RSnjbn6kPtTOyTZnqbGLsZr1lO9Dr6MiNMYei-rOVuPTW3VOTg_WV9TfrbGh8VJ-GgjvT9LLePh3T89FPaHx8Nw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Main+St+station+hemmed+in.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM1gIN1uIHU5ScyOa95AClHddEhJ3cUoerNHxPs9BWrFAvhHL9ZY7RSnjbn6kPtTOyTZnqbGLsZr1lO9Dr6MiNMYei-rOVuPTW3VOTg_WV9TfrbGh8VJ-GgjvT9LLePh3T89FPaHx8Nw/s200/Richmond,+VA+Main+St+station+hemmed+in.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306868942654680226" border="0" /></a>} <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3KLQ3esa6ad7XcTUGQ_y1GAwZz1m3tmri39MdlrppA1CPfadMB3yytuUEXTOeDj8FGrfsmUi8oIO1RPoJadHmo51b69x02szv96rbm5G1PyRtt2c3JAfjwGXkPRxPnZJsB4FhtGuwpg/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Diner+River+City.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3KLQ3esa6ad7XcTUGQ_y1GAwZz1m3tmri39MdlrppA1CPfadMB3yytuUEXTOeDj8FGrfsmUi8oIO1RPoJadHmo51b69x02szv96rbm5G1PyRtt2c3JAfjwGXkPRxPnZJsB4FhtGuwpg/s200/Richmond,+VA+Diner+River+City.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308696015070345458" border="0" /></a><br />The nearby River City Diner had a façade of slick black marble and polished steel, and a menu that included fried apples. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-LCTPiEDNRu3PoUj43jqnzSlK5ytzO-eFkK-xIc1BTmGgo3-bnUWgwrWFm5OSw4vehOfP5W8Dlum-_3-ZLQ6bbQ0B9CwQ5ZWTDdCRaRiTZTuo2tllmuLhQY7XQDA4rw8WZmRmOrcTkA/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+fried+apples.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-LCTPiEDNRu3PoUj43jqnzSlK5ytzO-eFkK-xIc1BTmGgo3-bnUWgwrWFm5OSw4vehOfP5W8Dlum-_3-ZLQ6bbQ0B9CwQ5ZWTDdCRaRiTZTuo2tllmuLhQY7XQDA4rw8WZmRmOrcTkA/s200/Richmond,+VA+fried+apples.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308696862930189202" border="0" /></a> My waitress said it was a common breakfast food in these parts. She had reddish brown hair unevenly cut short above her shoulders, and blue eyes peered out from black-rimmed glasses that were chipped. <br /><br />She pointed to my backpack and papers spread out across the table. "Are you visiting?" she asked. I told her why I was in town.<br /><br />"The one with windows, right?" she double-checked about the Hopper. "At the Virginia Museum?" Then she answered, "I lived in other southern cities, and they are less isolated here than the other cities I've lived in. It's a really nice town. I'm sure people say that about everywhere. Everybody in their hometown is somewhat isolated, because they tend not to leave their hometowns."<br /><br />"Do I think I'm as isolated as other people?" she asked herself abruptly. "No, I don't think I'm isolated at all. I don't believe in it. Because I'm happy. I have people around me all the time. Friends. I just recently moved here. I was modeling in New York City."<br /><br />"You chose to come back?" I gagged. "That's a pretty glamorous gig."<br /><br />She said, "It's always glamorous if it happens in New York--until you work with a photographer. I need a place to start again. I like it here. It's comfortable. That doesn't necessarily mean I don't feel isolated. Richmond is kind of in between. We're not a big city: we're really not. But we're not really a small town either. A lot of people think bad about Southerners. But I've lived there with them, ya know. And people here are not isolated. Does that help?"The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-12277279928549060142009-06-07T00:01:00.006-05:002009-11-11T16:55:35.648-06:00267 Richmond, VA: Puddinhead's<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGoz6Nfe8NM4NsxtKMb80iKsC6ZhQqOjrWR_p3uF9yqlKPqF4ldHbA_oe11P6sUIt-BCXuBvv5xeVDRpTlbp1n_d_9D_zNKeBjVvvvENrq4JMwwmIsQXH31wrebxOoWB9qRJPonlNO9g/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Puddin%27+Head.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGoz6Nfe8NM4NsxtKMb80iKsC6ZhQqOjrWR_p3uF9yqlKPqF4ldHbA_oe11P6sUIt-BCXuBvv5xeVDRpTlbp1n_d_9D_zNKeBjVvvvENrq4JMwwmIsQXH31wrebxOoWB9qRJPonlNO9g/s200/Richmond,+VA+Puddin%27+Head.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308695756563198210" border="0" /></a><br />Over at <a href="http://www.richmond.com/local-life/11424">Puddin' Head Wilson's</a> coffeeshop, I interviewed a woman who had bobbed, frizzy brown hair just turning gray. She had brown eyes behind glasses, and a sharp nose and crooked teeth. She wore an open-collared, half-buttoned shirt, jeans, and tennis shoes. <br /><br />"People here," she confided, "probably would not say they're isolated, but if you came from outside, you would feel isolated. I've hired three people from elsewhere. One from Chicago, one from Philadelphia, one from Pennsylvania. And they all moved on because they couldn't penetrate the local social scene. It's very cliquey here. The one from New York she said, 'What's the deal here? You're the only person that'll hire me.' Everybody else is really kind of closed off. I don't get it either. It's like they're guarding something, but I'm not sure what it's protecting them from. I wouldn't describe it as isolated, but provincial, very provincial. We're not in the twenty-first century. That's cause they're looking more back than forward."</span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-48648865598934563512009-06-06T00:01:00.005-05:002009-06-06T00:01:00.958-05:00266 Richmond, VA: Shockoe Slip<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixb3e25YHIHzugujbdTnJTNrtgNbhGUJWB2cgAWMg5YZ1Lc3mytu6pYCdQuaaNWglqiX-Kata3H5Z_TndTVZewt18a3JUPM1uFk4lTEcoe4Aw7bv3Dl7QllfFR9KxuL3xeqaCdPb0Nug/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+constitution+on+wall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixb3e25YHIHzugujbdTnJTNrtgNbhGUJWB2cgAWMg5YZ1Lc3mytu6pYCdQuaaNWglqiX-Kata3H5Z_TndTVZewt18a3JUPM1uFk4lTEcoe4Aw7bv3Dl7QllfFR9KxuL3xeqaCdPb0Nug/s200/Richmond,+VA+constitution+on+wall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306869888540364578" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Virginia's Constitution on side of Richmond warehouse]</p>Over in the bar neighborhood of Shockoe Slip, the only things open were restaurants, and those were preparing to close before dark. Many buildings here were tall, old, brick warehouses on hills, so that I could see into the upper floors, just like in <i>House at Dusk</i>. In 1779, Virginia's capital moved from Williamsburg to Richmond, and lawmakers first met in a warehouse that was now a Shockoe Slip parking lot. Thomas Jefferson's state constitution now decorated the side of a warehouse on the parking lot. <br /><br />At a neighborhood coffee shop, I interviewed the young, wan waif behind the counter whose hair hung in fine blonde dreadlocks. Even on this summer day, she wore a heavy red shirt buttoned halfway down above her black skirt. She had a very slight nose, which might be why she kept pushing her glasses back up it.<br /><br />"Well I'm not the person to ask," she responded, accompanying her speech with gangly arm movements. "I'm paranoid. I don't trust anybody, and I isolate myself. I think that the different groups of people are isolated from the other groups. Like the 'west enders' as opposed to the 'Jackson Ward.' I think Richmond really wants to have its boroughs, like New York City. But the boroughs here are only like five blocks. But as far as being isolated as individually from other people, I don't know. I think now in the U.S. [after 9/11], a lot of people have been brought together. I think it's short-lived. People don't vote, and they should.<br /><br />"Personally," she continued, "I think we're really screwed up as a country compared to Europe. Or maybe we're not as screwed up, but people are trying to keep us that way. They try to fragment us, it seems. Who cares if you've got five piercings and green hair? It really doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't make an impact any more; some people are trying to tell you that you should be aghast at that or whatever. I don't know if it's the government or the older generation is trying to keep us in that isolated space when everyone's like, 'I don't care.'"<br /><br />On the bench out front I spied a wiry, light-skinned African American guy, with close-cropped hair and tiny ears. As he answered in a high, nasal voice, he shrugged a lot, tenting his black T-shirt adorned with the logo of a band call the Rah Bras, with the letters playfully topped with Slavic accent marks. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiadklNt8IcZUfI4cvAIjCww1b-gbjJonhuiQ892u5CnynJMa9QGunGL7KzzaUvyFL1j3fuhVChu0nEQzDp9W1KU42pXGtdSAPHCwxWW3TiQOjSvLAJaT8vf2L6S5zWoJg4amf1TZArg/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+rahbras1.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiadklNt8IcZUfI4cvAIjCww1b-gbjJonhuiQ892u5CnynJMa9QGunGL7KzzaUvyFL1j3fuhVChu0nEQzDp9W1KU42pXGtdSAPHCwxWW3TiQOjSvLAJaT8vf2L6S5zWoJg4amf1TZArg/s200/Richmond,+VA+rahbras1.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308694021204457634" border="0" /></a><br /><br />"I don't think so," he answered, looking askance, "It's just a small town. Hard to be isolated." After a pause, he asked himself, "What else can I say? It is definitely segregated. People hold on to their southern Civil War identity down here. There's more blacks than whites. And the city leadership and city council are all black. But when the Arthur Ashe monument went up in the early 1990s, there was still a lot of hullabaloo from the white people. They thought of Monument Row as a monument to the Confederacy.<br /><br />"People in their neighborhoods hang together. It's such a small city that they should be able to all know each other, but they don't. Maybe we should be more together, but you could say that about any city. It's a difficult question. You have any other questions?"<br /><br />"You have anything else to say?" I asked. <br /><br />"It's a small town, that's all," he laughed, but then mumbled, "It's too small for me."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-7041848784455534992009-06-05T00:01:00.006-05:002009-11-11T16:54:52.529-06:00265 Richmond, VA: Monument Avenue<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRBhYiZG0zspBi7OJzUE9X-GVp7IDg9b9Xw66nRcCReSH0tCRk32acqDB1LJWr74XJxqKMuvh7KbT0xeV7QO-5JbvlGtT5ALERxhOzV8EANgi-u8VRH2XlQ7KrRTjPkTLE43PWCOOsAQ/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+horse+dusk.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRBhYiZG0zspBi7OJzUE9X-GVp7IDg9b9Xw66nRcCReSH0tCRk32acqDB1LJWr74XJxqKMuvh7KbT0xeV7QO-5JbvlGtT5ALERxhOzV8EANgi-u8VRH2XlQ7KrRTjPkTLE43PWCOOsAQ/s200/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+horse+dusk.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306862899281467410" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Monument Avenue]</p>Called by many the most beautiful boulevard in the South, Richmond's Monument Avenue testifies to post-Civil War glorification of "The Lost Cause." This divided parkway with memorial statues in every green was lined by grand homes and apartment buildings. The Robert E. Lee monument was the most revered. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztbFgruL_APVpJ1qAk1GjtWAYc9kmOGAbGeZgCvftXfo_6qAzCYgvzVNp25-yyH67z0UNT1ZdYmZuTd4FxF84q-Wxo2JoGuLVYw39nd7Yn4dIt5pyOdhCZDJ5DryME1zlQMIvrv8ncg/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+Robert+E+lee.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhztbFgruL_APVpJ1qAk1GjtWAYc9kmOGAbGeZgCvftXfo_6qAzCYgvzVNp25-yyH67z0UNT1ZdYmZuTd4FxF84q-Wxo2JoGuLVYw39nd7Yn4dIt5pyOdhCZDJ5DryME1zlQMIvrv8ncg/s200/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+Robert+E+lee.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306863430118709442" border="0" /></a> The "Stonewall" Jackson statue was the first, funded by "English admirers." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzd6gUi3QakHh9e6k50mm0Pgi7VaJdcWCdPNRVfCn8TzDUBKQVYrBuWNxybTGHHUc0QpnOm8g8WuIyM4pE0zU_05WyIcRuwUHo96MrW9KWtWIjKIDCx5FPESJBWSziyXRWcIuhmiWug/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+Stonewall.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLzd6gUi3QakHh9e6k50mm0Pgi7VaJdcWCdPNRVfCn8TzDUBKQVYrBuWNxybTGHHUc0QpnOm8g8WuIyM4pE0zU_05WyIcRuwUHo96MrW9KWtWIjKIDCx5FPESJBWSziyXRWcIuhmiWug/s200/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+Stonewall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306863770695238162" border="0" /></a> And perhaps the most unusual was to Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill, who was buried under his statue in the middle of a busy intersection. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwJlCdVJOc7oLDdnGrQduJVVSbc4Ip0eoMik2aVMAIihfmCXeDgtd6dPkqDJbP7LeuiLQBqjEJfP6A_Vz8-U9yYvwfAGtpRstSInSImWgqxyM_iRwtSM-i-7QjJFD_bR2_7ayC41sKw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+Hill.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 143px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkwJlCdVJOc7oLDdnGrQduJVVSbc4Ip0eoMik2aVMAIihfmCXeDgtd6dPkqDJbP7LeuiLQBqjEJfP6A_Vz8-U9yYvwfAGtpRstSInSImWgqxyM_iRwtSM-i-7QjJFD_bR2_7ayC41sKw/s200/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+Hill.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306864125334128354" border="0" /></a> Confederate memorials ended in 1929. In 1995 the Arthur Ashe statue was approved, to much controversy. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYS8n4UZrxszbeZ8_uMAyEedWOLxNjG0KNtRy5-QMZsoDSqTo_aRRe-9Pon3Pok6-YVyyrG4UC2KdF1GLbNuYcuhyphenhyphenj4BxgSc5-AOpoZeDHjyrrefKBVHw2t3k-HW-koms9G1wxQijalQ/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+arthurashe.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYS8n4UZrxszbeZ8_uMAyEedWOLxNjG0KNtRy5-QMZsoDSqTo_aRRe-9Pon3Pok6-YVyyrG4UC2KdF1GLbNuYcuhyphenhyphenj4BxgSc5-AOpoZeDHjyrrefKBVHw2t3k-HW-koms9G1wxQijalQ/s200/Richmond,+VA+Monument+Ave+arthurashe.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306864547173704450" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The only major monument in the city of Richmond dedicated to someone actually born here was over in the traditionally African American Jackson Ward district, where Bojangles (Bill Robinson) was born and donated a traffic light to help children cross the intersection. Also in Jackson Ward was the home of Maggie Walker, African American business woman and financier who developed a successful black-controlled bank, insurance company, and newspaper. <br /><br />A non-Confederate memorial NOT on Monument Avenue was to adopted local son Edgar Allan Poe. The Edgar Allan Poe Museum was housed in the oldest surviving structure in Richmond. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgszSSgdT6X165xd0DfDrIXOjslMsVQ86eDjp9qdjhYt1eNkRMxhXEqgJkH2WlaVsc_3YN6TwTELZL6boHXlGtSLHtp-b3jTToN1p7RG-66P-czygGrqXLG1krmJaQcZv_Ve6haORS-2A/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Poe-Museum.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgszSSgdT6X165xd0DfDrIXOjslMsVQ86eDjp9qdjhYt1eNkRMxhXEqgJkH2WlaVsc_3YN6TwTELZL6boHXlGtSLHtp-b3jTToN1p7RG-66P-czygGrqXLG1krmJaQcZv_Ve6haORS-2A/s200/Richmond,+VA+Poe-Museum.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332391003714366354" /></a> Poe's parents, both actors, married in Richmond while on tour here in 1806 and while again in Richmond in 1811, Elizabeth Arnold Poe died. Edgar was adopted by the local Allan family, and Poe adopted their middle name as his. Poe always considered himself a Virginian, and he returned here to edit the <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i> and to court Elmira Shelton. Richmond was also home to Jane Craig, his muse 'Helen.' <br /><br />The Richmond Theatre where Edgar Poe's mother had performed burned to the ground on December 26, 1811, only eighteen days after her death. The fire took the lives of many Richmonders including the Governor of Virginia. On that same spot was put up as a memorial to the people who died in that fire: the Monumental Church, which was exactly that, looming up over the streetscape from a rise on a hill. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1BqwHhOogAOSSZvXVSoSr8sKYnyancxLT3khS8pmJtPOU5ktOrXovaIrIIPowwzgK6LYXnqhplPebT6u9IOYEH0TsrzDtksd0qfrBi9ukU5EdsgtMc_-1-nBOdQbLyBLGG8g0c1DXQ/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Monumental+Church.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 137px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir1BqwHhOogAOSSZvXVSoSr8sKYnyancxLT3khS8pmJtPOU5ktOrXovaIrIIPowwzgK6LYXnqhplPebT6u9IOYEH0TsrzDtksd0qfrBi9ukU5EdsgtMc_-1-nBOdQbLyBLGG8g0c1DXQ/s200/Richmond,+VA+Monumental+Church.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306866015356101250" border="0" /></a> It must have been intimidating to young Edgar Allan Poe when he went there. Perhaps it influenced his stories knowing that many of the victims' remains were buried in a vault under the church. Poe's American Gothic stories seem the literary equivalent of Hopper's images. One could easily imagine the house in Hopper's <i>House by the Railroad</i> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1RXYlZ9RxYl1IzopLifdCa-Va-gMeb3SnH9guiLqtiAxE0UqgfauTtEwBPtHuQ2MmAfQoniyOZK_jREcQCq-Owq3TJIROF8A1GAqlBiZjfqgAN9sEKKYZlDorBjU978axh9ZYKbRhrg/s1600-h/House+by+railroad.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1RXYlZ9RxYl1IzopLifdCa-Va-gMeb3SnH9guiLqtiAxE0UqgfauTtEwBPtHuQ2MmAfQoniyOZK_jREcQCq-Owq3TJIROF8A1GAqlBiZjfqgAN9sEKKYZlDorBjU978axh9ZYKbRhrg/s200/House+by+railroad.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306787438994117602" border="0" /></a> as containing a man buried alive in a vault (as in Poe's "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XTmWag6wfw">Cask of Amontillado</a>") or (as in Poe's "<a href="http://www.online-literature.com/poe/31/">Fall of the House of Usher</a>") crumbling to the ground with its morbidly self-involved inhabitants trapped inside, another type of "dusk" falling on a house.</span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-18729104465509746032009-06-04T00:01:00.004-05:002009-11-11T16:53:57.336-06:00264 Richmond, VA: Nun-such<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6IU45PoNo748mEMdY1XRiKzDLxK-K8lql2hXkCKL60U77YZTQw5mmmoOe424qUsH9rCsqHijJaieWNYDAjQnxcwSFIZzvTMat9LWOUUGeTdjQox-djd_3cv29YTFlcw3rpBn3IbjP_Q/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+skyline+w+trains.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6IU45PoNo748mEMdY1XRiKzDLxK-K8lql2hXkCKL60U77YZTQw5mmmoOe424qUsH9rCsqHijJaieWNYDAjQnxcwSFIZzvTMat9LWOUUGeTdjQox-djd_3cv29YTFlcw3rpBn3IbjP_Q/s200/Richmond,+VA+skyline+w+trains.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306850883354797506" border="0" /></a><br />There was "no place so strong, so pleasant and delightful in Virginia, for which we called it Nun-such." So wrote Captain John Smith about the site he chose in 1609 when he established the first English settlement near the falls of the James River. This was to grow into Richmond, named for Richmond-upon-Thames, now a borough of London. This Richmond became the capitol of Virginia and was once capitol of the Confederacy. <br /><br />The White House of the Confederacy (now part of the Confederacy Museum) was a four-story, Greek-style house that now housed the largest collection of Confederate artifacts in the world, such as Robert E. Lee's sword, the Confederacy's constitution, and Stonewall Jackson's stuffed and mounted horse. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOO-cAaa0P6z2jn1pVA-7kE9_qfgxJee1sv32VilsU7x2OhROVOxbYM6s0zZs_xvbcPz9zhRNCpdVmfymALAwSgC7y5QTrkrTAdSi9JH2VfPZWF5QF-mTxQiYPXSToRpPd2fyot8Ppw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Confederacy+white+house.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 122px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeOO-cAaa0P6z2jn1pVA-7kE9_qfgxJee1sv32VilsU7x2OhROVOxbYM6s0zZs_xvbcPz9zhRNCpdVmfymALAwSgC7y5QTrkrTAdSi9JH2VfPZWF5QF-mTxQiYPXSToRpPd2fyot8Ppw/s200/Richmond,+VA+Confederacy+white+house.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306851807718168802" border="0" /></a> Confederate General Robert E. Lee came to this house (war-time home of his family) after surrendering. One of the most famous photographs of Lee was made here on the back porch after portraitist (and one of Hopper's favorite photographers) <a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/preview/lessons/brady/samples/bheather.html">Matthew Brady</a> persuaded the general to pose. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2TFCsmSoEtQsrH289M1hvm08Od5yvqjIBpJOlKHpPngYKFPkFoBHjdZ9ln57czxBD7kGDAMXtU9aIUsOInW3mkCPzEgSUWPOP4Jt9bBOAwxPjeDGx6yBRFudZJJxlpneU0EMIXamozw/s1600-h/Richmond+,VA++Robert_E_Lee_Brady_Photo.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 165px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2TFCsmSoEtQsrH289M1hvm08Od5yvqjIBpJOlKHpPngYKFPkFoBHjdZ9ln57czxBD7kGDAMXtU9aIUsOInW3mkCPzEgSUWPOP4Jt9bBOAwxPjeDGx6yBRFudZJJxlpneU0EMIXamozw/s200/Richmond+,VA++Robert_E_Lee_Brady_Photo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306851940541440210" border="0" /></a> The photo looks like it might have been taken at dusk, and the sun was certainly setting on that chapter of American history. <br /><br />St. Paul's Episcopal Church here <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimwSALIon9clPJ4AyeWfD2MBrphfbpGhpLChkpE8g0VNHmsVQcnyfPRhIY-MthdGUhr9EfWf-bzLiuw2JDWmtdzGx4yGGqaRqxbvSynxxGOiZBao0Aer79Xi0t66NMT6Jiv0_FIkNQeQ/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+St+Paul%27s.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimwSALIon9clPJ4AyeWfD2MBrphfbpGhpLChkpE8g0VNHmsVQcnyfPRhIY-MthdGUhr9EfWf-bzLiuw2JDWmtdzGx4yGGqaRqxbvSynxxGOiZBao0Aer79Xi0t66NMT6Jiv0_FIkNQeQ/s200/Richmond,+VA+St+Paul%27s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306852275874941218" border="0" /></a> was called the "Cathedral of the Confederacy" because of Lee's attendance (when in town) and Jefferson Davis's attendance regularly. While in Sunday services here, Davis received word that Lee's army had broken and that the Confederate government should evacuate. Ironically, 90 years earlier, Patrick Henry had delivered his "liberty or death" speech at nearby St. John's Episcopal Church. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTEAGF4J45J8c0nxOjNSrAU1RXZSIDjgMwR139XXk018S8iEcQESdiq0TOUYuBk16PGT8M0dDLvvsfWwWhtmpC7Fo08v1GeMxSn7AZjnm1vfhkcG8qCnD3OEMjmWbYPuYUCWYj3j28Sw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Patrick+Henry.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTEAGF4J45J8c0nxOjNSrAU1RXZSIDjgMwR139XXk018S8iEcQESdiq0TOUYuBk16PGT8M0dDLvvsfWwWhtmpC7Fo08v1GeMxSn7AZjnm1vfhkcG8qCnD3OEMjmWbYPuYUCWYj3j28Sw/s200/Richmond,+VA+Patrick+Henry.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306854120456591266" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZmkNDjP4mOqoTKuB-IbvD7r-AwqarH4VYc9PgKJ-XRzmjws5iNdu7b1_Qf22v6T8MTyVxOTKMn3RwtKvN32iqwqLnB-prMMOwfrAE8iAer9rXBWpTBhT5Oc0YgZlFjYnel12sINnZg/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+capitol.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZmkNDjP4mOqoTKuB-IbvD7r-AwqarH4VYc9PgKJ-XRzmjws5iNdu7b1_Qf22v6T8MTyVxOTKMn3RwtKvN32iqwqLnB-prMMOwfrAE8iAer9rXBWpTBhT5Oc0YgZlFjYnel12sINnZg/s200/Richmond,+VA+capitol.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306860818093786162" border="0" /></a><br />Richmond was still the state capitol, home to the oldest legislative body in the U.S. and the second-oldest in the Western Hemisphere. As I admired the Greek temple Capitol building designed by Jefferson, cars rolled by whose sides read "Virginia Capitol Police: established 1618." A Houdon statue in the Lobby is considered the most valuable piece of marble sculpture in the country, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvCkMbIktoEjYV-zgN2xpuZn7ZakNkomeZFQogMDDCJ_KoRBXWbyDHv56JlH-pLMOcvzcUgz9x3ODAPc-2CRhoWV8NQir-Tlid4bA8WrBA4nMcz9qi9DijNGX-7ScTSXHdeGkNaH9Pw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Houdon+statue.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvCkMbIktoEjYV-zgN2xpuZn7ZakNkomeZFQogMDDCJ_KoRBXWbyDHv56JlH-pLMOcvzcUgz9x3ODAPc-2CRhoWV8NQir-Tlid4bA8WrBA4nMcz9qi9DijNGX-7ScTSXHdeGkNaH9Pw/s200/Richmond,+VA+Houdon+statue.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306861239965975362" border="0" /></a><br />and is the city of Richmond's symbol and the main feature of the seal of the Confederate States of America because Jefferson Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy beneath it. From niches in the encircling wall of the lobby glare down busts of the seven Virginia-born Presidents of the United States--more than any other state.<br /><br />The neighboring governor's mansion could be in a Hopper painting. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFH1zF0b8H4kQbIgOEm_fk5O82M3z1HVacSIuIEkgVtAUjLMbFR29IJivGF8s5NVP8u0NLRE_atQiAh3xZ0pAb9YLAPFClAsYZ9a54FkSp5LDE5_CnRGXTqOE6bA9QS0dYt2BcpXwBw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Governor%27s+Mansion.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPFH1zF0b8H4kQbIgOEm_fk5O82M3z1HVacSIuIEkgVtAUjLMbFR29IJivGF8s5NVP8u0NLRE_atQiAh3xZ0pAb9YLAPFClAsYZ9a54FkSp5LDE5_CnRGXTqOE6bA9QS0dYt2BcpXwBw/s200/Richmond,+VA+Governor%27s+Mansion.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306862477025474562" border="0" /></a> So could the building across from the capitol--a magnificent gray Gothic Richardsonian Romanesque court building that reminded me of Hopper's <i>House by the Railroad</i>. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlk6xwrHqSN2nTFC4n2YEYZOfvtkSw4JvMO1iRl6HcJDb5W-ySY1-QMw3YPcc68bMAS9ZZ_67VY8DB9-Q_75l0jt0iXBSoWt0ILiTyYrOiU21slcG719j1rDm0xkSnhHDLiGtQY0ulkw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+ornate+bldg+%28City+Hall%29.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlk6xwrHqSN2nTFC4n2YEYZOfvtkSw4JvMO1iRl6HcJDb5W-ySY1-QMw3YPcc68bMAS9ZZ_67VY8DB9-Q_75l0jt0iXBSoWt0ILiTyYrOiU21slcG719j1rDm0xkSnhHDLiGtQY0ulkw/s200/Richmond,+VA+ornate+bldg+%28City+Hall%29.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306861493680594498" border="0" /></a></span>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-81567350141000567882009-06-03T00:01:00.009-05:002009-06-03T00:01:01.423-05:00263 Richmond, VA: Gospel Truth<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-legQqp5aUpQ9imyZz7w3dujXASx2PPqi7JZF0jYsor3sjRHa2b2EwR4xROak4RCnXrV69tJAA9Lvkel6Q9ZEMtXHcZ94wIDthMl87YQr5Ikj-Aen_bTJM8qykH-yzP2hJxHUqLsvPw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+beefy+jesus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-legQqp5aUpQ9imyZz7w3dujXASx2PPqi7JZF0jYsor3sjRHa2b2EwR4xROak4RCnXrV69tJAA9Lvkel6Q9ZEMtXHcZ94wIDthMl87YQr5Ikj-Aen_bTJM8qykH-yzP2hJxHUqLsvPw/s200/Richmond,+VA+beefy+jesus.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306846735516401970" border="0" /></a><br />In the artsy Carytown section, I geared up for sightseeing with a latte at a sidewalk café and interviewed one of its workers. Evan was tall and in his early 20s, with a serene face, blond hair pulled back behind bushy sideburns, and a close-cropped beard, and his sandals completed the effect of making him look like a taller, beefier Jesus.<br /><br />"They're definitely segregated," he answered my question, his blue eyes catching mine. "Coming from a Bible Belt town in Tennessee, I thought it'd be better because this is a little further north. But it's in fact a little worse."<br /><br />He sidled up and puffed his cigarette. I felt a parable coming on. "Ever heard of Oregon Hill? That's where I moved when I first moved here. It is predominately white; rebel flags in windows everywhere. But the other side is Hollywood Cemetery, where some of the dead presidents are buried and Confederate 'heroes,' so to speak: beautiful gravestones, beautiful cemetery. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8nl7hvhCmwyuFTjJOrWIMpOwyDFiQtJz66CBPCFxECFiOPn1LVzmRLYjzxml-Nqb0Ds0B9wsqyImVoGJTJcEo2zDMv9lpOH1Y4vyVSitqplUVcCEXHfeuWIr8wmdqfjh5wAytHt7NQ/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+Hollywood+cemetery1.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 182px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8nl7hvhCmwyuFTjJOrWIMpOwyDFiQtJz66CBPCFxECFiOPn1LVzmRLYjzxml-Nqb0Ds0B9wsqyImVoGJTJcEo2zDMv9lpOH1Y4vyVSitqplUVcCEXHfeuWIr8wmdqfjh5wAytHt7NQ/s200/Richmond,+VA+Hollywood+cemetery1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306847726865830226" border="0" /></a> Then on the other side of that, there's a barbed wire fence, and then there's this dirty, worn-down cemetery where there are a lot of black families buried. Then on the other side of <i>that</i> is Randolph, which is a predominately black community. That's sort of symbolic of the town. The past people are separating the present people. <br /><br />"Everyone knows it's still a problem, and there's people still fighting to have their rebel flags in their cars or in their workplace. A lot of people who had their family members in the Civil War want to remember their families, but they're possibly not doing it in the most positive way and the most beneficial way to everyone around them. On the other side of that, there's people arguing, 'this is ridiculous. Move on, son.' I mean, are you familiar with Monument Avenue?"<br /><br />"I read that the Arthur Ashe monument caused a furor here," I told him. <br /><br />"Yeah," he snorted. "It's the only one facing north. Even though that's kind of a saving grace of that street, it's still very obvious that it was an official thing to put up this monument. To make the street look a little better, less white."<br /><br />"People are not isolated because they're in communities, but the communities themselves are isolated from one another. In the Bible Belt where I came from, everybody's nice to each other. But even in that, there's a sense of artificiality. For me, the isolation I find in Richmond was the isolation I found in any big city, and I've been to London, Chicago, New York, Baltimore. The larger a city gets to be, the more isolated. It's just as isolated as any place is."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-47050778238645745582009-06-02T00:01:00.004-05:002009-06-02T00:01:00.710-05:00262 Richmond, VA: House at Dusk<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7ZyCm3AngS27hijtwPfFzretRkF7iX-WpL-Gue_75EIcoHGjPtF5WhVaqCKQf8rN04Z_5l-dgnc4eJY-WLoYAvCYxOhdLWPeB6ka3Z-2YmIKvpaggprVYi4x1DImvUCosKl6klztyg/s1600-h/House+At+Dusk.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 148px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW7ZyCm3AngS27hijtwPfFzretRkF7iX-WpL-Gue_75EIcoHGjPtF5WhVaqCKQf8rN04Z_5l-dgnc4eJY-WLoYAvCYxOhdLWPeB6ka3Z-2YmIKvpaggprVYi4x1DImvUCosKl6klztyg/s200/House+At+Dusk.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332375518339029394" /></a><p align="center"><a href="http://www.visitrichmondva.com/">Richmond, Virginia</a>: <i>House at Dusk</i></p>I got into Richmond late on a summer afternoon as the sun set. This was appropriate as I had come to see Hopper's painting titled <i>House at Dusk</i>. Painted in 1934, at the height of the Depression, perhaps the house of the U.S. seemed to be under a setting sun at that point. <i>House at Dusk</i>shows a dark-haired woman alone under bright yellow lamplight in a window on the top story of an anonymous building. A pale smoky blue dramatizes the gray stucco facade in dusk. The house is set against trees' shadows. It looks Magritte-like. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfD4bve9muJ9tD3dic4FdY0qGSZ8V0QqH4OXXWH2M53jxmpqdCtOBXAIHlFZyDIVn78Ofph-1zm2-c3j1vJ_OtIO9Q9G5nIdjV4-CIMzQQ7G80WTyUO8HePAR9jdWdgeRb5zifAcG6Qg/s1600-h/Richmond+,VA++Magritte+Sun.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfD4bve9muJ9tD3dic4FdY0qGSZ8V0QqH4OXXWH2M53jxmpqdCtOBXAIHlFZyDIVn78Ofph-1zm2-c3j1vJ_OtIO9Q9G5nIdjV4-CIMzQQ7G80WTyUO8HePAR9jdWdgeRb5zifAcG6Qg/s200/Richmond+,VA++Magritte+Sun.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306789093809536370" border="0" /></a> Wieland Schmied said, "It is interesting to compare [Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte's] <i>Realm of Lights</i> (1954)…. Hopper's picture seems more eerie because more real than Magritte's..." <br /><br />Hopper himself actually spent some time in Richmond. In early 1938, he was set to be in charge of a jury for the Virginia Museum, but he took sick right before. Jo wrote a letter to the museum's director, Tom Colt, who later helped acquire a Hopper for Dayton, Ohio's museum. Colt later wrote, "…the [Virginia museum] officials extended an invitation to him to stay at a local home, and someone sent the invitation through the Rehn Gallery. Rehn called and said, 'For heaven's sake, invite Mrs. Hopper. If she doesn't go, he doesn't go.'" Nevertheless, Edward traveled without Jo. Colt, who had met Jo in New York, wrote to assure her that he and his wife, "stood between [Hopper] and the southern beauties."<br /><br />A photo was taken of the jury, and Hopper claimed that he came out looking like a "a very gentle, harmless and much resigned old lady." In 1953, Hopper again served on a jury in Richmond. Richmond artists Jewett and Jean Campbell recalled that, at the museum party, "Edward was seated at a bench with Jo standing over him doing all the talking." Jo later wrote: "Life shared with E. H. has been a dull life, not withstanding Mexico, Richmond, the Corcoran & Carnegie...."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvj7hkksW8InF3O7Fuyp22GlZBGkjEVWy4d7iu91vOow189ISlpXuaz0qCBFE9UQMYB1Ov0ylWbfc8WefyQGf76_sK8XqDBJv8TEn4xXx4vXsh7wzLBO9EqRD3QMts0jiI3y6Du-6Ybw/s1600-h/Richmond,+VA+black+hand.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvj7hkksW8InF3O7Fuyp22GlZBGkjEVWy4d7iu91vOow189ISlpXuaz0qCBFE9UQMYB1Ov0ylWbfc8WefyQGf76_sK8XqDBJv8TEn4xXx4vXsh7wzLBO9EqRD3QMts0jiI3y6Du-6Ybw/s200/Richmond,+VA+black+hand.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306845812175156914" border="0" /></a><br />The museum was deserted during my visit, so I interviewed an African American museum guard about five-foot-nine, stocky, and good-natured. "You want to talk isolated," he deferentially ticked his head, "talk to her." He pointed to his co-worker, a short, wiry woman with starched black hair and a lengthy jawbone. "She sits in her car until it's time to work, then she punches in, then she punches out and drives away. She don't talk to nobody while she's working either."<br /><br />When I tried to include her in my interview, she put up her hand and walked away. <br /><br />"People here are not isolated," the man continued unabated. "We got too many get-togethers. People here will be driving down the street and beep at you if you're on your porch, even if they don't know you. They're isolated, the north from the south, because the James River runs between them. People from the south who go up to school in the north side, their bus has to take the highway. I live in the north side. North side of Richmond is the most crowded part of Richmond. It's too packed in. You can't be isolated. So you're from where?" he asked me.<br /><br />"Chicago."<br /><br />"It's easier to be alone there," he nodded.The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-69750475971696572522009-06-01T00:01:00.002-05:002009-06-01T00:01:01.438-05:00261 Norfolk, VA: Vanilla<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmFA7CWnp8TOvcrkQCY98ZkrjmWM9koLOkU8iUpFA8GkScu1k6oUnHU-0xaA_-Lfa6a-AUfdAJ6zp9WDxg-NL02vO57f6MvjdsTOgc67diu4wPgvogE7xHw2002KoHCbFvBU9JcyVDrY/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+segregation+drinking+fountain.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmFA7CWnp8TOvcrkQCY98ZkrjmWM9koLOkU8iUpFA8GkScu1k6oUnHU-0xaA_-Lfa6a-AUfdAJ6zp9WDxg-NL02vO57f6MvjdsTOgc67diu4wPgvogE7xHw2002KoHCbFvBU9JcyVDrY/s200/Norfolk,+VA+segregation+drinking+fountain.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335326300111021634" /></a><br />The woman from the bookstore had asked for my number and called me that night in my hotel room, as if she had something to tell me that she didn't want to say in public. She said that she lived in a somewhat successfully integrated neighborhood, but that the African American people behind her had trouble with the thought of her moving into her house. She said, "We live on one of the 'darker' streets in our neighborhood," and she said certain neighborhoods in Norfolk stay white or black because people will not put a "for sale" sign out, they'll just tell their friends, 'I'm thinking of selling my house.'" <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTHiefCwM1m5kI8tTBQx1Cx1hfsQTj7ipG2mXNjo8k4iSSRELJixYkSNBra2vhY0iyDgyE2olVxJNKU_Njat38P-B1ijJVNG4u41101cD-MAbTz61EQYAoudvhNrvXReBpaS3pvq0RA/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Charlie%27s.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTHiefCwM1m5kI8tTBQx1Cx1hfsQTj7ipG2mXNjo8k4iSSRELJixYkSNBra2vhY0iyDgyE2olVxJNKU_Njat38P-B1ijJVNG4u41101cD-MAbTz61EQYAoudvhNrvXReBpaS3pvq0RA/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Charlie%27s.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332090119280391250" /></a><br />Charlie's restaurant was recommended to me as one of the few successfully integrated restaurants. It was in the first floor of an old house and looked like it might once have been a grocery store (maybe Eugene's father's). The 20-foot-tall room looked like it was built to be ringed with shelves of goods. An old rusting grill behind the counter had a stack of skillets on a shelf underneath it and a cook in front of it who wore a floppy white tennis hat. He fluffed my omelet artfully in an old skillet, making circles over the high flame. As he cooked, he talked to me over the broad beefy back of his gray T-shirt. "There's not a lot of segregation in this restaurant," he redirected my question about segregation in Norfolk. When he turned around, I saw delicate eyelashes like a giraffe's and nearly pitch black eyes on his big cherubic face. "Ten years ago it was a lot more, when I started as a cook here. Part of that was because it was just a couple of older white people who owned it, and they had erratic hours and nobody could count on anything. I showed up on my first day with the old owners at 7:00, and nobody was there, and nobody came for a long time, so I went home. Then I got a call at 11:00 from them saying, 'we're here.' Once the new woman bought it, everything improved. Now it's got regular hours, and both blacks and whites come in. All kinds of people come into this restaurant. Black doctors and lawyers will also come in and sit down and have a meal."<br /><br />My experience when I was in there though was that most people came in, sat down, and stared straight ahead. One couple at a table did talk--to each other.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZy_dyqgYFx-woHMYPBJBSocG4pT1YTnnIVapm8eyu8B1yObO_G49aB1qgId-CAo2rgx8wW1-sKsrHK4hr7oZoFOZUTqeMqLdsroP3JVbzSNxGILIBCwJ0mCiUBErN4UA8Um3qBihIw/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Doumar%27s.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 162px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZy_dyqgYFx-woHMYPBJBSocG4pT1YTnnIVapm8eyu8B1yObO_G49aB1qgId-CAo2rgx8wW1-sKsrHK4hr7oZoFOZUTqeMqLdsroP3JVbzSNxGILIBCwJ0mCiUBErN4UA8Um3qBihIw/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Doumar%27s.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300216129865229266" border="0" /></a><br />One place in Norfolk where both blacks and whites went was Doumar's, a drive-in restaurant worthy of being in a Hopper painting. Doumar's claims to have invented the ice cream cone at the 1904 St. Louis Exposition and to have made the first ice cream cone machine, which was still in use at Doumar's the day that I visited. It was an old, iron-grated, gas-fired system that made round thin waffles that were then wrapped around a cone-shaped dowel until they could hold a scoop of ice cream.<br /><br />The young man working the machine, Randy, was red-cheeked, with pale skin, pale blue eyes, and a burr haircut. He wore a baseball cap, clear glasses with no rims, and the restaurant's uniform. He considered my question for a second, then stammered, "Yes. I would say yes; people feel isolated here in Norfolk. Part of the reason Norfolk is more isolated is you get people from the Navy here. It's so transient, you get people literally coming and going from all parts of the world. You have to be outgoing to be in the restaurant business and, the thing is, I am. But I like to have my own space when I'm at home. I'm more isolated when I'm with my family. I don't want my kids to get the idea you can just go up to anyone and say hello." He concurred when I said that the bay's many cities all bled together, yet each had an individual feel. "Out of all the cities in this Hampton Roads section of the United States, Norfolk is probably the place where you're most likely to find isolated people."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-10588725783720577712009-05-31T00:01:00.002-05:002009-05-31T00:01:00.852-05:00260 Norfolk, VA: Chrysler<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGLps7at_JoYKaQtAtQQ2z2cmQFYz7pvMU3zYsoO62pU62QkDOb6BvxuiXhyOsyDFiAMleGfsIH0feuQvNxFBDrfvheHoVsUtOY0cPOkyv5boJlJxjmkNtiT_UV57rmsYOM11y1L-48g/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Chrysler+Museum+%26+water.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGLps7at_JoYKaQtAtQQ2z2cmQFYz7pvMU3zYsoO62pU62QkDOb6BvxuiXhyOsyDFiAMleGfsIH0feuQvNxFBDrfvheHoVsUtOY0cPOkyv5boJlJxjmkNtiT_UV57rmsYOM11y1L-48g/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Chrysler+Museum+%26+water.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332086411929266322" /></a><br />The painting hung in a building that looked a little like the one in Hopper's painting. The Chrysler Museum was monolithic and gray, an Italianate-style structure facing the picturesque Hague Inlet of the Elizabeth River. From its huge atrium lobby with a skylight above it, huge sandstone stairs led up to the galleries.<br /><br />The Chrysler grew from a female seminary dedicated to the support of art. The Museum set sail in 1971 when automobile heir and art collector Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. presented the city of Norfolk with his collection. John Russell in the <i>New York Times</i> wrote, "It would be difficult to spend time in the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va., and not come away convinced that the most underrated American art collector of the past 50 years and more was the late Walter P. Chrysler, Jr." He added, "Any museum in the world would kill for these [works]" and the museum was "one of the pleasantest places in the United States to while away the day.<br /><br />"People thought of him [Chrysler] as an accumulator [but] [A]mong the paintings of Edward Hopper, for instance, he chose one that is this critic's all-time favorite. It is a metropolitan scene in which well-kept and heavily becolumned New York house fronts bear down upon the observer like so many emblems of respectability. But, like a gifted storyteller, Hopper leaves us to guess at the identity, and the purpose, of the nunlike nanny in her bight blue uniform who hurries along with an inhabited pram in the lower left corner. Is she late for afternoon tea? Or is this a kidnap attempt, with a co-conspirator around the corner?"<br /><br />Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., also a theater producer (including <i>The Strong Are Lonely</i>, whose title could describe Hopper's paintings and characters), was born 1909 in Iowa, but grew up on a Long Island estate with a view of the Manhattan skyline characterized by the landmark building named for his father. The older Chrysler said about art, "Son, remember that fundamentally they and all things like them must belong to everyone, and the best of them will become public property in museums throughout the country." Chrysler Junior said, "Collecting has always been in my blood." While a 14-year-old at prep school, he purchased his first painting--a Renoir watercolor nude. A dorm master considered the piece lewd and destroyed it.The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-38396926556910839162009-05-30T00:01:00.002-05:002009-05-30T00:01:00.613-05:00259 Norfolk, VA: The Most Average Place<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCcxc4OJdsn4Xt3pPxZZwBjXYqTY6z_iof7TdLPGiusvedkFq2ffWepR-Yw8tFFWlHZy0jWWLr174aj-ZdirVrbmyxUDrwVkau177ciuVdDgKWV4M88XjWKwvrq4FTwwzsjw0UzNft9g/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Chrysler+Museum+sign.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCcxc4OJdsn4Xt3pPxZZwBjXYqTY6z_iof7TdLPGiusvedkFq2ffWepR-Yw8tFFWlHZy0jWWLr174aj-ZdirVrbmyxUDrwVkau177ciuVdDgKWV4M88XjWKwvrq4FTwwzsjw0UzNft9g/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Chrysler+Museum+sign.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293521722451914818" border="0" /></a><br />I found out what she meant as I tried to navigate my way to the Chrysler Museum. The narrow streets were unevenly paved in slim red bricks, and I kept dead-ending into water. <br /><br />An article titled "Edward Hopper, American Realist," asked rhetorically, "Did Hopper ever paint a child?" The answer would be "sort of." The Hopper here, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHy0VJ5JqN-bnGxkEix4z-6il2K3VXN9wpPCnTPSy8G7Dq3B9SkO5eF2234ihViqv-wEVduE4YisBFR9Zapg8oRb09SjRczRup8ZubVailk4aSjW9cjCsYLpY0oCz69Zlm5TM4sI1F9A/s1600-h/New+York+Pavements+my+photo+-+Norfolk,+VA.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 162px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHy0VJ5JqN-bnGxkEix4z-6il2K3VXN9wpPCnTPSy8G7Dq3B9SkO5eF2234ihViqv-wEVduE4YisBFR9Zapg8oRb09SjRczRup8ZubVailk4aSjW9cjCsYLpY0oCz69Zlm5TM4sI1F9A/s200/New+York+Pavements+my+photo+-+Norfolk,+VA.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293522094710386306" border="0" /></a> <i>New York Pavements</i>, is notable for showing a nanny pushing a baby stroller, the only hint Hopper had of a baby.<sup>1,2</sup> When Hopper posed for his friend Raphael Soyer, Soyer's wife brought in their one-year-old grandson. She said, "Say hello to Mr. Hopper," and Hopper jokingly replied, "He doesn't have to say it if he doesn't want to." Soyer wrote in his journal that there was "warmth and humor" in Hopper's gaze at the baby. <br /><br />The perspective in <i>New York Pavements</i> is from above, as if the nanny were viewed from Hopper's top-floor New York studio. The sidewalk seems to tilt as if she's struggling uphill. Her red face rhymes with the pink of her hand and the blanket in the baby buggy. Her rich, royal blue outfit and headdress flap in the wind. She passes in front of a strongly <a href="http://www.buffaloah.com/a/DCTNRY/r/rusticat.html">rusticated</a> gray slate apartment building with a four-pillared porch out front. At the base of the building, two street-level half windows of a garden apartment seem to spy on the scene. <br /><br />Up walked a man whose balding head slung forward as if apologizing for his six-foot-three frame. The hair on the top of his head was shaved close, as was his beard, darkly outlining his skull. He wore oval glasses, a green collar-less shirt, jean shorts, a webbed leather belt, and sandals. <br /><br />"I came here today just to see this painting," he answered, keeping his arms crossed over his chest. "If you asked me about anyone else, I wouldn't know a thing about it. I actually love his stuff. I've never seen this [Hopper painting] in a book or referred to. It's not one of his super famous; it's not <i>New England Morning</i> or <i>New England Evening</i> or whatever. Or certainly the one that you're wearing is pretty big. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5RFoeLUM07a2zKAG1GPF7ZzT7E3PnDRQ9rRbHrsx1Iq1IwrcZEMb2nz4tijXRWvweUutKiaLRTiGrqO6wlv-XDebO5ekmn1qOrcxBFzVjisWw7a8vqSNJhd_ik0fJU31k6Z3EAqW8VA/s1600-h/nighthawks.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 109px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5RFoeLUM07a2zKAG1GPF7ZzT7E3PnDRQ9rRbHrsx1Iq1IwrcZEMb2nz4tijXRWvweUutKiaLRTiGrqO6wlv-XDebO5ekmn1qOrcxBFzVjisWw7a8vqSNJhd_ik0fJU31k6Z3EAqW8VA/s200/nighthawks.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332085131073490834" /></a> My partner always laughs at me. He whispers, 'his stuff is so lonely.' I don't know, there's something there. You get the feeling in his paintings that he accepts loneliness. It's not this tragic thing. It's sort of the way it is, or the way he sees the world. Although it's interesting when you read he claims, 'Well I wasn't really trying for that.' But it's so obvious. There's something sort of comforting in a weird way. Somebody told me once that the ones who like Hopper are melancholy, heady types. I'm not quite sure what to make of that because I actually like this stuff a lot."<br /><br />When I asked about Hopper's relation to Norfolk, he hesitated. "That depends on what Norfolk you're talking about. This is the second most transient city in the United States, so a lot of people talk about there being a disjointed sense of community here. If you're from an old Norfolk family and you've lived here for 300 years (and those exist), they would say, 'There's a very strong rich sense of community here.' I've only been here seven years, and I feel I am integrated into the community. For this area, I'm almost considered local. So from my point I would say no, it's not. But I think a lot of people would say it is. Is that a nice vague answer for you?<br /><br />"Norfolk," he continued, "is a generic city. You don't think of anything when you think of Norfolk. It is the most <i>average</i> place I've ever lived. My partner got a job here in '95. We came from the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, Minnesota."<br /><br />"Have you two had difficulties?" I wondered.<br /><br />"Actually," he glissandoed, "I'm the graduate assistant of multicultural student services. We live in sort of '<i>the</i> neighborhood.' And I work at the university involved with liberal politics, go to the art museum, belong to a reformed Jewish synagogue. I'm in a sort of liberal microcosm. All our friends know, and if they don't know, they wouldn't care anyway. Some people would say, 'oh, there aren't too many gay people here.' I mean, you know, Joe Average would not be tapped into it. But it's everywhere by now."<br /><br /><br /><sup>1</sup>In the files was a letter from a patron saying, "This figure is NOT a nun, as you say. It is an English nanny or child's nurse. I am quite old enough to remember such sights. ... At least one of my age bracket friends noticed your error independent of me."<br /><br /><sup>2</sup>One psychology journal published an article that proposed that "Hopper used his art as a projection of his wish for reunion with the mother." Of <i>New York Pavements</i>, that author posited, "If nun = sister, the painting might represent … his older sister, Marion." Hopper thought psychological interpretations showed more about the interpreter's tendencies, and this is a classic example. The painting does not show a nun; it shows a British nanny.The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-75128682801329000572009-05-29T00:01:00.001-05:002009-05-29T00:01:00.633-05:00258 Norfolk, VA: Not So Desolate<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVItWOK651vat_yU0T7YOhfJ4yeQRo8AdP8O5GoCxcuTQWr7MH0LJ2ckFX6gxDMLA3Or7OlzAzuKl-88y8JFVHh98YyEMZvHM-cH9CFY4z7aTYk_RWWOs_unLior7HPbyV5ycMPKi5dg/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+prince+books.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVItWOK651vat_yU0T7YOhfJ4yeQRo8AdP8O5GoCxcuTQWr7MH0LJ2ckFX6gxDMLA3Or7OlzAzuKl-88y8JFVHh98YyEMZvHM-cH9CFY4z7aTYk_RWWOs_unLior7HPbyV5ycMPKi5dg/s200/Norfolk,+VA+prince+books.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293520600004667074" border="0" /></a><br />I ducked into Prince Books and Café in a nice old Hopperesque building. I asked my question of a female worker, fortyish, tanned, and wearing shorts, a black T-shirt, and chunk-heeled sandals. <br /><br />"It is a tough call," she wavered about whether people in Norfolk were isolated. She talked slowly and formally, holding her hands together at her waist and nodding a lot, bouncing the brunette bangs above her green eyes ringed in dark eye shadow. "At night maybe not. But during the day, yes, like when you're in business mode. But at night when you're out and about, you're a little more into what's going on. I think of North Granby and Waterside, where it's a crowd going out and looking for fun, looking to meet people. Actually, in the past about year, they revitalized all the restaurants and homes and things like that. It's become not so desolate. Before, it was homeless or military tourists. Now you actually see people. Not just people, but people coming here to enjoy the area.<br /><br />"We moved here from Fredericksburg," she explained. "I was getting married, my ex-husband was going to Old Dominion, and we had families from here. It's a good area. It's big without being too big. You've got places like the Chrysler and lots of good venues to see shows and places to go."<br /><br />Then she frowned, "Between the ragged water's edge and the railroad tracks, it's hard to get anywhere without being cut off. In a way, just getting from one place to another, you're isolated in Norfolk."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-31180151967199285222009-05-28T00:01:00.003-05:002009-05-28T00:01:00.241-05:00257 Norfolk, VA: Cannonball<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNMRDTl4wxSTiaFZX8aPT71eknIi07ueAR9xS5Ce6OJrcFExtrdrl4Qv89gEVZ3CLczAe91jt2M7TD2j3pjSnHsJsoftipHphJNKzZRHWcRkXuO9z0-Aao5PTC9N3O7lZhm-eECGnDeA/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Cannonball+Trail+medallion.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNMRDTl4wxSTiaFZX8aPT71eknIi07ueAR9xS5Ce6OJrcFExtrdrl4Qv89gEVZ3CLczAe91jt2M7TD2j3pjSnHsJsoftipHphJNKzZRHWcRkXuO9z0-Aao5PTC9N3O7lZhm-eECGnDeA/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Cannonball+Trail+medallion.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293519538789770034" border="0" /></a><br />Stepping away from the harbor, I pounded the pavement of the Cannonball Trail, Norfolk's walk highlighting the city's history. The Native American Scicoaks who lived here were wiped out by Chief Powhatan's tribe from the west as a preventive measure because one of his advisors had prophesied that they would be destroyed by strangers from the east. Later, of course, the colonists came from the east to fulfill the vision. <br /><br />In 1610, Hampton Roads was named to honor the Earl of Southampton, Treasurer of the Virginia Company in London. Fifty acres of land were bought in 1682 for "tenn pounds of tobasco and caske" and became the town of Norfolk. On New Year's Day, 1776, English ships opened fire on the town, burning many of the buildings to the ground. A British cannonball (the source of this trail's name) remains in the wall of St. Paul's Church, the only building spared by retreating Colonial troops who razed the town so that the British might not occupy it. In 1855, the steamer Ben Franklin arrived in Hampton Roads with Yellow Fever on board. About one-third of Norfolk's inhabitants died, and half the population fled. The history of Norfolk seems one of desertion and return, like a ship.<br /><br />By 1894, its modern identity was sealed. The <i>New York Towne Topics</i> nominated Norfolk as the "wickedest city in the United States." The <i>New York Voice</i> seconded the nomination. The city had 240 liquor dealers, 81 brothels, and 35 gambling shops. World War II doubled Norfolk's population, and, in 1940, the U.S. Housing Authority administrator called a Norfolk hotel-apartment "the worst slum he had seen anywhere in the U.S." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVUjIBB3pvKVcy6C-8bl3N_6dOGwasYRHyTCSryuEE-l-DAXh_H7q1fHlN6DC5mon3H1E8oxX_p3k1RuKIYSw0nKjvhe_gq-pndI5xeaSlIZ4j7Bb3khsbjpnLF0AXlABmg2PJ7FSlQ/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Cannonball+Run+image.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyVUjIBB3pvKVcy6C-8bl3N_6dOGwasYRHyTCSryuEE-l-DAXh_H7q1fHlN6DC5mon3H1E8oxX_p3k1RuKIYSw0nKjvhe_gq-pndI5xeaSlIZ4j7Bb3khsbjpnLF0AXlABmg2PJ7FSlQ/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Cannonball+Run+image.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293519627014258738" border="0" /></a><br />By 1998, it had been voted the South's #1 big city to live in by <i>Money</i> magazine. From 50 acres of land and a population of 1, Norfolk had grown to nearly 40,000 acres and a population of 225,700, a financial and insurance center. It was big enough to have an Arena Football League Team which was named (coincidentally enough) "The Nighthawks." <br /><br />The street corner sculpture series here had the motif of mermaids, including one called "The Jewel of Norfolk." <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIk5Tgy0zC_7zM0MYl6CA1wWaVWyGKzsIqzEzyEkdeec-HMnY7PBub99oqXVtxOVK0_odIJYrg6v5LeM25D7C7oEUV9gr4KGeyBE-GVW3QAK6Gz0vMyQ83tIkQUmIpznSyeuT09tHHlGg/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+mermaid.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 170px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIk5Tgy0zC_7zM0MYl6CA1wWaVWyGKzsIqzEzyEkdeec-HMnY7PBub99oqXVtxOVK0_odIJYrg6v5LeM25D7C7oEUV9gr4KGeyBE-GVW3QAK6Gz0vMyQ83tIkQUmIpznSyeuT09tHHlGg/s200/Norfolk,+VA+mermaid.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334947345646909026" /></a>The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-9662048623437214122009-05-27T00:01:00.004-05:002009-06-01T14:04:21.746-05:00256 Norfolk, VA: New York Pavements<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyy_uapCcODcDUOLPHrz1vztzeJ69unEfKorca1LoWc5UfMgj_vf9xe_URYRTkzbCCAN30iSKdguowudjocj5PgigEeR3vPg3o6QJClF_ofhzfJNSPCcxdY45KeBLERHYFHgkLzL5gjg/s1600-h/Norfolk,+VA+Naval+Station+poster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 225px; height: 164px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyy_uapCcODcDUOLPHrz1vztzeJ69unEfKorca1LoWc5UfMgj_vf9xe_URYRTkzbCCAN30iSKdguowudjocj5PgigEeR3vPg3o6QJClF_ofhzfJNSPCcxdY45KeBLERHYFHgkLzL5gjg/s200/Norfolk,+VA+Naval+Station+poster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293510936098889394" border="0" /></a><p align="center"><a href="http://www.norfolk.gov/about/">Norfolk, Virginia</a>: <i>New York Pavements</i></p>"Norfolk was once the dirtiest town there was. But what can you expect in a town with so many sailors?" began Eugene, the greeter on the deck of the <i>U.S.S. Wisconsin</i>, where 40 years earlier he had been the ship dentist. "It was like having my own $152 million yacht. I worked eight to five, and no one was going to call me to swab the deck."<br /><br />Eugene was thin, with a drooping nose above a tiny close-trimmed mustache. He wore oval shades with tortoise shell rims, and his shirt collar was opened to show graying chest hair in which nested a gold chain. On his balding head, he wore a plastic jungle helmet. As he answered, he held his long fingers interlocked or pounded his palms on the wooden arms of his director chair.<br /><br />"Why would we be isolated?" he responded to my question, "To put it the other way around, I would say if you're isolated, it's your fault. Right down here at the waterside is a very active place. Friday and Saturday nights you can't walk down here it's so crowded with people. The Navy community, which is the largest community here, takes care of its own. This is the largest natural harbor in the world."<br /><br />"I've seen a lot of changes. I'm one of the few who grew up here. A lot of this area was all woods, just like so much of America. When I was a kid, the drive from Norfolk to Virginia Beach was just a little two-lane road, and you didn't arrive there in fifteen, twenty minutes. It was an all-day thing. I remember my mother making fried chicken and coleslaw and potato salad, putting it in a box with a checkered tablecloth, and we would drive down. And when you got to Virginia Beach, they had two big pavilions with picnic tables. You could go up there and put your basket of food down on the table, walk two blocks away to the water, swim for a couple of hours, and come back, and that table was yours. Nobody had taken it, nobody used it, and your food was all there. So that's a big change.<br /><br />"My father came here in 1903. 1903, what was here in America? My father had a grocery store. Those were the days when you had a corner grocery that took care of you. You could get credit, that sort of thing. Then the supermarkets started coming along and took all the small men out of business.<br /><br />"Then we moved to Ghent," he continued. "This was one of the big sections. However, in the fifties I would say, it went down dramatically: the white suburban exodus. Schools closed down. Problems with civil rights. At one time, you took your life in your hands if you would walk through it. And it has come back now. They have million-dollar homes there."<br /><br />"Now let me ask a question, sir" he said, turning the tables. "You know the history about the museum? That was called the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, a very small little local place, very undistinguished. Walter Chrysler wanted to give his collection to Newport, Rhode Island. Newport, Rhode Island, said he had too many fakes. He was married to a Norfolk girl, Jean Outland. So he asked Norfolk if they wanted the collection, and they renamed the museum the Chrysler Museum. As a result of that, we probably have one of the nicest small museums in the country, certainly east of the Mississippi. We have the largest collection of Tiffany glass on public display anywhere in the country. Now my opinion is that it's true he had some fakes and had some that were not of quality. However, it's one thing if you take a half a million dollars and you go to a sculpture gallery and say, 'buy me some sculptures.' But he did it all himself. And you know if you do it yourself, you make a few mistakes. That's understandable. But what he achieved is miraculous. They have a bust of Christ done by Bernini, who designed the columns for St. Peter's. I got blessed there by the Pope on Easter Sunday, 1957. Most guys on the ship didn't know what an opportunity they had. When they would show up, the first thing they wanted was a bar and then a girl."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-26791725941540188472009-05-26T00:01:00.003-05:002009-05-28T16:55:35.294-05:00255 Wilmington, DE: Art In Town<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXTCUY5aMLAdlNu5gR4kcq0rsT82OfwDM_K-RxAaHxFnrD2NbmjRAEWGyZjSOgMx9TRAYfaEEdWhPW0zHQPNLVL-bcjcMQkbIuc9diHryvkw9BRNPrxAdoKcRABLw8JfyCsaAL8rjcg/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+smokestack.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzXTCUY5aMLAdlNu5gR4kcq0rsT82OfwDM_K-RxAaHxFnrD2NbmjRAEWGyZjSOgMx9TRAYfaEEdWhPW0zHQPNLVL-bcjcMQkbIuc9diHryvkw9BRNPrxAdoKcRABLw8JfyCsaAL8rjcg/s200/Wilmington,+DE+smokestack.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328421588495605666" /></a><br />Wilmington is on a natural harbor that was once home to famous shipyards. One single smoke stack had been kept from the shipyards, and it now loomed over the cinderblock chain outlet stores of Shipyard Shops. Kitty-corner sat the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, a tin-sided building down in Riverfront Plaza. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSsH-NZHAekc9GqGOT-aanWELhS9yXSx3lL7CaRRbuepzngaKRGtY3En9lbkWLFG7DHPsp-MUBlvZtoCLSfyotB903ZBL0Y7IpV-av0j0Ery3JWiX2M-QkADp6tJdIGrNp7AYBsX23-Q/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+Center+for+Contemporary+Arts.gif"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 175px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSsH-NZHAekc9GqGOT-aanWELhS9yXSx3lL7CaRRbuepzngaKRGtY3En9lbkWLFG7DHPsp-MUBlvZtoCLSfyotB903ZBL0Y7IpV-av0j0Ery3JWiX2M-QkADp6tJdIGrNp7AYBsX23-Q/s200/Wilmington,+DE+Center+for+Contemporary+Arts.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293460196000312258" border="0" /></a> The girl working the counter had dirty blond hair, big blue eyes, and a pouty lower lip. Six hoop earrings lined the bottom of her earlobe, with a final ring through the top of her ear. She wore a black zip-up sweater with cords around the neck above a light blue skirt.<br /><br />"I'm not that familiar with his work," she answered, "to make that statement [that people here are isolated like in Hopper's paintings]. It depends on the person of course. You are what you put out. I don't see Wilmington as an isolated place, but I've grown up here. That makes a big difference."<br /><br />"Are you an artist?" I asked.<br /><br />"No," she laughed. "I love art. I love looking at it. But as far as raw talent? Nah! My mother's an artist and I've tried doing what she does, but I just end up hurting myself somehow." She giggled again. "She's a jeweler, and I've done it and bled. Cut myself. Nah!" She shook her head.<br /><br />"So you're a perfect example that art is painful," I joked.<br /><br />"You have to bleed to be an artist," she agreed, chuckling. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxTOI0PNR8SiOmEb8nWcsYxaCutKSVrcq76R0JxQNFw5cE3e-LokXsmOYFp8KR5sTnWjLJfHBKHrZQKzAzQOSPy0iBfmhzL7x2bQ8jyL1e85zROa9fAE-nU8WbLGvCD5CX-z_jMPyZcZU/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+Blood+art.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 133px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxTOI0PNR8SiOmEb8nWcsYxaCutKSVrcq76R0JxQNFw5cE3e-LokXsmOYFp8KR5sTnWjLJfHBKHrZQKzAzQOSPy0iBfmhzL7x2bQ8jyL1e85zROa9fAE-nU8WbLGvCD5CX-z_jMPyZcZU/s200/Wilmington,+DE+Blood+art.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5332731950530777138" /></a> "You have to hurt yourself so many times before completing a work. You can only lose so much blood."<br /><br />"There is an artist's colony up north," she offered. "All the houses have a lot of sculptures. It's just in a class by itself. They're their own city. Arden Town."<br /><br />"Art in Town?" I misunderstood.<br /><br />"Arden," she clarified, spelling, "<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXpPqgjKStcLuye19eRIL6g5Js6Mc2wv-JlKt4uoh5-uPgl-3gvQeplx2brh0Occ_9VdpDcoTToFaHBcePWY8YTVBGAiyzwXOqwMR7QtUDvOVCR2VreZll2XJ3f6htvq32c1UHkOC-g/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+A.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 137px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCXpPqgjKStcLuye19eRIL6g5Js6Mc2wv-JlKt4uoh5-uPgl-3gvQeplx2brh0Occ_9VdpDcoTToFaHBcePWY8YTVBGAiyzwXOqwMR7QtUDvOVCR2VreZll2XJ3f6htvq32c1UHkOC-g/s200/Wilmington,+DE+A.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293500841666009010" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwvx2-43Y7bSeRmhzQLHJBOx2MQJ94Y8AWqxPqcMyNcctO9UcHt1I9yvlBRU9oVuMxY4OR8UOJTZN2aTL4tpyFRZ5-6iRW9gh0i3kOIemi__kiRW8wleGuGiRHZPuKoZI7dP4IwSKiQ/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+R.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 113px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzwvx2-43Y7bSeRmhzQLHJBOx2MQJ94Y8AWqxPqcMyNcctO9UcHt1I9yvlBRU9oVuMxY4OR8UOJTZN2aTL4tpyFRZ5-6iRW9gh0i3kOIemi__kiRW8wleGuGiRHZPuKoZI7dP4IwSKiQ/s200/Wilmington,+DE+R.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293500971681926578" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxESyFHIkismd51H3sLmnVkQzjeQ18n6HtVaUULiA99a4TYGEl6yYPBEXKuAJqbBSCjQ8eTYOjAPyicnLyhxWVhpScao_ciQ-Xx8paAyXhWHR_bLPyh8JS_MzvZPk2Q_51io8mrKIPA/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+D.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 169px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoxESyFHIkismd51H3sLmnVkQzjeQ18n6HtVaUULiA99a4TYGEl6yYPBEXKuAJqbBSCjQ8eTYOjAPyicnLyhxWVhpScao_ciQ-Xx8paAyXhWHR_bLPyh8JS_MzvZPk2Q_51io8mrKIPA/s200/Wilmington,+DE+D.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293501102923399522" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6XfmpAUyHJejWQawHEySdcEPf70YdUHaMce-IhgAKUp7qrvotLsVyDgLCXXPC4calvFhsnO3xh_Cf8iAVfkYP_aM4mVfhqXh6fpCMXulk0qI9tvHBSRNaFRzjjLowttsf317EuHXZg/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+E+sparkler.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf6XfmpAUyHJejWQawHEySdcEPf70YdUHaMce-IhgAKUp7qrvotLsVyDgLCXXPC4calvFhsnO3xh_Cf8iAVfkYP_aM4mVfhqXh6fpCMXulk0qI9tvHBSRNaFRzjjLowttsf317EuHXZg/s200/Wilmington,+DE+E+sparkler.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293501604892565522" border="0" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3chdLmAc-Xi1-3TdzSTMMfZU9kSECHqw7WKtzAXVBIPz-XchDZoamSFtC2_xs9HrPoU_8dHWAPatcD-lq7Bh9Y35594W79BsFOl7SLLWE3al11vwVbmW0mGNL_k97wzeOx-GnCvZuLQ/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+N.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3chdLmAc-Xi1-3TdzSTMMfZU9kSECHqw7WKtzAXVBIPz-XchDZoamSFtC2_xs9HrPoU_8dHWAPatcD-lq7Bh9Y35594W79BsFOl7SLLWE3al11vwVbmW0mGNL_k97wzeOx-GnCvZuLQ/s200/Wilmington,+DE+N.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293501910368093730" border="0" /></a> A-r-d-e-n. I don't know all the history to it. But it's a very, very old artists community. And it's so much fun. They have their own little theater. Like one of the oldest outdoor theaters in the country. They do Shakespeare every summer. I don't think enough people know about it."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-36424687478285034152009-05-25T00:01:00.002-05:002009-05-28T16:54:59.675-05:00254 Wilmington, DE: Little Italy<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRkW0Y_SB0NWZz4Wdae8neFxwt_Ofvvv2daY9T9twZ42AXF-hT8OSM4tvL3Z14_mqZF4aLlOCIWTTWi-JebvhqTGHmk6rOUjUVAiFi-pM08543DoEQc6403w_NhQY4jWisjbvxlGhLlg/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+Little+Italy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 141px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRkW0Y_SB0NWZz4Wdae8neFxwt_Ofvvv2daY9T9twZ42AXF-hT8OSM4tvL3Z14_mqZF4aLlOCIWTTWi-JebvhqTGHmk6rOUjUVAiFi-pM08543DoEQc6403w_NhQY4jWisjbvxlGhLlg/s200/Wilmington,+DE+Little+Italy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293454909041055346" border="0" /></a><br />In addition to Swedes, Italians came to Wilmington, and <a href="http://www.discoverlittleitaly.com/visit.htm">Little Italy</a> is one of Wilmington's remaining ethnic strongholds, brooded over by St. Anthony, a square-towered church on a hill whose festival attracts 40,000 visitors a night. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiSSeibT83MdK8RI2calycYuThPDUW9MwYf4YEdSDIiwyyuQS8QFfkITlAkpx098gYizpU_gJ3ZGw8g-_fxwCZq0F8BsvjwNupI8d8aOgso4taEUDxXLba4snrrEtAwgwQRj4tS6aNw/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+Little+Italy+St+Anthonys+fest+cropped.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 191px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTiSSeibT83MdK8RI2calycYuThPDUW9MwYf4YEdSDIiwyyuQS8QFfkITlAkpx098gYizpU_gJ3ZGw8g-_fxwCZq0F8BsvjwNupI8d8aOgso4taEUDxXLba4snrrEtAwgwQRj4tS6aNw/s200/Wilmington,+DE+Little+Italy+St+Anthonys+fest+cropped.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5328414577607949570" border="0" /></a> Row houses' brick-fronted porches jut right up to the sidewalk. Metal or oilcloth awnings reached over all the porches, and the city's rolling hills allowed each row house's roof to be slightly set above the next. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5-y2R9F27mCFsV4G7lm8br7dm4909ubVIRy92yDZ7Q78t99KbDQqERSOzK7G8Sg9MwPVPDCioOn1rorFhbFnXb9dpU9hZV-ld6jEadohnkYtq667eQPajqU2iO2SPgaVjhff3dsc8w/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+Little+Italy+homes.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV5-y2R9F27mCFsV4G7lm8br7dm4909ubVIRy92yDZ7Q78t99KbDQqERSOzK7G8Sg9MwPVPDCioOn1rorFhbFnXb9dpU9hZV-ld6jEadohnkYtq667eQPajqU2iO2SPgaVjhff3dsc8w/s200/Wilmington,+DE+Little+Italy+homes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293455235890273906" border="0" /></a> <br /><br />I interviewed the owner of a family legacy pasticceria whose face glowed with red burnished skin, brown eyes, blue mascara, and big eyelashes. Her blond hair was pulled back, and she wore simple black pants and black clogs dusted with tan flour. When I asked if people in Wilmington are isolated, she shrugged and said in a high pitch, "Maybe." Deciding to take the plunge, she continued, "I do think that Wilmington people are isolated. We do a lot behind closed doors. It's a small city. Maybe because everybody talks. I do think that people feel not free to be themselves."<br /><br />"There are areas you don't want to go into," she warned me before I continued my wanderings, but assured me, "You can see the lines."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-75365144457334578792009-05-24T00:01:00.003-05:002009-05-28T16:54:23.660-05:00253 Wilmington, DE: Hanging<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6w7AEJKFClpYzzpRF2E9vJhbAACXIDq-AoAEF-ejSp1YskUGBtDWDPTmLT9exa-BpXYflkOQlklOH75K5tEq3eF3j52MyZhcLbsMQF1mwGsIeh7EPyjwvvfknF8DuEmRgoRMYnwCVew/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+market+st+mall.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6w7AEJKFClpYzzpRF2E9vJhbAACXIDq-AoAEF-ejSp1YskUGBtDWDPTmLT9exa-BpXYflkOQlklOH75K5tEq3eF3j52MyZhcLbsMQF1mwGsIeh7EPyjwvvfknF8DuEmRgoRMYnwCVew/s200/Wilmington,+DE+market+st+mall.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293453705193450098" border="0" /></a><p align="center">[Wilmington downtown]</p>Downtown Wilmington consisted of large corporate offices and huge tracts of poverty. If every town chose an appropriate subject for its series of public downtown sculptures (Kansas City: cows; Toledo: frogs; etc.), what does it say about Wilmington that they chose dinosaurs? <br /><br />At lunch hour, I found many of the local corporations' employees lolling on the pedestrian mall where Seventh Avenue at Market Street was closed off to car traffic. I interviewed a pair of African American> friends laughing in the promenade. He was rail thin with a floppy cap and gray goatee. She was large in her late thirties and wearing flamboyant clothes. When I asked if they knew the paintings of Edward Hopper, the man responded, "No, not really. But who we work for probably has pictures of that. We work at MBNA. And they have a collection."<br /><br />When I followed by asking whether people in Wilmington were isolated from each other, they both answered, "No."<br /><br />"Like on Peyton Place," he explained, "everybody's pretty close to knowing everybody. When I came down here in '57, a lot of people came down from Detroit following Chrysler. A lot of people. So there's a lot of people that know each other for years."<br /><br />"What about African Americans versus the white community here. Is there any division there?"<br /><br />"No," she dismissed the idea. "We all hang on the same wall together. We pretty much get along cause Wilmington is a big small city. Everybody knows your business. Delaware is real small. You go in one end and you're out of it at the other end in no time."The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1213344673729002466.post-20055459907833439042009-05-23T00:01:00.002-05:002009-05-23T00:01:00.335-05:00252 Wilmington, DE: Our Own Drummer<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="color:black;"><br />Delaware propaganda can be found at the Delaware History Museum, a cheerful Art Deco storefront in downtown Wilmington that looked like a Hopper subject. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5yVBMZr_EJYl9NzgV1XSlGOfWecMVHYcCxNPrsLfI7y1wvCwpksiBLikXSxrhatlFc3R2AZhserWxaTUERYDp5kOdATT33wCuC-XUluiosVfwi6shHU2YBle6hvxhJoItvthlXt9kg/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+DE+Hist+Museum+better.htm"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 186px; height: 186px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic5yVBMZr_EJYl9NzgV1XSlGOfWecMVHYcCxNPrsLfI7y1wvCwpksiBLikXSxrhatlFc3R2AZhserWxaTUERYDp5kOdATT33wCuC-XUluiosVfwi6shHU2YBle6hvxhJoItvthlXt9kg/s200/Wilmington,+DE+DE+Hist+Museum+better.htm" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293446467784493554" border="0" /></a> Statues of Native Americans, people in Victorian costumes, and African Americans stood around awkwardly in the lobby, where a small amphitheater played a film titled <i>Distinctly Delaware</i>. However, the feature was "Two Centuries of DuPont Products in the Home." Corporate sponsorship at its finest.<br /><br />The man behind the counter was a tweedy academic man with a graying beard and literally a tweed coat. "It depends on what you mean by isolation," he began in answer to my question. "If you mean is Wilmington isolated from the rest of the general region, maybe to some degree. We've got to march to our own drummer. If you mean isolated from each other, no."<br /><br />"Talking about Wilmingtonians," he continued, "who have lived here for years and gone to school here and so forth, everybody practically knows each other." Then he added ominously, "But there are a lot of people who have come in relatively recently, and they sometimes don't quite get it. The entire state of Delaware is almost like a small town. Everybody knows everybody. But, I would have to amend that to say maybe some of the African Americans are more into their own culture and they all know each other. And the Caucasians are probably more of a group too. It is kind of split along racial lines."<br /><br />Due to the founding Quakers' anti-slavery beliefs, Wilmington was a key stop on the Underground Railroad, and Wilmington's <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4O-XuJy5PamJQMfDl06vaX4wcNzjWLzWIIdneE2I7hAaOdqsiAscE0jKjMsig5WNhtjqlBqQQR6ClL508wAOY__ZjF1gHd1jIngJHnPFCkGIAzoO8FbOk5IIwAsRyORumEPI6VJktA/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+big+quarterly.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 115px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu4O-XuJy5PamJQMfDl06vaX4wcNzjWLzWIIdneE2I7hAaOdqsiAscE0jKjMsig5WNhtjqlBqQQR6ClL508wAOY__ZjF1gHd1jIngJHnPFCkGIAzoO8FbOk5IIwAsRyORumEPI6VJktA/s200/Wilmington,+DE+big+quarterly.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293503890060503554" border="0" /></a> August Quarterly is the oldest continuously celebrated African American Festival in the nation. On condition that they return at the end of the weekend, slaves were permitted to gather once a year to celebrate and worship free from discrimination. However, Delaware was also the last Union state to ban slavery, and it voted against the Amendments that freed the slaves. Only in the early 1900s did it abolish the pillory <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-n99zsPFkqDMWnNkEv6Jo1qEk6dyU_Q5yyBxjB6k-lsqVX3K1-u2sTNgc5w8cSxL1TRsmf16lbkzSCEFAPlYfq8Kk2c-4dSZpID-kmgW3TEgYMzHNOGpmKzilt5mIXXBRwZWHzq1rA/s1600-h/Wilmington,+DE+pillory.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo-n99zsPFkqDMWnNkEv6Jo1qEk6dyU_Q5yyBxjB6k-lsqVX3K1-u2sTNgc5w8cSxL1TRsmf16lbkzSCEFAPlYfq8Kk2c-4dSZpID-kmgW3TEgYMzHNOGpmKzilt5mIXXBRwZWHzq1rA/s200/Wilmington,+DE+pillory.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293502745863353426" border="0" /></a> --the last state in the Union to do so. Delaware flogged its last convict in 1952.The Hopper Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04467632642297493664noreply@blogger.com0