M is for Mississippi, McDonalds, Margaret...

[mallorys_camera]

Don’t much like the suburbs. No terroir thar…

First crossed the Mississippi River up near Aitkin where it was little more than a swollen creek meandering out of Lake Itasca. By Monticello – ugly place, not a place at all, just a box store sprawl by I-94 – the river had widened considerably. They keep the Mississippi River behind a fence so as not to distract shoppers from Monticello’s WalMart Supercenter and its Target Superstore and its multiple pairs of Golden Arches – no! really, they do.

These satellite commuter communities are curiously disperse – miles and miles of the ugliest box houses you’ve ever seen, and a few support businesses scattered here and there that generally include a couple of bars, a couple of gas stations, a couple of auto parts stores, a single supermarket where the lettuce was fresh some time last week. Maybe one heating and plumbing contracter operating out of a cement cell; a General Rental Center. We’re still sixty miles or so out from the Twin Cities, so these people are willing to drive. For eight months of the year through snow and ice!

And there’s still fifteen miles or so of county roads before you hit the Big Neon clustered along the Interstate – the WalMarts, the Targets, the Home Depots, the DQ’s, the McDonalds, the Radio Shacks. The ad nauseams.

Do I sound like a Luddite?

I feel like a Luddite. It’s enough to make me wish the Amish were an evangelical sect.

If there were ever town centers in places like Becker or Big Lake or Monticello, they’ve all been torn down – which attests to recent prosperity, I suppose. When an economy is prosperous, it tends to want to raize its old structures, build new ones in their place, monuments to better times.

This is why the most picturesque places are also the most depressed places. At least until they discover tourism.

I wonder what happens to all those roadside Golden Arches a hundred years from now? Will they be still be standing? Will they be repurposed like so many of the old bank buildings in the towns I’ve passed through? Will people see beauty in them? (Not post-modern, ironic appeal but actual soul-stirring beauty?)

Beauty is, after all, a totally relative concept; it’s not absolute. I see beauty in 19th century Belle Epoche architecture but that’s purely as a function of having read Victorian novels obsessively throughout most of my life: it’s not as though their lines are any purer from an architectural point of view.

I’m just so curious about what comes next. The narrative of history, doncha know. Not my own life.

I’m still kinda debating what to do about LJ. When I deleted it yesterday, it didn’t feel right. But it doesn’t feel right maintaining it either. I’ll go on writing in any case – it is the blight that man was born for, it is Margaret you mourn for, etcetera – but what do I possibly hope to gain out of making it public? Dunno.

Comments

just sayin...

[(Anonymous)]

P, I read your entries daily. When you skip more than a few days I worry about you. No, we don't know each other and I rarely comment. But I am so drawn to your writing. To the point that I feel connected to you as a person. And we have so little in common besides random perspectives. But I guess that's all it takes sometimes. I have an imaginary relationship with you: you are the perfect mix of an aunt and a mother. It's been like this since I found your journal over a year ago.

Yesterday I went to your page and panicked. I am sooo selfish! Then denial struck. I googled mallory's camera and then just kept hitting refresh on your journal page. It was as if all my understanding of the internet and your journal location was meaningless and it was up to the gods to reconnect me with your journal. I am so thankful they came through for me and so sorry this is not feeling right for you. I felt sad last night. Like I said, I know I'm being selfish here. All in all I am grateful for having been privy to your writing. It really means a lot to me.

Re: just sayin...

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

And we have so little in common besides random perspectives.

I've often thought that message in the bottle was the purest form of communication actually.

Thank you for writing this. It means a lot.

Re: just sayin...

[(Anonymous)]

often you are my message in a bottle.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

Keep your LJ! Even if you only update when you feel like it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, see, we use LJ in different ways. For you, it's a community. For me it's kind of a message in a bottle. But after a while putting messages in bottles starts to seem ... well. Dumb.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

I still read everything people post.
Think of it as a diary that you leave open for others to peek at.

patrizia-

[ch.livejournal.com]

i love your writing and would prefer to keep reading it, but do what thou wilt.

Re: patrizia-

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'll probably keep writing. I just have to do the temperamental artiste thing every now & then.

[mallemaroking.livejournal.com]

I *love* the thought of another time finding beauty in the golden arches and other mundane architecture that saturates today's towns.

That's just one of the reasons I enjoy reading your journal: you seed my mind with unexpected ideas. Thank you for that!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Thank you!