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mallorys_cameraGet out of Ithaca 15 miles and you realize what an anomaly it is. Western New York is a wasteland now, but it wasn’t always, of course. Those Revolutionary War heroes who were paid off with land grants quickly realized the farming was tough in these parts – soil too rocky – but there was timber in abundance, water in abundance, wild life in abundance. A hundred small towns sprouted and some of them grew into small cities.
Like Cortland.
I have a thing for small, dying cities. It was why I loved traveling with the circus so much. This culture is so obsessed with the new, probably because the new can be fitted into an economic demand equation. The second half of the life cycle is just as important though and it usually gets ignored.
When you’re looking at a landscape, there’s only one question that’s ever relevant: Why is this here?
But you know, I’m busily encoding left-brain ideas for The Book, so I’m not thinking particularly figuratively right now. I can't answer that question for Cortland.
I do know that through the 19th century, right into the 1930s actually, Cortland was a bustling little place with a lot of small industry – a famous typewriter factor, a gun factory, a factory that built a famous brand of fire engines. And then the industry… stopped. Was it New York State’s Draconian tax burden? Was it something else?
Dunno.
The Mendicant Dental Clinic is in Cortland. As expected, they told me the tooth would need to be pulled. I’m back-and-forthing with the commodities trader so perhaps I will have a second ghostwriting assignment in December. If that happens, I can get an implant.
Like Cortland.
I have a thing for small, dying cities. It was why I loved traveling with the circus so much. This culture is so obsessed with the new, probably because the new can be fitted into an economic demand equation. The second half of the life cycle is just as important though and it usually gets ignored.
When you’re looking at a landscape, there’s only one question that’s ever relevant: Why is this here?
But you know, I’m busily encoding left-brain ideas for The Book, so I’m not thinking particularly figuratively right now. I can't answer that question for Cortland.
I do know that through the 19th century, right into the 1930s actually, Cortland was a bustling little place with a lot of small industry – a famous typewriter factor, a gun factory, a factory that built a famous brand of fire engines. And then the industry… stopped. Was it New York State’s Draconian tax burden? Was it something else?
Dunno.
The Mendicant Dental Clinic is in Cortland. As expected, they told me the tooth would need to be pulled. I’m back-and-forthing with the commodities trader so perhaps I will have a second ghostwriting assignment in December. If that happens, I can get an implant.
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Date: 2010-11-09 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-10 01:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-10 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-09 06:38 pm (UTC)I'm by nature suspicious of the "taxes are too high, so industry is moving out" paradigm. I always assume multiple elements are in play, not all of them 'logical.' If low taxes drew industry, Microsoft would be in Alabama.
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Date: 2010-11-10 01:08 pm (UTC)I'm by nature suspicious of the "taxes are too high, so industry is moving out" paradigm.
I dunno. I think you can make an awfully good argument that the reason outsourcing is the dominant business model right now is because it's too costly to bring overseas profits back into the US. (Read between the lines of Google's current overseas struggles.)
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Date: 2010-11-10 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-09 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-10 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-10 07:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-11 01:17 am (UTC)