That quote is from a book review of Marshall Berman and “On the Town. One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Times Square”. (264 pages, published by Random House, 2006). The review is written by Erling Dokk Holm (Norwegian academic and opinionated media personality). And it is an interesting take on how different city life is. I can feel it sitting here on the outskirts of the city proper, seeing nothing but forested hills in one direction – and the massive rail and cargo terminal, supplemented by the ever-fuming pipes of the waste recycling facility, in another. The balcony is large enough to spend a lot of time there, lost to the world as such. But the subway is quick enough to bring me into the hubbub of inner-city in 15 – 20 minutes. And even if Oslo is a small big city, there are times and places that just feel to intense.
Another reference to follow up on is “Georg Simmel”, a turn of the century (not the last one) German sociologoist who wrote on the effect of modern life and urban relations among other subjects.
"Times Square has been the space of jazz as well as porn, of music as well as poetry. This is why this urban landscape is so culturally soaked” And so it felt when I was in New York. A true mix of all the world has to offer up. Shiny brand-stores and darker alleyways side by side. Staring tourists and vigilant police officers, passing each other by like leafs on the autumn wind. It felt at once wonderful and grotesque. The highs, the lows and everything in between that our modern society has to offer.
“Berman is as believable when quoting Shakespear as Beasti Boys, Sex and the City as Karl Marx” And that is what makes NYC larger than life, yet still so familiar. It is the setting and the influence for cultural expressions from NYPD Blue to Sex and the City, from 50 Cent to Frank Sinatra. And of a whole host of things in between, from yellow cabs to pretzels, from the death of John Lennon to the trials of the Apprentice. It is the city of cities, the modern Rome and Athens, the Olympics of the urban spirit. And for the last five years, when ever you look at the skyline with the gap – it is also a reminder of the challenges we face as people, as a part of a globalized world where the boundaries between war, advertising and opinions are blurred, quite possibly beyond repair.
Khaldun on civilization
– it is good to remember that history is not filled with joyful progress, but rather with a discreet number of good times, followed by a fall or a break from the trend – either because the next “empire” is taking over, or simply because the sustainability isn’t there any more.
The Roman Empire, Alexander the Great, the Khalifs, the various Chinese empires through the ages, the British Empire, the Third Reich and perhaps now the USA and the EU – the CCCP is already fragmented and gone.
Hindsight is 20-20, and the optimism on our own behalf is over stated. We are unable to think forward into the future with any sort of accuracy. As Robert Charles Wilson, author of Spin said – there is a cognitive divide; ask people what the world will be like in 50 years, then what they will be doing in 50 years. Then try to combine those two pictures into one description… “the future looks bleak, but I’ll be in the Caribbean after retiring from a well paying job”.
- “There will perhaps be a market for five computers world wide”
- “ No one should need more than 64k of ram”
Things change, and it is only afterwards that we really understand what has happened – or at least what we need to do going forward.
- and here ends the backlog of post written in the sun with Word (so some funky formatting might need cleaning up) - but the stack or read books and magazines still has some good thoughts, hopefully during the week I'll get a few more completed and then review these a bit for possible links and updates
...and the sun is breaking through the clouds after solid rain most of the day...
