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wandering in a new place
My first day at Elsewhere i engaged in a peripatetic journey into the unknown streets of Greensboro. I'm writing this now looking back from 2 days later, so sadly my perspective is a little overprocessed, and would be verging on stale, but luckily my manufacturer uses high-grade preservatives so the crunchy little tidbits remain. Plus i have these photos to jog my memory.
First significant encounter: a 10 story office building dedication to SELF HELP. This town takes self-actualization seriously. The ground floor is a thrift store that for in spite of the 95 degree weather is currently selling absolutely no summer clothing, weird and totally un-helpful to me personally, whatever. The actual bona fide self-help office is on the 10th floor. Slap-stick encounter with an impatient elevator that remains open a full 1.5 seconds. It shut twice before i succeeded in entering. The self-help office was a disappointment. I lost my nerve to engage their services when it became clear that the help they offered was more small-business community-based and less of the new-age-zen-motivational-coach-yourself-to-interpersonal-success-and--live-like-you're-45-when-you're-80 variety.
Later veering off of elm street, I found myself in glorious pomo strip-mall heaven.
My next discovery did not disappoint: across the street.. er.. highway from Georgie's i found
THE CHRISTIAN ISLEY HOUSE:
No wonder we americans have such and estranged relationship with our history. It's presented to us as totally boring, pathetic, and completely insignificant, like some unappealing distant relative. Why bother connecting? Later i want to talk about antique stores and strip malls and Elsewhere and how I (and probably we) are really struggling to cope with the new and the old and how none of the new seems new in a good way anymore, and the old is getting harder to contextualize nostalgically because its all been re-appropriated by the new. it's a really big topic. Maybe too big.
So then i went to a drug store and looked at some greeting cards.
On my way back to the art compound i bought a sandwich and while waiting for it to be assembled found myself in a terrifying flesh-toned bathroom. Its like the walls are covered in bandaids. ...
