Thursday, August 30, 2007

Books that are too American

Recently I sent a care package to a German princess mewed in a tower in Spain. She's been keeping her sanity by reading English-language books, so I sent a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction to give her a mental escape route. However, as I came up with this list, I discarded a bunch of my favorite books as "too American" -- they were diverting, well written, but either too US-centric or required a sensitive finger on the American pulse to appreciate.

Only after I'd sent off the box did it strike me that as a set, the list of books that are "too American" was interesting. My patriotism has suffered in the last few years -- a week ago I passed the Statue of Liberty in a boat, and all I could think of was that recently we've really let Her down. But these books, inappropriate for my German Princess, have a uniquely American vitality. Some are nostalgic, some are unapologeticly critical, but they do embody a sense of life (sometimes struggle, sometime joy) that is truly unique. A small glimmer of hope for Liberty.

  • Sarah Vowell -- The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Assassination Vacation, Take the Cannoli
  • Connie Willis -- Lincoln's Dreams
  • Eudora Welty -- in particular "Losing Battles"
  • John McPhee -- just about anything
  • James Loewen-- Lies My Teacher Told Me
  • William Faukner -- As I Lay Dying
  • Forrest Carter -- The Education of Little Tree
  • Chaim Potok - My Name is Asher Lev
  • Jean Craighead George -- My side of the Mountain
  • Barbara Ehrenreich -- Nickel and Dimed
  • To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee
  • Stephen Dubner Morrow -- Freakonomics
  • Susan Jane Gilman -- Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

On Returning to Denver After 15 Years

So I went back to Denver to for the Science Fiction Recon Unit (SUFRU) reunion...I drove past the old house, the location of Toddy's, the Holly pool, went by (but not into) Kent Denver, ate ice cream (Grand Marnier chocolate in a chocolate dipped waffle cone -- yum, yum) at Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, went to the Tattered Cover (new location), went to the 16th Street Mall and found one of my two old climbing fountains in Skyline Park.

Two things really struck me about Denver. The first is that it's really big. Everyone warned me about how much development had happened, but it wasn't that which was surprising. Even when we lived there we saw the fields turned into developments -- Of the three large lots (tens of acres) near our house, the first (full of prairie dogs and dirt bike trails and mini canyons) was turned into the shopping center that housed Toddy's (site of my first job, bagging groceries), the second into upscale housing (where Dad got arrested with Stanley and Shane for setting off rockets in a dry field during a drought...and later subpoenaed the chief of police for his trial...) and the third, after I left home, into a public library. I wonder if it's easier in Colorado to let the fields go because they seem so featureless -- if you had to cut down trees or fill in wetlands you might find something to stage a protest over but in Colorado on the plains, one field looks much like another...each square foot doesn't seem individually valuable. Even the land that does get protected is called "Open Space", emphasis on emptiness.

So what did really shock me is how large the Denver Metro area is. I just didn't realize, as a teenager and beginning driver, how huge the metro area was. Washington DC plus suburbs is 30 miles across. Denver is easily 40 miles across. Really that hasn't changed much -- it was true fifteen years ago. We navigated this expanse as a matter of course -- Aurora to see Lawrence, Broomfield to see James, downtown to Megan's, Bonnie Brae Hobby Shop, and Vince, then field trips to Boulder and Red Rocks. The fabulous prom dinner I remember was in Thorton, 10 miles north of downtown Denver. Casa Bonita is six miles west of downtown. Brian Spanger and Matt Hazelton remember thinking that my family's house in a southern Denver suburb was out in the middle of nowhere (HA! then I dragged them to the "mountain house" beyond Red Rocks, and in a total fit of insanity to a Woodstock reenactment in Herford, Colorado, a scant 3 miles from the Wyoming boarder!).

Having lived in DC where often you can often choose between walking or take the metro, Raleigh (no more than 10 miles wide in any direction), Albuquerque (5 miles wide by 15 miles tall, including Rio Rancho), the scale of Denver just seems enormous -- and the idea that we drove all over it constantly, absurd. I didn't have specific rules about where I could take the car -- a '76 Jeep four wheel drive that got 12 miles to the gallon, but I got a $20 bill at the beginning of the week for gas, leftover change to go into my pocket, and that had to last. Let me tell you, that was a very short leash. I can't tell you the number of brilliant schemes discarded because we couldn't come up with enough gas money.

So what the development has done (beyond eating up all fields within the metro area) is added traffic beyond your wildest nightmares to this driving city. We knew in 1986 not to take the freeway during rush hour, but the freeway now has twice the number of lanes and is clogged during lunch as well. We drove the Mousetrap portion, just west of downtown, near 5 PM on a Saturday and a Sunday and found it clogged.

The second really notable thing about Denver is how prosperous and shiny it is. 16th Street Mall boasts every upscale venue you can think of -- you might as well be in Austin, San Francisco or Seattle: Hard Rock Cafe, Banana Republic, NikeTown, ESPN Zone, no less than three Starbucks, two Ann Taylors, Chipotle, The Cheesecake Factory, Rock Bottom Brewery, and Virgin Records Megastore, P. F. Chang's China Bistro, Ruth's Chris Steak House. (Of course this has it's plus side, Title Nine, my favorite catalog for bra's has a store here, note that the other stores are in Berkley, Seattle, and Portland -- I rest my case). Hidden among these names are a few pricier Colorado businesses...Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, Overland Sheepskin Co., and, OK, Jimmy John's Sandwiches.

When I was there there was a struggling symphony, a non-collecting but fun art museum, and a Zoo. Now Denver has a Children's Museum ($7 apiece for those over 12 months old ), a 90 million dollar new wing to the art museum, Opera, Ballet, a new Museum of Contemporary Art (in addition to the one with the new wing), and an aquarium, "Colorado Ocean Journey" (now in addition to finding the same retail everywhere you go, now you don't have to distinguish between cities with and without an ocean!).

The King Soopers which replaced Toddy's in Orchard Commons is way, way upscale. OK, so Toddy's had Parcel Pickup and carpet on the floor, but this King Soopers is very shiny. Michael was drooling -- Albuquerque has Wild Oats, which is fun to visit, but you can't shop there because they don't have things like dryer sheets and normal flavors of toothpaste. We have Rayley's, which pays their employees a living wage and gives them health insurance -- its fun to shop there because the employees are actually cheerful. But these have glaring florescent lighting, faint bleach smells and worn linoleum -- all the romantic ambiance you might expect from a grocery store. (I confess that the Westminster King Soopers and Downtown King Soopers were more normal versions...).

Our old neighborhood, Palos Verdes, is "pleasantville" tidy. There are a scant few weedy dirt yards, but they are vastly outnumbered by astroturf perfect greens marked with "Chemlawn" flags. Michael and I hung out in the little playground between Orchard Commons and Palos Verdes for about 40 minutes, overlapping with some sort of mom and toddler playgroup at 10AM on a Monday. We were within 15 feet of six moms with children of identical ages to Lynn and not one of them said hello to us -- there was this strong feeling we were crashing the party. Maybe it's just that I had brought Michael, who clearly should have been at work, earning the family bacon.

We walked by the old house -- still dark brick and vine covered. The lilac bush seems to have recovered from Mom's drastic pruning in 1984. They've taken out a tree in the back yard -- the light is very nice. Nobody home to let us in.

After a 7 hour trip in the car to Denver, Lynn was burning off unused energy, so I moved the car so she could walk from the park. We got out the stroller and circled the block, which brought back few memories. I think moving into a neighborhood at age 13 means you never really settle in -- the exploring, patrolling-your-territory-age is younger, maybe seven or eight? Even the house that backed up to ours returned our lost balls by silently launching them across the six foot privacy fence -- I have no idea who lived there. When we returned to the car, stowed the stroller, and coaxed Lynn back into the carseat, a women came out of the house we'd parked in front of to inquire pointedly, if politely, if we needed any help. Just what I'd wonder of two people with a kiddo and stroller who were obviously leaving.

After Orchard Commons, Palos Verdes, a drive through of Cherry Hills, and a drive-by of Kent Denver, Michael remarked "I could see how Eddy and SUFRU would be a breath of fresh air".

At the end of the trip we left with the sense that we were certainly priced out of Denver. We'd have to make a great deal more money to live there now. Albuquerque seems a bit impoverished by comparison. Well, let's says it has a shabby charm, which seems to go with crumbling adobe and the closed cowboy-themed motel on route 66. And no traffic, so to speak.

PS, Interestingly enough the incomes aren't very different for the two: Denver, median $39,500, per capita $24,101, average home $213,068. Albuquerque median $38,272, per capita $20,884 per capita, average home price $204,502. What this doesn't taken into account is that Denver has this huge outlying area (1.8 million), while Albuquerque has maybe Rio Rancho (67 thousand) and Bosque Farms (4000)...numbers from Wikipedia.