Why do pictures of Houston always have a freeway in the foreground?
Smithsonian Magazine’s Jim Doty came here to Houston, and he wrangled together a pretty good picture of our young burg. His most enlightening statement comes from eating at Barnaby’s; "Talking to strangers is more than acceptable." This one is good too- "Imagine a hybrid of New Orleans and Los Angeles, with a dash of Mexico City thrown in."
But silly shit soon takes over, "The city’s welter of signs is a crazy patchwork of human desires given material form" and "this is a city built on the premise of the personal vehicle, a private sphere to propel you through public spaces" only scratch the surface. Peering into his navel very, very hard, Doty exclaims "It’s harder to name just what it is about the place that’s gotten under
my skin, holds my attention here, makes me want to come back."
author-man with live oaks… on Colquitt?
Swamplot laughed his ass off at the notion that coyotes roam the inner loop and no one walks the streets, but truth be told there are coyotes in Memorial Park and along Buffalo Bayou- so watch your chihuahuas. Doty delves right into swampy’s territory by waxing nostalgic for the other day when the city stopped it’s rampant construction/demolition/renovation/alteration/perturbation for a second. Pshaw. Never happened. We have AMNESIA like nobody’s business.
Damn but if he doesn’t get Gershwin on the dismount!
"Everyone hopes for reprieve. Which won’t be long in coming, so that we
can forget about the sky and return to the theater of our aspirations,
the daily traffic, this new city’s strange promises and invitations."
Play it, yo!
