Letters to the Editor
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To: Confucius Always Say
Confucius Always Say says: (To Abbybwood)
"Huh? You're moving to The Hamptons? After all the qualities you just listed of things you're looking for, you think the Hamptons will provide them?
News flash: The Hamptons is nothing more than the "country" playground of the legions of wealthy, snobbish, smug assholes who inhabit NYC. Good luck.
Madison, Wisconsin fits your criteria to a T, other than the winter part. There are other similar options around...but good Gawd, The Hamptons???!"
I'm a writer. I'm always looking for new material and I think all the wealthy, snobbish, smug assholes will be a WEALTH of it!!!!
Doh!
P.S. It's only for the summer. By Halloween I'm outty!!
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Bohenianism?
Oh come ON! As a world traveled peep... I gotsta say, true bohemianism in the U.S. of fucken' A is ONLY possible in NYC or LA. Two of yo' freaky friends in Iowa City don't count. Sorry, been there, done that. unless you are George Lucas circa 1977 ya gotta be were the creative energy is ...and that's on the east coast or the west coast. I wish it weren't so 'cause I'm a cheap ass motha fucka and I'd really rather live in Alaska for 400 per month utilities included but it just AINT HAPPENIN.' Most creatives can't deal with the judgement and the loneliness of living in anywhere in America that ain't NYC or LA. For REALISIES...
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ps bohemiasnism
Yeah and P.S. not even NYC and LA can compare to Vienna, Paris, Sydney, Milan, etc. for free thinking acceptance of creative people and their products. I am HAPPY to be an American but in no way PROUD to be one of the puritanical, judgmental, commercial-appeal-worshipping sheep that pass for Double Plus Good citizens of the USA.
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Richard Florida came to speak at a university near me...
and I went there with--I won't say an open mind, exactly, but one that was at least ajar. (I haven't read his books, because it's hard to read when your eyes keep rolling and your limbs keep trying to throw it aside in disgust.)
Even I was dumbfounded at how empty of insight his presentation was. It seemed to consist of an endless series of tangentially-relevant personal anecdotes, name-dropping ("I was talking to Hillary Clinton and she said to me, Rich...") crypto-self-help-guru-speak, and other intellectual sawdust.
Florida is so utterly frustrating to me because usually I'm very good at rebutting flawed arguments. But there is such an utter lack of substance here that I don't know where to begin. And so many criticisms come to mind that they get stuck, like the Three Stooges trying to get through a doorway, and nothing comes out.
To call him an overrated, overpaid, vapid celebrity would sort of be an insult to Paris Hilton.
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Creative Class: A Late Product of Irrational Market Exuberance?
In 2008, many economists and policymakers have realized that excessive leveraging in the capital markets produced unsustainable real estate and asset valuations, and "paper wealth", that are now undergoing de-valuation as the over-leveraging unwinds in global real estate and capital markets. The WSJ, NYT, FT and Economists have done a good job documenting this.
Has anyone analyzed the connection between growth fueled by over-leveraging, and the rise and size of the Creative Class? To what degree did this recent over-leveraging create and support the salaries and bonuses of the "creative class" as so well documented by Richard Florida? This in reference to higher-income members of the "creative class" that can afford the lofts, the boutique hotels, the trendy restaurants and bars, and the arts centers that Dr. Florida documented in numerous booming real estate markets inhabited by the "Creative Class". This does not refer to creative individuals who are not sufficiently remunerated to support trendy restaurants or secure a mortgage for an upscale loft.
We need updated 2008 evaluations on how our recent excessive leveraging and asset valuations provided the markets and thus revenue sources for many of the firms, departments, business units, and cottage industries that employed many members of the "creative class" (or provided deep-pocketed clients) and thus made the Creative Class wealthy enough to support real estate booms.
It seems many urban planners and elected officials were attracted to the pitch of wooing the Creative Class not because they liked the idea of people finding their "inner-creative-self" and becoming self-actualized. Rather, planners and elected officials were sold on the economics of the Creative Class. Therefore, should we not begin quantitative analysis on what degree the Creative Class's 'beneficial economics' may turn out to be as transitory and unsustainable as the real estate booms they supported in the urban areas documented by Dr. Florida?
If locales continue to pursue the Creative Class in 2008 and beyond, will they still reap the expected economic benefits? Or will resources be mistakenly sent chasing something that was a “one-hit wonder”? Were the documented fiscal benefits of having a Creative Class really a late-stage manifestation of the "Irrational Exuberance" of the marketplace?
If the 2007-08 (and 09?) credit crunch and its de-leveraging produce a “new financial order” of fewer real estate bubbles and fewer developments viable only thru excessive leveraging, then will the future Creative Class be just as creative individually as in the past, yet just less relevant to the local economy because, in a post- deleveraged world, they earn less and are smaller in numbers? Maybe not in Silicon valley, Hollywood, Vancouver, and NYC…but what about in the many smaller secondary markets striving to sustain a local industry in technology, entertainment & media, the arts, and high finance? In this new Post-DeLeveraged World, can so many secondary markets expect to attract relevant numbers of high-paying members of the Creative Class and their employers or clients? Will the Creative Class still matter to urban planners and elected officials, or be primarily of interest only to studies and books on achieving personal career satisfaction and self-actualization?
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Perfect Places vs Good Enough small cities
I am one of those crazy people who found the Right not Perfect place three times in my life. Each time, my needs and level of creativity were at their highest, but each place was so different from the other. Moreover, each place seemed less right as I changed, aged, whatever.
1) I was a late teen-30 year old when it was the 1960's and I fell in love with Manhattan. After living in suburban L.I. in the fifties, the multi-cultural and intellectual stimulation of Manhattan (not yet gentried) was pure heaven. The 60's, define that as you will, were bohemian to the max. At 30 I left for Boston, a wrong move.
2) Later in my 40's I made a trip to Jerusalem, and it was the only place that ever felt like home to me. So much so, that I never would have come back to the USA (my family had died, even my parents before age 60). But necessity called in the form of a learning disabled daughter and I had to leave, with grief like I've never known. Jerusalem in the early 1990's was bohemian, hell Israel despite her politics is lively and full of creative types, and during that time: with a peace process that seemed likely, the work with dialogue groups was beyond bohemian all the way to mature if also: always fun.
3) When I had to leave Jerusalem, it was heartbreak. Nothing in the USA spoke to me because what I loved in Israel was the small-ness the way everyone was friendly (if not to Palestinians who were friendly to me). There is a zest for living in Israel among intellectual peacenik photojournist types that compares to nothing in USA. Hell, zest is bound up with non bohemians as well. Alive Alive.
4) And so as my 60's approached I was pretty crazy about finding my place, knowing tha the enemy of "good enough" is perfect. I knew I'd never find perfect again. So I tried Maui, HI a great place if a tad dull and worse: a place where you must drive to every spiritual meeting, art film etc. I was happy but what was missing? Liveliness and street life. ( I hate driving.) Then tried: LA, Santa Monica, and San Franciso. The first two were awful. SF was too cold.
So I went back to NYC and found it nothing like 40 years ago, but instead: overwhelming and lonely. I went to many other places until BINGO
4) I found South Beach, FL 33139. Nothing like mid or uppper Miami Beach tho called Miami Beach, a misnomer. Here's what I adore about South Beach. It's a cultural mixture that is I believe not found anywhere in USA. As many blacks and Latinos as whites. There is a druggie/club culture or scene here that can be seen by others as either repulsive or dangerous. But that scene is only surface living, and what it adds is the all night liveliness right on the beach, where you can sit and read or talk all night long if you like. But sexy clubs were never my trip, and now over 60, I can easily avoid that, and celebrate that here is it is lively. I love lively. They say Manhattan is the city that never sleps? It sleeps way before most of us, but South Beach is truly a 24/7 town.
Even more relevant to bohemianism, there is a growing arts community that will take over South Beach in a few years, an international Cinemateque on Espanola Way where you can meet folks of all ages who are literate and love art films. There is Books and Books on Lincoln Rd, a new Symphony space being created by the city on 17th street. The famed international Art Basel week-end with artists, filmmakers, writers all living here and easy to meet. Because?
Because... the reason I so love it here, really? That it is small, manageable, one can walk absolutely everywhere. I'm retired, need warm weather, an intellectual and a writer, though less ambitious than when younger. What I have here are all kinds of friends--many working shit jobs and poor, some without work, and poorer still, but money is not what runs this place. The main quality, what few mention as important but always is for me: It's small. 2 miles or 2.1 sq miles are ideal. I walk everywhere. I know almost everyone on and off the streets. I feel happy though it's NOT perfect, because for me, who can't take cold, this place is far too hot. That is a real problem. As are hurricanes in summer. Buy hey we were talking creativity and if you look, it's all around here, much more obvious that the thin celebrities who have their own haunts as they do everywhere and are never seen not by me, out of the streets.
Knowing there is no perfect, this sure comes close. South Beach is actually affordable, has lots of parks and beaches, is actually better than "good enough" if far from perfect, and often as with the above posts and article, I wonder why it's such a well kept secret? And if I should not have mentioned it, but what power do I have? None, which is just the way I like it. Which is SO south beach, unpretentious, anything goes!