I guess it's true that the various English-speaking nations of the world are divided by a common language; or else this Australian reporter now assigned to the US has had her leg successfully pulled. Or else she has, like so many expatriate Americans are accused of doing, ensconced herself in a cocoon of fellow Aussies so as to keep the natives at a safe distance. I can't really figure out any other possible explanations for this:
Shov told me the trees have real meaning for Americans. They find our practice of heading out and buying a box of balls and tinsel and decorations quite offensive. Here, most of the tree ornaments have been gifts, or items of significance at one time or another. That way, your tree has a history, and as you put it up every year, you remember different people and loved ones by what you hang on the tree.Um... whatever. Then again, this woman has had trouble "recognizing the coins here" even though they have the denominations printed right on them, in English not Sanskrit. Maybe she should try out the American custom of having her eyes checked.
Via Angie Schultz Also -- side note: to the post above where she complains about the California-bashing supposedly engaged in by Glenn Reynolds -- I don't see that he is doing a lot of California bashing as opposed to Bay Area bashing (the San Francisco Bay Area), and to be fair most of it is from people whose emails he posted. Then one letter-writer took offense at a post where all he did was reprint pictures of some of the peace-loons' ridiculous signs and quote a correspondent who went to the peace rally in San Francisco. He is obviously not impressed with the peace protestors, but who is (who isn't involved with them, anyway). Then in this post, again, he does say it is too easy to engage in regional bashing, and reprints some of the emails from people in California telling him about the whole rest of the state that is not apparently given over to leftist idiocy. All I can say is I have some friends who moved to San Francisco, it being a lifelong dream of theirs. Well, as of this year they are back in Florida, which they had condemned as hell on earth. Let's just say San Francisco proved to not exactly be the place of their dreams. But that is only one city, and California is a big state.
As for myself, I have been to Los Angeles, and I was more favorably impressed than not. The city atmosphere and horrid traffic did not bother me: I lived in Miami, notorious for its urban annoyances and the insane driving. The weather in July was dry and cool -- I mean it was what we considered winter weather in South Florida: in the seventies during the day and in the fifties at night. That immediately raised it several points in my estimation. There were lots of good restaurants, such as the Thai restaurant that was open until 4am. There were plenty of parklands around -- we went up to that observatory whose name I forget (it's famous). Having mountain ranges inside greater city limits was a thrill to a woman from the flat swamplands. There was Canter's, open twenty-four hours. There was a Cuban restaurant, which although staffed by Mexicans served real Cuban coffee. And so on. (The beach was a joke -- that pathetic little brown strip of sand -- but I don't care much about the beach so that was no big deal.)
I've heard horror stories about the public-pooping, in-your-face bums and crack whores of San Francisco, as well as the Politically Correct insane asylum that is the Berkely area, but perhaps this is an exaggeration. In any case, California-bashing is as old as the state of California. People have been making fun of the place ever since it was known as the place to go hunt for gold and get killed over a no good worthless claim (excuse me, I just had a flashback to the Marshall Tucker Band, it won't happen again). It's kind of late in the day to complain about it now; if Cali hasn't buckled under the weight of all the jokes by now, then it never will. Until, of course, the Big One hits and it falls into the ocean.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 21, 2003 02:26 AMThat'd be Griffith Park Observatory...
And as a 3 year resident of the SF Bay area, I can honestly say that I wouldn't stick around if working around here wasn't so %!#!$ lucrative.
Posted by: Steve at January 21, 2003 at 04:46 AMThanks! I don't know why I couldn't remember the name of the place. Creeping senility, I guess...
But living there costs a fortune too, or so I've heard... (One thing I didn't like about L.A. was the high sales tax; higher than Miami's Beach's -- but at least it wasn't as high as New Orlean's, another city I like but would never live in unless I became unexpectedly wealthy.)
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 21, 2003 at 08:13 AMSomeone needs to tell that dummy that Washington has been considered part of the South for as long as there has been a South. I hear the North got some snow over Christmas, so she might want to reconsider her job posting and sign on as the Maine correspondent.
Flash back to the Caldwell boys all you want, dear...makes me misty-eyed.
Posted by: Scott at January 21, 2003 at 09:15 AMFire in the mountain / lightning in the air / gold in them hills / and it's waiting for me there...
Southern rock was big on the rock stations of my youth. Even the songs I couldn't stand carved a channel in my brain. (I could have listened to the Top 40 Disco Hits but I didn't want to be permanently imprinted with "Funkytown." Oops. Too late. Can you take me to / Funkytown? / Can you take me to / Funkytown? Aieee!
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 21, 2003 at 09:24 AMThe ABC journalist you mentioned was new at the job. She was probably freaked out- stuck in Washington DC for xmas, half a world away from home- no wonder she's a bit gullible.
Do you get offended by tinsel and decorations on a Christmas tree?
Posted by: Scott Wickstein at January 21, 2003 at 10:51 AMScott,
I've lived in DC, and it ain't the South (thank G-d). Once upon a time it was, but these days the South starts somewhere just north of Richmond, i.e., Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax (the People's Republic of NoVA) aren't the South, either.
Andrea,
I'd live in L.A. rather than pretty much anywhere else, despite being the first to admit it's far from perfect (but where isn't?). You'd have to pay me a hell of a lot of money to spend more than a few days in the Bay Area.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 21, 2003 at 11:33 AMScott Wickstein---Leigh Sales was spending Christmas at the home of some other Aussies, the Shovelans, who'd been there longer. It was Shovelan who told her that generic Christmas ornaments were "offensive".
I have trouble routing my mind around the idea that generic glass Christmas baubles are "offensive". I suppose you could find offensive Christmas ornaments, but you'd have to work at it. Although, in point of fact, about half my ornaments were hand-crafted by various relatives, or bought in memory of some special place. Such as, for example, the flat brass Opera House, Harbour Bridge, and Uluru ornaments I brought back from Oz. So for me at least it's true that I can't decorate the tree without thinking of someone or somewhere.
Andrea, I think part of the point of Glenn's correspondents was the Bay Area bashing turns into California bashing, by both bashers and bashees.
David, they would have to pay you a lot of money to stay in the Bay Area, else you couldn't afford it. When I get really bored, I'll post some comical rent stories on my blog. (Punchline: "You got a really good deal on that place---only $1500/mo!") And that's in Mountain View, not SF.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at January 21, 2003 at 11:46 AMI live in the Monterey area (grew up in Berkeley, with a few years spent in Canada in between) and it's fun shocking the tourists. They start out by telling you how beautiful it is here and they want to move here. Then they ask you what houses cost. Bwaahahaha! They get this really glazed look in their eyes.... Then they want to know what rents are like. I explain I live in a house with four other adults, on a highway, and our rent is 2600.00 a month -- and that's a deal becuase we know the owners. The house next door is a $1500 more. They decide Kansas isn't so bad after all :)
Posted by: Ith at January 21, 2003 at 11:58 AMIt's so easy to bash California and the Bay Area in particular but I have known (online) several reasonable people from that area. Florida, on the other hand.... ;-) (Just kidding)
Posted by: Lynn at January 21, 2003 at 12:31 PMScott: oh come on. Did you read what I wrote? Hint: the stuff in red in a blockquote is the quoted stuff, not mine.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 21, 2003 at 12:40 PMAngie,
I meant they'd have to pay me a lot even for SF. And even then I probably wouldn't. If I wanted to hang around pretentious lefties in an expensive city, I'd go home to Boston, which (as opposed to SF) I actually like.
As to whether bashing the Bay Area invariably turns into bashing the whole state, it certainly happens, but it's probably only inevitable for people who haven't spent much of any time in California and know little to nothing about it.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 21, 2003 at 02:07 PMI live in the Bay Area. I adore it. :) Sure, you have freaks everywhere, and those jerks in Berkeley... but I love my mountains and my beaches, my thai food and my farmer's market. Oh, and the exquisite weather.
Sure, my rent is crazy high, but I'm happy.
Note: I wouldn't live in San Francisco either. That's nuts. I'd rather live in the South Bay, between SF and San Jose and enjoy all the benefits of a big city while living in an incredibly safe area!
Posted by: Ceili at January 21, 2003 at 03:42 PMYou could plant me on Monterey Bay (home of John Steinbeck!) and I'd be happy as those cute little seals that frolic all around. That's one of the Top 5 most beautiful places on Earth. Reason enough alone to keep California...
There...that's my dirty little secret. I love CA, except for the filthy cities, SF and LA, and I've got a soft spot for LA.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at January 21, 2003 at 05:21 PMI'm in the East Bay, and I'm not getting any closer to what the local talk radio morning show calls "The World's Largest Outdoor Lunatic Asylum". I have been there. There is absolutely nothing there that's worth going back for (I would almost make an exception for the Golden Gate Park planetarium, but I can go to planetaria elsewhere). And all the stories you heard about the filth and bums are largely true - some may have grown in the telling, but not by much.
BTW, people who like Frisco call it "The City", which is why I insist on calling it Frisco. It pisses them off, and that makes me happy (almost as happy as the thought of splitting the state east and west).
Posted by: Ken Summers at January 21, 2003 at 11:57 PMI'm a native of Southern California and would happily grant secession to Berserkley.
On the other hand I had a gig that planted me in a Bal Harbor resort for a week, networking a Dialogic confab. (Yes, believe it or not, they outsourced) After it was done I had a day and and a half to spend roaming South Florida. I'd last been there when I was six and found myself intensely thankful my parents didn't chose to remain. I don't think I've ever had to look so hard for a bookstore in a major city. The newspaper gave the address for a Borders but it wasn't open until the day after I flew back home.
Posted by: Eric Pobirs at January 22, 2003 at 12:28 AMBal Harbor has nothing but overpriced clothing shops for rich retirees. I know that town (Greater Miami) like the back of my hand, and I know where all the bookstores are, including the independent snooty ones (unless they have closed down). There is one on the beach, but for the most part everything on the beach side is dedicated either to rich retirees or the party-all-night club crowd. If you ever find yourself being sent to Miami again, drop me a line and I'll email you directions to the few cultural oases that do exist.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 22, 2003 at 09:28 AMEric,
You'd allow Berkeley to secede from California and get two US Senators?!
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 22, 2003 at 10:21 AMMay I say a word or two in defense of the Bay Area?
I've lived here pretty much continuously since I came from NY in 1984 to study at (yep) Berkeley, and there are a lot of worse places to be. It is an uncomfortable place to be a conservative, no question. (The car in the slot next to oursa in the apartment carport currently has a large protest-sized sign in the back seat reading "Stop the WARGASM!" Urgh.)
But there's an awful lot to like, too. Good bookstores (and two major research universities — Berkeley and Stanford — with between their library systems pretty well every book you could possibly want). Fantastic musical life, starting with one of the country's best symphonies, but going way beyond it (I know, I run an online classical-music review journal covering the area and it's all I can do to keep up with it).
Good food. It's kinda cool to have three good grocery stores within five minutes' walk from my apartment; even cooler is that just as close is an Asian market (called, well, "Asian Market") full of all sorts of spicy goodies. Of course, if I don't feel up to making a Thai meal this evening, I can walk another five minutes to one of the best Thai restaurants I've ever found. The Best Pizza In The World is unfortunately over in the East Bay, so involves a drive. When I lived over there I could walk to it. Oh well.
Decent public transit — though I admit that I feel better about this now that I live in Marin (linchpin of the Axis of Evil, yes!), whose Golden Gate Transit is really a model bus and ferry system. Everything arrives on time and you can pretty much get where you want, including to SF and back most hours of the day. You can do the same in other parts of the Bay Area too, but the trip is apt to be less pleasant. Before I started working from home I had a commute that was almost a pleasure trip — a ferry across the Bay at sunrise. Almost sufficient compensation for having to be up at that hour ;-)
And the weather isn't to everyone's taste, but I love it. Right now I'm sitting in my office with the window open, watching the rain fall and three white herons foraging on the athletic grounds of San Rafael High School, and looking out toward where Mount Tamalpais presumably still is, though there's a whacking great wall of fog between me and it so that I can't be sure. Lovely!
LA? You can keep it. I'm staying here, until I find a way to move to London.
Posted by: Michelle Dulak at January 22, 2003 at 06:33 PMG'Day,
Just a brief defense of Australians that get (somewhat) confused by US coins. Your 5 cent piece is the same size as our 10 cent piece, your ten cent piece is the same size as our five cent piece, our equivalent of the quarter is worth only 20 cents. Any adult has usually built up a set of mental rules that assist in quickly count up change - having each one of these rules betray you tends to be somewhat stressful.
I have been treated as retarded at a Walmart in Oak Ridge TN, because I carefully handed over the correct coins (looking at the denominations) after spending 30 hours travelling. Jet lag, stress and "funny" coins can simply be difficult to deal with.
Russell
Posted by: Russell at January 22, 2003 at 07:50 PMRussell,
Yes, it is bizarre and pointless that the dime is smaller than the nickel. I wonder how that came about?
And foreign currency is extraordinarily difficult to master quickly — I mean, to a native's degree of fluency. A few days into a stay in England on a music scholarship, I found myself drafted to man the snack till at the string quartet course I was enrolled in. That lasted about five minutes until someone took pity on my profound ineptitude and got someone else to do it.
Posted by: Michelle Dulak at January 22, 2003 at 08:51 PMNot to mention that Australian coins are huge compared to American ones. When I got back I kept saying, what, did the money shrink? When did this happen?
Even after three years in Australia I was always pulling out 10 cent pieces that were actually dollars, and vice versa.
One thing that really annoyed me about that article is that, yes, when you change countries things are strange, you get mixed up, you get lonely and sometimes scared. But I didn't see how that rated a whole article. I didn't get to write any stupid article about constantly waiting for the bus on the wrong side of the road.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at January 22, 2003 at 10:26 PMAngie,
I didn't get to write any stupid article about constantly waiting for the bus on the wrong side of the road.
LOL. Really. (I am so glad that I'm working from home and can make rude noises.) I did the same damn thing.
Posted by: Michelle Dulak at January 22, 2003 at 11:00 PMMichelle,
I love London to death, but there's no way I'd go back now. The crime there has gotten so bad it's basically become New York before Giuliani, if not worse.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 22, 2003 at 11:33 PMDavid,
So I hear, and it makes me sad. The year I lived there I did incredibly stupid things that would've gotten me mugged these days. I walked home from concerts at Wigmore Hall, for example — I was living in Kilburn, about an hour's walk along Edgware Road/Maida Vale/Kilburn High Road from that nice concert hall on Oxford St. It's all well lit and everything, but you'd be nuts to try that now at 11 at night. Mind you, I was nuts to try it in 1989; I mean, more nuts.
Posted by: Michelle Dulak at January 23, 2003 at 01:03 AM