hongyoonjung

This book about traveling to American cities was recommended to me just in time for my trip to D.C. I opened the book on my train ride to the airport, leaving Chicago, and finished the last page of the book upon landing in Chicago on my return. Poetic! I think impressions would be the best way to describe what Cadrescu writes. With some exceptions, he's writing about cities that he only spends a brief time in; cities in which acquaintances host him, give him a tour, take him for walks. That doesn't sound interesting, but it really is! The book is actually extremely funny, something that my review probably won't reveal, because I'm interested in what his experiences add up to—what they tell us about the future of American cities. But first, highlights from the different places: His deepest and most passionate account by far is New Orleans, where he calls home (he's originally from Romania, something which flavors his reflections). He convinces us that he's an authority on the place, referencing everything from menus of favorite restaurants to crime statistics. It gets a bit cheesy when he dwells on the thick swampy climate as a metaphor for all things New Orleans. But what's most striking about this chapter is the fact that it was written before Hurricane Katrina. There's a number of passages that read as downright eerie: “If we are doomed—by the river or by something else—then so be it. This is how nature becomes natural” (7); “New Orleans is...a collection of graves surrounding the city” (5); Describing the Mississippi River, voodoo, jazz, crime, and Mardi Gras, New Orleans becomes at once melancholy, spiritual, romantic, terrifying, and absurd. Oxford, Mississippi's chapter is intriguing because Codrescu really digs in and brings out local culture. He brings tremendous insight to the racist legacy of the south and how it is implicitly communicated today, including an amazing metaphor in which an old money white mansion owner shows him a closet full of mammy dolls. In one of the funnier moments, he sums up the place with: “'Faulkner Elvis Catfish Sharpei Twirling Kudzu,' pronounced as a single word” (70). Describing the south more generally, Codrescu makes the astute observation of the parallel between the architectural restoration craze (or religion, as he calls it!) of old buildings and the “social restoration” ideology of white supremacy. Little Rock is the most boring chapter, but his description of the Ozarks outside the city really do justice to their beauty. I learned a lot from the San Antonio chapter and was surprised by his characterization of it as rather literary, comfortable, and culturally synchretic. Albuquerque is the most fun, in which our traveller becomes obsessed with the magical powers of chiles, experiences the Chicano low-rider phenomenon, and gets drunk enough to dance to latin music. The New York City chapter is great, because it was conveying a singular, specific experience, instead of trying to grapple with the immense task of describing that quintessential city. Indeed, NYC is usually seen as THE city (although one of my urban planning professors argued that Chicago really is the most American city, whatever that means). Codrescu does not write an ode to NYC, but focuses on a single afternoon in which he cleverly captures a glimpse of the city's spirit and form. His other east coast chapter, an account of Baltimore, is touching, wherein he tells us about how his life began to come together, both for his family and for his work. The title “In Search of the American City at the End of the Millennium” is brilliant. Codrescu shows us, in the astonishing variety of these places, that there is no singular American city. Or if something can be said to be “American,” it is something that is plural. Then again, maybe there is a common feature among the cities, creating a an archetype: in many of Cordescu's descriptions there lies a tension between urbanism and Americanism, in which the latter threatens the former. The former being an engine of culture, of diversity, where lives can be created; the latter representing unfettered capitalism, homogenization, in which culture is parodied, masqueraded, made ironic, acted, or purchased. He bases his understanding and love of the urban in the great Jane Jacobs: “Cities, she argues, are where human beings, those complex, paradoxical creatures live; they make a world according to their measure, not the plans of utopia-sick bureaucrats” (xiv). Here, I think he's championing the micro; the idiosyncratic; the authentic; the lived; the everyday, while at the same time establishing credibility for his own narrative of the city. Cordescu wrote this during the late 90s, at at time when there was a trend of cities “coming back:” people returning from the suburbs, new post-industrial development, tourism, gentrification, etc. Cordescu knows that cities have soul, and are to be defended: “I believe that we are at a crossroads of America. The dying city is being rethought, but it is still being attacked and destroyed (though at a slower pace)” (xix). Cordescu is ready to fight for cities, and gives us hope for them, by indicating we're winning.

2022-11-14 16:25