NOTES FROM THE FIELD
I've been driving through farmland all morning, even more rural than where I grew up. I've had the radio up really loud and I've been pretending to be Jack White and Ben Folds. Whenever I drive through Indiana I know I'll think of two things: one is that I think it's really cool when I get to that part of the highway where I can look to my left and to my right and see large steel electric poles disappearing into the countryside. Then I think about Things American, and I don't mean Things Patriotic.
It's easy to be excited about Japanese culture or English culture or Any Other Culture when you're here in America, but I think a lot of people overlook the terribly interesting culture that is springing up here in their own country. It's a culture you might not always be proud of, but it's unescapably interesting because it's relatively new. It's a culture that has sprang from other cultures--some aspects of those cultures still exist, but most have been reworked, reimagined, lost and rediscovered. I think it's terribly interesting to see how they've turned out.
It seems like most aspects of America somehow bleed into other countries too--I have a wonderful cd by a Japanese rap group and an album by a Scottish fella named Bill Drummond who appreciates country music.
I've forgotten what my point was . . . but maybe that's for the best. That's how my mind works on long drives anyway, flitting from one subject to another while I try to figure out how long I can keep driving before I have to stop to get gas. Maybe that's what I like best about America--it's really, really big and it can just take days to drive somewhere sometimes. It's so big and it's so beautiful that sometimes you can forget some of the bad things about it, if only for a few days.
I've been driving through farmland all morning, even more rural than where I grew up. I've had the radio up really loud and I've been pretending to be Jack White and Ben Folds. Whenever I drive through Indiana I know I'll think of two things: one is that I think it's really cool when I get to that part of the highway where I can look to my left and to my right and see large steel electric poles disappearing into the countryside. Then I think about Things American, and I don't mean Things Patriotic.
It's easy to be excited about Japanese culture or English culture or Any Other Culture when you're here in America, but I think a lot of people overlook the terribly interesting culture that is springing up here in their own country. It's a culture you might not always be proud of, but it's unescapably interesting because it's relatively new. It's a culture that has sprang from other cultures--some aspects of those cultures still exist, but most have been reworked, reimagined, lost and rediscovered. I think it's terribly interesting to see how they've turned out.
It seems like most aspects of America somehow bleed into other countries too--I have a wonderful cd by a Japanese rap group and an album by a Scottish fella named Bill Drummond who appreciates country music.
I've forgotten what my point was . . . but maybe that's for the best. That's how my mind works on long drives anyway, flitting from one subject to another while I try to figure out how long I can keep driving before I have to stop to get gas. Maybe that's what I like best about America--it's really, really big and it can just take days to drive somewhere sometimes. It's so big and it's so beautiful that sometimes you can forget some of the bad things about it, if only for a few days.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
I have never really appreciated our culture. I think you're right that we have a culture that is underappreciated. I think one of the reasons that it gets disregarded is that it is basically stolen from other countries. Then again, that is becoming less true all the time as we get older...hell, we really are still one of the younger nations.