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Aug. 26th, 2006 04:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkaAll right, this is beyond Not Interesting to pretty much anyone but me, but I'm all meh & full of ennui from being back from England-- though last night my mom dragged me out to Coney Island, my first real outing since then. Dude. I just... it really hit me that's what America is all about, somehow-- somehow, all of it together. The mini-bumper-car rides with the loud announcer, the biker dudes parked near the kebab stand that just blended in, the wild and crazy mixture of class and color and age (though there were a lot more Junior High age kids than you usually see); everyone came to see the fireworks, it seems like. It's the last summer Friday this year, and I was glad I spent it by the beach on Coney Island, man. As much as I wish I was back in England, where people aren't as loud and the shop-signs aren't as garish and my aesthetics and basic values aren't constantly ruffled the wrong way-- there's just something about a noisy, greasy, neon-lit summer evening in New York City, punctuated by babble and enough firework explosions to make you feel eleven once again.
The kebab-stand guy was Asian-looking but spoke with the same harsh New York drawl as everyone else, telling us to hurry up and tell him what we want. And I just felt sort of... like no one cares. There's a sort of comraderie in the sense that we were all sort of grimy and sloppy and uber-casual, not so much polite to each other like Londoners would be but rather... barely noticing, I suppose. Everyone was doing their own thing quite industriously, so it's hard to feel out of place or like a stranger-- or even like 'just another brick in the wall'. In England, I felt like a happy outsider, content to watch-- in Coney Island, I think I'm part of the scenery because everybody is. There's no such thing as being 'part' of Coney Island; there's only Coney Island being a part of you if you're there.
I looked over from the boardwalk and could see a sign (for a game?) saying 'Shoot the Freak'. I thought that was both so poignant and funny, so telling, really. I was probably just being sentimental, but we are all somehow both so fucked up and innocent all at once. There's something so mixed up in my feelings about it, like watching a Saturday cartoon and the Twilight Zone at the same time. I kept thinking, what are we? Who are we? And I didn't know-- still don't know-- but I guess I was wrong when I looked at a mostly empty fenced off parking lot, random garbage blowing about like dust devils across the plains and thought-- that's New York. :/
It's funny how I couldn't just watch like I always do-- mostly, there was just too much. Too much chaos, too much noise, too many people having quite single-minded fun. And then there were fireworks, and people from the Amusement Park to the boardwalk, all the way to the beach all stopped to watch. My mom did, too; not to mention the far-off cruiser ships quietly watching with their lights on as the tide came in. They moved off right after the last burst as we walked down the beach watching them go, passing several couples and families standing there, staring at the sea, and a couple of middle-aged men sitting by a smallish firepit in the sand. The air was still and salty with spray, and I sat down several times, wishing I could bury myself under all that cool, heavy Coney Island sand.
It's just... no matter where I go, no matter where I move to or where I live... the grease and noise and fireworks and children's shouts will follow me. You can move away but you can never leave. That is my America.
~~
Reading this post mentioning the difference between 'True' and 'Realistic', it hit me that's really why I'm so much more into fanfic meta than canon meta. I'm only vaguely interested in 'the little truths', the facts and specifics that make up a story or a character. To me, the real importance is in the more general, over-arching feeling of Truth that is hard to put into words but that is closer to art than analysis. So many people think 'art' and 'fiction' and 'fantasy' are a lesser truth-- they mean anything goes & 'whatever feels good'. I think I've spent my whole stupid fandom existence chasing after 'the other truth'. both fruitlessly and passionately as is my nature. :/
The kebab-stand guy was Asian-looking but spoke with the same harsh New York drawl as everyone else, telling us to hurry up and tell him what we want. And I just felt sort of... like no one cares. There's a sort of comraderie in the sense that we were all sort of grimy and sloppy and uber-casual, not so much polite to each other like Londoners would be but rather... barely noticing, I suppose. Everyone was doing their own thing quite industriously, so it's hard to feel out of place or like a stranger-- or even like 'just another brick in the wall'. In England, I felt like a happy outsider, content to watch-- in Coney Island, I think I'm part of the scenery because everybody is. There's no such thing as being 'part' of Coney Island; there's only Coney Island being a part of you if you're there.
I looked over from the boardwalk and could see a sign (for a game?) saying 'Shoot the Freak'. I thought that was both so poignant and funny, so telling, really. I was probably just being sentimental, but we are all somehow both so fucked up and innocent all at once. There's something so mixed up in my feelings about it, like watching a Saturday cartoon and the Twilight Zone at the same time. I kept thinking, what are we? Who are we? And I didn't know-- still don't know-- but I guess I was wrong when I looked at a mostly empty fenced off parking lot, random garbage blowing about like dust devils across the plains and thought-- that's New York. :/
It's funny how I couldn't just watch like I always do-- mostly, there was just too much. Too much chaos, too much noise, too many people having quite single-minded fun. And then there were fireworks, and people from the Amusement Park to the boardwalk, all the way to the beach all stopped to watch. My mom did, too; not to mention the far-off cruiser ships quietly watching with their lights on as the tide came in. They moved off right after the last burst as we walked down the beach watching them go, passing several couples and families standing there, staring at the sea, and a couple of middle-aged men sitting by a smallish firepit in the sand. The air was still and salty with spray, and I sat down several times, wishing I could bury myself under all that cool, heavy Coney Island sand.
It's just... no matter where I go, no matter where I move to or where I live... the grease and noise and fireworks and children's shouts will follow me. You can move away but you can never leave. That is my America.
~~
Reading this post mentioning the difference between 'True' and 'Realistic', it hit me that's really why I'm so much more into fanfic meta than canon meta. I'm only vaguely interested in 'the little truths', the facts and specifics that make up a story or a character. To me, the real importance is in the more general, over-arching feeling of Truth that is hard to put into words but that is closer to art than analysis. So many people think 'art' and 'fiction' and 'fantasy' are a lesser truth-- they mean anything goes & 'whatever feels good'. I think I've spent my whole stupid fandom existence chasing after 'the other truth'. both fruitlessly and passionately as is my nature. :/
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Date: 2006-08-27 02:45 pm (UTC)