Why doesn't the world's richest nation have the world's richest texture?

[imomus]

I'm having this recurring thought, when I travel anywhere these days, that cultural software (by which I think I mean attitudes, accumulated down through history and operating by means of habit, largely unexamined by, and semi-invisible to, the people concerned) is all-determining. You can cut a slice out of America, Britain or Japan at any point and you'll basically get the same textures. It won't matter whether the area you choose is rich or poor, or whether the people are hipsters or Regular Joes. Many of the basic conditions and materials of life will be the same.

So what's the texture of America? Don't hate me if the news is bad. America is the richest nation in the world, but it doesn't have the richest textures. Far from it. You walk across sidewalks of poured concrete crudely demarcated by stick-drawn lines, leopard-speckled with blobs of blackened chewing gum. Look up at the buildings around and you'll see each window jammed with an ugly air conditioning unit, probably dripping on you. Jump into a taxi and you'll bounce on spongy suspension across pot-holed roads. Get out and the odour of rotting garbage rises to your nostrils from huge heaps of unsorted black bags waiting to be taken away and burned.

Enter a restaurant and, sure, you'll be able to get food which is cheap and plentiful. But it'll be notably lacking in subtlety, finesse and flavour. This will apply even to Thai or Japanese food. Somehow, in the transition to America, essential knowledge—and above all respect—seems to have been lost. Flavours are smeared carelessly together, too much sugar and salt and spice is added. Peek into the kitchen and you'll see that what you eat is prepared, whatever the purported nationality of the restaurant, by Mexican and Bangladeshi kitchen staff. The restaurant's advertised cuisine is just a kind of additional layer of branding, a level of illusory diversity; what you eat is always the same basic bland American ingredients, prepared by low-paid (and possibly illegal) immigrant kitchen workers. In a sense, every restaurant in America is a Mexican restaurant. Money makes it so. Money and the hidden yet omnipresent values of culture.

Go shopping in an American supermarket and you'll find that although the world's richest nation has a big selection of food and drink, it's all somewhat bland. Missing here are the truly smelly and tasty cheeses eaten in France and Germany, for instance, cheese that requires love and tradition and time to make (not to mention EU agri-subsidy). The American agricultural system is huge and industrialised, and its products are shiny and bland. I bought some cherry tomatoes, hummus, sushi and white beer in my local supermarket yesterday. When I got it home I found it was all what I'd call an "American interpretation" of these things. The tuna in the sushi tasted of, well, nothing much. The white beer was crude and lacked the cloudy, hoppy taste of German white beer. The tomatoes were sweet and watery. The hummus was sweet and gritty. The food had forgotten where it came from and why it existed.

I bought an ice cream from an ice cream van on West 24th Street. It tasted like plastic or toothpaste. Sound is texture too: New York is so noisy I get tinnitus. I'm writing this in a room with an incredibly noisy fan, a deafening garbage truck outside, and a police siren behind that. The examples could go on and on. Although there's a vast number of channels on American TV, everything has a cheap crummy video texture and is interrupted by commercials the whole time. Very little filmed material is visible as you zap through, and everything seems to take place either in a studio or in Southern California. So much for diversity, so much for a "window on the world". The impression you come away with is that, to the broadcasters who broadcast them, the actual substance of their television programs isn't really a very high priority. Despite the dizzying number of apparent options (hundreds of channels), there's really only one thing on offer here, one way of being, one texture, and it's a chopped-up, inconsequential, shoddy one.

But America is a huge, pluralistic culture, isn't it? Well, perhaps. In the last couple of days I've been twice to Williamsburg, one of the hippest places in CONUS. I've also witnessed a gay pride march on 5th Avenue. Now, I'm inclined to think of gay people and hip people as somehow different from the people around them. More "aesthetic" in their orientation to the world, perhaps, more colourful and adventurous, more inclined to value texture for its own sake, to focus on here and now rather than deferring gratification or sublimating. Yet the "peacocks" parading down 5th Avenue and along Bedford Avenue were mostly wearing the same boring jeans and sneakers, the same clumsy unsporting sportswear, as everyone else. Many wore vast T shirts over portly rotund bellies. (I'm just waiting for these vast T shirts to gain a couple of inches and become full-blown robes. That would be cool, American cities could become Nazareth or Samarkand overnight.)

Well, silly me. Gay Americans and hipster Americans are still, above all, Americans. The unconscious habitus that produces the poor textures of the world's richest nation is in their cultural software too. It's all tied up with convenience, with comfort, with puritan body horror or proactive Nietzschean body alteration (work out hard at the gym, your body is just a machine!), with putting money above quality of life and practicality above beauty. There is no Venice on the North American continent, although there may one day be a Jerusalem.

The 5th Avenue gays were, in fact, gay Christians, keen to emphasize that, although they were homosexuals, God still loved them. They wanted the same rights as anyone else, their placards declared, no more, no less. (No less, and no more.) I'd been picturing the scenes of carnage that would occur if these gay marchers ran into the crowds of evangelicals heading off to see Billy Graham's sermon at Flushing Meadows. Silly me again; the crowds would be pretty much indistinguishable. As with the ethnic cuisine, the top layer of identity here, the apparent diversity, is flimsy branding, easily stripped away to reveal a core of sameness. How ya doin' today? Doin' good.

As for the hipsters, well, I sat by the door of Beacon's Closet reading the free hipster community papers and watching the clientele, and it seemed like only the Japanese were really trying. Apart from a couple of Jesus/Serpico/Devendra types, Williamsburg was sadly bereft of inspiring figures. Bedford Avenue, so often condemned as a place of elitist fantasia and sequestered pretension and privilege, couldn't live up to the hype. If those things are hated in America, they'll be hated here too. It's in the cultural software. Williamsburg is, finally, just another part of America, another facet of the paradox which dictates that the world's richest nation should, for some reason, have some of the world's poorest textures.

Comments

[facehead2k.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... but is that America or New York? Both? Neither? I mean my home (Wisconsin) has some bitchin' cheese, and I've had others. Some I like more, but most I like less. And New Orleans (Louisiana) in general offers its own particular flavors that I don't imagine aped well elsewhere. Everywhere has its flavor, Nick.

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

I don't hate you, and the news isn't new, if you've been here...
I'm told that when the US began to expand and gain lots of territory, the wiser heads of European nations predicted it couldn't succeed, because it would take too long for information and law enforcement to get from one end of the land to the other. the telegraph and the railways changed that equation. since then, there have been several periods of intentional similitude -- it feels safer that we're all at least superficially the same.

of course there are rough patches and highly glossed patches and eddys and tidewaters. but the more and larger a group you put together, the more overall sameness you'll find. (for example, the startling blandness and cheesiness of the local cuisine here in the midwest is actually a change in texture. it's just not a texture I happen to like.)_

[alisgray.livejournal.com]

PS: if you'd like to find some tastier food for a bit more money, seek out the local hippies. the produce in the organic foods supermarkets like Whole Foods or the local Co-Ops tastes that much tastier.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Wow if you think New York is bland and the people are too fat, never ever go to any red-state. Your head will explode.

Small wonders

[anglerfish96.livejournal.com]

Anomalies are wonderful, and move the world, but wouldn't be anomalies if everything was different. Some things appear more different than they really are, too. But it turns out it's only appearance.

Some tastes are subtle, take time to reveal.

Surfaces are deceptive, even after scraping a bit, you still haven't got the metal.

I, too, get really frustrated at the jeans and tee-shirt aesthetic. Why not try something a little wilder? But then I think it just makes me look that much better.

[relaxing.livejournal.com]

I assume you mean Williamsburg in Brooklyn, correct? The area is getting rather Manhattanized now, and I suspect much of the vibrancy you seek has moved on to hipper climes (and lower rents.)

Perhaps some of the problem with America is the vastness of it, and the newness of it. Americans spent the last 200 years trying to fill up an entire continent, whereas Europeans have had a millennium to distill their cultures inside of their cosy little nations.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I wonder if there is some Heart of America that ironically escapes the blandness, in the same way that, ironically, the Disney-planned town, Celebration, FL, is the one place in America where you won't find chain stores, because it would interfere with the un-50s simulacrum they've got going there.

[relaxing.livejournal.com]

Seriously. At first I thought he was wandering around Williamsburg, Virginia and I nearly wept for him. Well not really.

The Future of the World

[(Anonymous)]

I think when you give freedom to people, most of them develop a false self-confidence that drives them headfirst into their deplorable aesthetic tastes. NYC is probably the best dressed city in America, and it probably gets trounced by Fukuoka.

As much as we both see Japan as the alternative to this "bad texturism of the free world," I would guess that the world is getting more like America. Are Japanese people getting more Japanese? From the ground, it seems they are putting down their arms against the big globalized, slouching threat. Are other countries getting more Japanese? Do Americans dress better than they ever have? What's the direction of change here?

Marxy

[pot80.livejournal.com]

Well, I reckon that it would be difficult for a nation that is at best built on the premise of a "melting pot" of cultural influences to avoid seeming somewhat homogenous at its core. That's part of the appeal in some ways - you may not be able to fully recognize that with your toxic levels of aesthetic elitism. But the Other-ness that you fetishize is still here - it's a vast country, and it really depends on whether or not you have the energy, inclination, and the patience/lack of snobbishness necessary to do some exploring on your own.

[pot80.livejournal.com]

There's actually a number of places in the US where you can't find chain stores. I'm from a town without them (well, except for the gas stations.)

[kojapan.livejournal.com]

I remember hearing a chinese professor of mine say that America's ethnic cuisine is terribly bland, but only because(she says) the people cooking it don't think that their customers would like very spicy or very ethnic tasting food. But I think the reason you are encountering sameness is because New York City is a big melting pot for culture- hardly a mosiac.
Diversity is spread out across America, like here in Chicago we just had a fabulous gay parade- no gay christians in sight. Good old Mardi Gras style partying for 4 hours.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, Williamsburg, Virginia is a wonderful place. I've been there. They've reconstructed a colonial village and staffed it with actors in frock coats and frill shirts. Consequently the people are much better dressed than the people in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Re: The Future of the World

[imomus.livejournal.com]

NYC is probably the best dressed city in America, and it probably gets trounced by Fukuoka.

Oh, absolutely. There's a little catwalk in Fukuoka that runs between the eki and the Fukuoka branch of Laforet. I've honestly never seen so many gorgeous-looking people as I did just sitting there for half an hour.

I disagree that it's "freedom" that makes people slouchy and bland, though. I have Japanese TV here and it's notable that a lot of the content of it is about enhancing texture: the endless food programs are very much about that "oishi moment", which is an affirmation that the texture of here and now matters very much indeed. The mystery to me is why the spread of consumer culture hasn't made us all gourmets and sensualists. I think the answer is that consumer culture is still in its infancy. It's still focused on quantity rather than quality. We have to shake off Judeo-Christian guilt before we can have consumer cultures in the West which are as sensual as Japan's consumer culture, the richest (texturally speaking) in the world at this point.

[relaxing.livejournal.com]

Very true. I was thinking more of your fellow tourists.

[(Anonymous)]

Bullshit, Momus.

The good restaurants are all incredibly tiny and hidden away, or insanely expensive (where the food will be cooked by natives who love it, on one hand, or ridiculously trained chefs on the other). My international foodie friends definitely disagree with you (I, however, don't know much about food).

If you want good produce and raw food, you don't shop at large chains - you go to the farmers markets. Also, there are cheese shops all over the city that stock many of the cheeses I grew used to in Zurich and Paris.

And you expect too much from Williamsburg. The place is gentrified and wealthy now, and as someone else said, the creative odd-ball types have mostly moved away. Beacon's Closet was a tiny little shop individually stocked by What's-Her-Name and What's-His-Name-From-Interpol, but now it's another giant supermarket. If you want interesting fashion, you have to leave Williamsburg. The days of electroclash, post-punk, and even neo-folk are gone and replaced by 'experimental' yuppies and NYU students looking for the authentic bohemian existence.

I've never been to Tokyo, but I've spent enough time in several European cities to know that a different pattern emerges if you:

Find a guide.
Get off the beaten path.

[relaxing.livejournal.com]

By the way, the ice cream you buy from a van on the street? That's meant for the children. There are better, gourmet confections to be found in stores. (Though probably still not up to continental standards.)

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

Don't know why that came out 'anonymous'. This is Troy, uberdionysus.

[alionunderaw.livejournal.com]

Don't laugh me off the internet for saying this but I used to live in Williamsburg, VA and I think that area is actually really pretty, at least in terms of the rivers and things that move through it.

[deadbatteries.livejournal.com]

well said, well said.

[uberdionysus.livejournal.com]

Now that last paragraph I'll agree with. But shit, the U.S.'s greatest food exports are bland products that everyone will like because of their assault on our taste buds natural predilections (salt, sugar, fat). The majority of Americans eat at McDonalds and Wendys, shop at WalMart, and think a Snickers bar is good chocolate. It's the same with all of our exports (such as Hollywood movies).

And go to Cafe Gitan in the LES, Bread in Chinatown, or a few other places to see the beautiful 'hip' crowd. There's no real 'catwalk' in NYC. There's Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg which is pretty moribund these days; there's no one particular street in the LES or Chinatown or outer Williamsburg. And perhaps that's a problem, but I don't think so. I like the fragmented quality. It's a walking city, but there are no centers, only micro-centers connecting loose cultural 'rhizomes' that are smeared over particular areas.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Lots of places don't have chain stores, usually towns rich enough to keep them out. Ironically, that's where the owners of the chain stores like to live. Nantucket is a good example.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, of course I know to get off the beaten path, etc. But this journal has a tendency to exaggerate the anomalies that I do find that way -- kojapan said the other day that although she recognised the places I was writing about, somehow it all looked strange and exotic in these pages. So I thought I'd do a piece about the big picture, the basic texture of American life as I encounter it daily, rather than all these anomalies.

[(Anonymous)]

Forgive me if I'm wrong rather than just blowing me out the water with your intellect, but wouldn't the same situation that you're outlining here be ultimate result of that European Union that you where lamenting the demise of not so long ago in your archives?

I find your posts increasingly frustrating - the hatchet job on London was extreme and unecesary, but like I said yesterday, I'm willing to forgive you for it as it is your point of view, however knee jerk reactionary I feel it was. Then again, maybe as an itinerant boho maverick you're afforded an insight into our lives that we static individuals miss.

Personally as a lapsed long term traveller who has lived in most of the places you frequently talk about, I have to say I think you need to be in one place more than two or three days to start deconstructing the entire pattern of life there. What you stated here was obvious to a point given the times we live in, but the articelis still appreciated. I do find it disturbing that you refrain from surrendering your expectations and curtailing your own cultural desires when you travel. But then again maybe that's why You never seem satisfied anywhere.

That's it I'm off. Where's the AV upload of your show? or are you planning on releasing it commercially?

Rob

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, I remember you getting all offended at Marxy's criticism of Japan, because it was so rude to criticise the host country. I suppose such niceties don't apply to you.

Have you ever thought that the problem might be you, and not the gigantic, phenomenonally cosmopolitan city that is New York? Honestly, if you can't find what you want in New York, you're not showing any imagination. As clearly evidenced by your lame "hipster tourism" in Williamsburg.