 |
|
The Tired American
They say whatever you're looking for, you will find here. They say you come [... and] you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that's the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. [...]
"The Quiet American" Graham Greene
"The Quiet American" Graham Greene
America - never has a country been so unfairly perceived, and its people so unjustly condemned. At least that's what I think sometimes, as I trudge to work - sometimes through snow and ice, sometimes through the soup-like air of a New York summer.
Growing up in Australia I, like many Australians, thought Americans were rich. America was the land of huge cars, huge air-conditioners, high buildings and highballs. "Over-sexed and over-fed" as my parents would say.
Hey, what are those ordinary Americans doing on a bus late at night?
Shouldn't they be driving gas-guzzlers and going home to a comfortable house or apartment - "a very, very fine house with two cats in the yard"?
Well, I'm sure that stereotyped life does exist in America - but it ain't universal!
I now think of America as a place of extremes. A place of harsh climatic conditions and long working hours. It is said that Australians work to live, and that Americans live to work. How true!
The land of the sick days and the long weekend seems a long way away. Here people drag themselves to work, snow, hail or shine. And getting to work is no easy matter. Whether it's by New York subway or in a Toyota Camry on a chock-a-blockCalifornian freeway, it is for most of us, a hard slog. And that's if it is spring or autumn.
I was. There are 21,000 them in Minnesota; I'm not sure how many there are in New Jersey. People think, thank you Steve Irwin - of Australia as being a land full of scary creatures. But in Australia we keep our cats indoors to stop them eating the native animals. In Phoenix they're kept inside to stop the native animals eating them.
And as for luxury living - you've got to be joking. Yes it's true we order-in, get take-out, have central heating and A/Cs (babies and the elderly would literally die without them), and the women of New York have pedicures on Saturdays. Oh the luxury of the pedicure. But what the rest of the world doesn't realise is that this can be the woman's sole hour of recreation in the week.
Luxury buildings. Look carefully. Americans excel at the makeshift. Cole Porter's "Anything Goes" has more than one word of truth in it. "Jerry built" is not a term used in America, and I suspect that's because here it would describe the norm. Buildings are patched together, and until a few year's ago in New York, it wasn't uncommon for bits of them to fall down on pedestrians below.
A while back, a columnist (in the magazine, "New York") whose byline was "Gillian Worrier Princess" published a list of questions one should consider when looking for a new job. They were
- How long is the commute?
- Where will you get breakfast?
- Where will you eat lunch?
- What are your shopping options?
- Is your new office building in danger of falling apart?
I don't watch "ER". Is it even still on? But to those of you who did, or do - does it ever show the hospital running out of hot water for the patients showers? If not it is not true to life, or it represents what I suspect - the memory of an imagined America - imagined by people far from her shores.
I must start collecting writings about America, from people NOT in America. I received a classic yesterday. And though not on the luxury of American living, it does deserve a place here. I close with this example of an outsider's view of American culture. It's good for a laugh, if nothing else ...
"Not sure about Macbeth in the Park. [...]
I suppose you'll write back saying that Macbeth has been deconstructed and then reconstructed. "Hot dogs, pop corn and icecream," take the kids to see the clowns and the cheer leaders and then team fuck them all. 'Let copulation thrive' as King Lear said. "
Yeah! Right!
Till next time,
Kate Juliff
New York
June 2006