2003-06-10 - 4:50 p.m.
This is sort of an interview/dialogue between my friend Kate Bucko and I. She just happened to email me these questions and I thought they were a good opportunity to put out what i am thinking about in a rambly sort of fashion.
So for what reason are you in England? School? Pure decadance?
decadence i guess. i've wanted to go to England for a long, long time and i finally had the opportunity to do so. of course, I read obceessively about British pop culture and in my more academic work. England of course was the seat of a hugee colonial empire and really messed with a lot of places around the globe, so the power structure and how that relates to the present day is very interesting to me. in addition, my best friend from high school (who i actually started my frist zine with) is over in england doing a masters degree in human rights law and so it seemed like a good time to visit her. Also, my sister lives in france and it's been years since i've seen her, and the eurostar train that goes from london to paris in 3 hours was reasonably priced, so i went to visit her too!
Do you feel a sense of removal from the US, or do you feel that US culture is so dominant in the UK that you're not all that foreign?
In london i did not feel a sense of removeal from the US, much less than I anticipated. Perhaps it is because i speak the language that it fooled me into thinking that i was somehow "home". Even so, of course the culture is different and the sense of history and location is different but perhps the speaking of english (even if it is american english) enables me to not feel this acutely. Also, because I live in New York City and the media and trends and popular culture, especially between New York and London, are so damn global, it gave me a certain feeling of jadedness- like I've seen it before, which annoyed me- I don't want this to be the consequence of my life in NYC. Perhaps it has also made le realize the everydayness of life- I'm still the same person no matter where I go.
Do you feel young in comparison to all of the old that surrounds you?
I spent a day in Paris and the city is just thick with history. Every city, every place is, but Paris has monuments and grand buildings everywhere. In London it is strange because I've seen so many pictures of famous places, the "real thing" seems almost ordianry. But again, maybe it is a reminder that history happens in the everyday. Perhaps it is travel in general that reminds me of the smallness of my own life. But this isn't as depresssing as it sounds- it has actually made me quite hopeful for the potential of people to do something, even if the power structure doesn't build a monument commending it. It also has insprired me to really make what I want to make when I go "home"- to realize what is in my head as much as possible.
In London I walked around Cavendish square, where my grandmother lived in a convent in 1937 and though about the personal history of that place- our feel tracing the sme streets, separated by 70 years. Maybe it is that i don't feel emotionally connected to grand monuments. When I was in Brighton I felt a connection to history because of its infamy of being a place where mods and rockers clashed on the beach in the 60's and where Quadrophenia, one of my favorite movies which mythologizes this event, was shot in the 70's. So I had more of an emotional connection there because it is a place with a more subcultural legacy for me personally. Or in Paris my emotions about the city were built on the fact that I met a longtime penpal there and had an amazing time just walking around and talking.
Does the geographical change feel physically different?
Well, in France its hella humid now and in England the weather is so much more changeable (because its an island). But physically I personally feel the same. But that's the weird thing about modern travel- you don't always feel the distance. I think it also has to do with the fact that I am visiting good family and freidns in very westernized countries where i can speak the languages (in France, to an intermediate degree).
So I think to me it's also the small things I really love- the more leftist media in England, the English expressions, the cafes everywhere in France. These things to me are signs of "culture" as much as a museum or monument.
