8.17.2006

Movers and Shakers…

Or destroyers of all we know to be good in this world? You decide. It seems that there was a time (not ONE collective time in history, but a time for each entity) that something (everything) was at its best. Then people go and “fix” or “improve” it and it may take a while, but we soon realize the “way things used to be” was much better. Restaurants, towns, movies, prose, paintings, coffee. It’s easy to “improve” something and ruin it. Have you ever had a sketch or painting or sculpture (or whatever you do) that you really liked, but realized maybe it needed a few more touchups before you could be really proud of it? And those two extra brush strokes or that one cut fairly ruins your art? And there’s no ctrl+z, or edit-undo on canvas. People “revamp” the menu at restaurants, or get new coffee, and even if the old stuff wasn’t excellent, it was the old stuff and that’s why we liked it. Even if the “better” stuff sometimes tastes newer or fresher or whatever, it’s just not the same.
I think the feeling of a town cannot be lost in any fewer fractions of a second than when the roads are repaved/widened and traffic lights are added. My little town is the setting of my first (ostensibly) completed story about a new high school kid that lives in this town. The story is set in the town about sixty years ago, so it certainly does have a quality different from today, but not much. I am making a few final touches (I think not so unlike the final brushstrokes mentioned above… that’s okay, I’ve got two different versions, one of which is the original, the one I like. The other is the one I’m messing with, somewhat to my chagrin), but I think Little Town, even today, has largely the same qualities about it that it probably did many years ago. There’s the stoplight at the library, but that one doesn’t bother me. The intersection they just totally rebuilt and added the intersection and such is the big killer for the area, but if you ask me, that intersection is really outside of the heart of Little Town anyway, because it’s all residential at that point.
Anyway, it’s just funny how nothing is what it used to be. What right now, at this very moment, is the best it will be before somebody gets to it? Who knows? I did get word that the local bakery near the Hall that also serves pizza has very good coffee, roasted/ground/blended explicitly for them. Yummy.

4 comments:

Affable Olive said...

I didn't know that you were actually still working with the story. I thought that fell through the cracks.

Change is what people don't like. Everyone gets used to something and they like it that way. Some just adjust to it better than others. Even though I've only lived out here 8 months, I feel the same way about a place that you have lived for 16 years. It's a need for something familiar.

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed this post.

"We used to laugh alot, but only because we thought everything good always would remain. Nothing's gonna change there's no need to complain"

'Mud Football' ~Jack Johnson

Alan said...

Haha. I was just listening to Times Like These, on his other Cd, On and On... love Jack Johnson

Anonymous said...

Me too