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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Genius loci (spirit of a place)
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
This is inspired by my recent trip to Manchester, a place I'd wanted to visit for a long time because I think there are a lot of similarities, in some ways, to my hometown, Detroit (post-industrialism, civic pride, music, primarily; and the comparison is often made.*). However, in my trip, I certainly can't say I was there long enough to truly experience the spirit of the place.
But it's got me thinking. How would you describe the spirit of the place you call home? How would you characterize the place and its people? Are there recurrent themes in its history?
I'm also curious: What would you recommend to visitors to your hometown/city/area/country as something they must do or see? What typical touristy stuff is actually worthwhile? What little-known sites or activities would you take guests to see or do? Maybe these questions also speak to the genius loci of the place; maybe they don't. Something else to think about.
I'll post separately about Detroit, as I don't want to make the OP too terribly long.
(Thread title edited for typo. - Ariel, Heaven Host)
[ 03. February 2015, 18:46: Message edited by: Ariel ]
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Ah, Detroit. It's been in the news a lot, both nationally and internationally. We locals are very annoyed with most of those portrayals of our home, particularly the ones that have claimed the city is empty and completely derelict, or the seemingly-opposite ones that focus on young, white artists and entrepreneurs moving in or back, settling in Midtown, Downtown, and Corktown. Lots of folks have stayed here all along and have been doing just as much, but the narrative is that this (majority Black) city has been languishing and now here come a bunch of young (white) saviors, planting urban gardens and opening restaurants and boutiques - none of which will "save" Detroit. (I can't even count how many times you see such a story framed as, "This is how this person's going to save Detroit!" ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) )
I love my hometown so much, I've got a tattoo on my wrist (where you find my pulse) of the "Spirit of Detroit," a statue that stands outside city hall. That's the unofficial name of what is actually an unnamed statue; but the "spirit" is shining the light of God onto a family (in his right hand). The city uses the same line drawing as its logo as I used for my tattoo.
There's a t-shirt line here that proclaims, "DETROIT HUSTLES HARDER," which might be a pretty good statement of our genuis loci. We're a tough bunch, quite used to all the crap we have to put up with on a long-term basis (unemployment, poverty, bad weather, people from other parts of the country/world saying bad things about us, crime, inconsistent city services, dysfunction at City Hall) and we make the most of it. For the most part, we're fiercely proud to be from here, too.** And we invent brilliant music (punk, Motown, and techno, e.g.), and produce incredible musical talent, on a semi-regular basis. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
Another great description of us comes from our city motto: Speramus meliori; resurgit cineribus - "We hope for better [things, days]; it will rise from the ashes." These are words from Fr. Gabriel Richard after the city burned down in 1806, but they certainly remain true - and prescient. I joke about my own "chosen delusion" that when people learn I'm from Detroit, they'll be jealous. But I think that's not too far off from the kind of optimism that characterizes many Detroiters - in-between the times we feel despair or frustration (e.g., when your house is broken into yet again, and the police can't make it over till the next day).
As for things to see and places to go, you will find some of these in tourism literature, but they bear repeating:
The Detroit Institute of Arts is a world-class museum, and it's huge. You need at least a whole day to get a decent sense of its collections, at least two if you really want to peruse the galleries.
The Motown Museum is in the house(s) where Barry Gordy started his company. You can go into the actual recording studio where all the magic was made. It's a really fun tour, quite fascinating to learn about the company's history and the brilliant tactics it used to combat racial bias in the music industry (including buying a theater that wouldn't let their Black artists perform). Even if you're not a huge Motown fan, it's worth the visit.
The Riverfront is a newly-built walk and park between the Belle Isle and Ambassador bridges. The city's name is the French word for strait (le détroit), but we call it a river (it joins Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, with Lake St. Clair, which is not Great, but Still Pretty Decent). The view is lovely, you can stand in the US and look directly south to Canada, and in the summer, it's cooler and less humid than elsewhere in the city. You can rent bikes, and there are water features, a carousel, and parks for kids to play in. People are also encouraged to fish there, and they do.
Less-advertised, but internationally known, is artist Tyree Guyton's Heidelberg Project. You can see works of his at the Riverfront and in the DIA, but this is his controversial (and recently vandalized) massive, outdoor, ever-evolving installation project on Heidelberg Street.
I'll stop there, as I don't expect any of you are seriously planning a trip to Detroit, but if you are, you know who to contact. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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*Off the top of my head, the businesses that exist for the sole or primary purpose of making and selling Detroit-themed t-shirts and apparel include Made in Detroit, Pure Detroit, the Detroit Mercantile Company, Motor City Denim Company, Detroit Snob, [whatever the "Detroit Hustles Harder" people call themselves], and I know there are several others I'm not thinking of right now, including whoever makes the merchandise emblazoned with "313" (our area code) and "Bitch please, I'm from Detroit." Plus lots of individuals, like the guy from whom we purchased t-shirts saying, simply, "Detroit," on a foot bridge over the freeway by Eastern Market.
**I think I had an asterisk in the OP that I neglected, re: comparisons between Detroit and Manchester:
I've seen it in the writing of journalists from both cities, most recently in Detroit Free Press writer Bill Gallagher's book, Revolution Detroit. Also, I was watching that 2007 documentary about Joy Division not too long ago, and noticed that only 2 minutes in, Tony Wilson compares Manchester to Detroit...and Detroit or Detroiters get mentioned several more times in the film.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
The local radio once had a competition to find the "most Derbyshire day out for tourists", a single day in the county that would capture its spirit perfectly. One that made me laugh and think went something like this...
Dawn, wake up by a stone circle and dance naked in the first rays. Walk the disused railway trail to town and breakfast on oatcakes and mutton in a backstreet caff. Take a long walk by the Derwent to a well dressing in front of a locked church. Lunch on scotch pie, stilton and Bakewell tart on a bench overlooking Monsal Head viaduct. Spend the afternoon shopping for woollen clothing and tweeds. Dine on venison and ale before being beaten up and moved on by the Duke's armed bailiffs.
It must have been created by someone at least as old as me as I can only just remember eating oatcakes and mutton, they disappeared when burgers arrived.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
The local radio once had a competition to find the "most Derbyshire day out for tourists", a single day in the county that would capture its spirit perfectly. One that made me laugh and think went something like this...
Dawn, wake up by a stone circle and dance naked in the first rays. Walk the disused railway trail to town and breakfast on oatcakes and mutton in a backstreet caff. Take a long walk by the Derwent to a well dressing in front of a locked church. Lunch on scotch pie, stilton and Bakewell tart on a bench overlooking Monsal Head viaduct. Spend the afternoon shopping for woollen clothing and tweeds. Dine on venison and ale before being beaten up and moved on by the Duke's armed bailiffs.
It must have been created by someone at least as old as me as I can only just remember eating oatcakes and mutton, they disappeared when burgers arrived.
Not a Bakewell tart. A real one is always a pudding.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I live in a town which is associated with "flat", "corn fields", "boring" and "barbed wire".
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Not a Bakewell tart. A real one is always a pudding.
Predictive text on my Hudl seems to prefer tart to pudding...but then Tesco don't sell puddings ;-)
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
@OP
I have two places, 400 km apart. The weather defines us. It is what we call a warm day today, at -15°C (just a few degrees about 0°F). Yesterday -30. We consider it cold at about -30. Today is a decent winter day. The temperature in the 100 days of summer can go to +35 or even 40 occasionally.
So I guess the spirit of this place is weather, and the commonest greeting "cold enough for you?" With "cold" replaced with "hot" in summer, and being Canadians, followed by "eh?"
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Bob Two-Owls
Shipmate
# 9680
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
So, Bob Two-Owls, do you have any suggestions?
Hell no, far too may tourists around here as it is ;-)
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Jante
Shipmate
# 9163
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Posted
Take a long walk by the Derwent to a well dressing in front of a locked church.
Glad to say that with the Diocesan initiative on Tourism many more churches are now open- especially during well dressing! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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My blog http://vicarfactorycalling.blogspot.com/
Posts: 535 | From: deepest derbyshire | Registered: Mar 2005
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Most of the cities in North America have become almost indistinguishable. They were built in a rush in the steam railroad era, using very similar materials and architecture, then went through a long slump during the Depression and WW2, and then went crazy on replacing as much as possible of the identifiable downtown with mile upon mile of suburb and shopping mall, none of them distinguishable from any other.
I pretty well gave up travelling when I discovered that Victoria, BC, was barely distinguishable from Moncton, NB, except for a slightly hillier profile, and a few blocks around the harbour (Moncton has a tidal bore instead, and virtually no downtown)
I grew up in Winnipeg, just at the end of the brick-building, streetcar (=tram), passenger railroad era. When I came back to visit 15 years after I had moved away, the downtown had become concrete and parking lot, the electric trams and buses were replaced by diesels, and the passenger trains were completely extinct. Virtually every part of the city looked just like any other car-oriented city. Here and there a few bits of struggling ethnic culture and a few stray interesting-looking building but nothing much to say that the city had a definable character, beyond perfect flatness.
"Character destroys Big-Business profit-taking, so get rid of it" is the mantra.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Asked someone yesterday about her trip to Slough: 'It was like Newport*- but worse'.
*S Wales not RI. I suspect that the 2014 NATO summit was held there because Mr Obama got the two confused. Goodness what a disappointment he will have had.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Asked someone yesterday about her trip to Slough: 'It was like Newport*- but worse'.
*S Wales not RI. I suspect that the 2014 NATO summit was held there because Mr Obama got the two confused. Goodness what a disappointment he will have had.
I reckon the 2010 Ryder Cup came to South Wales on the same basis!
Mr Obama stayed in the (horrible) Celtic Manor resort, so he and his entourage were OK. Apart from a couple of visits to schools messrs Obama and Cameron didn't set foot in Zooport, and I don't think any minions did either. They were safely and successfully ferried to hotels as far afield as Birmingham.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
'It was like Newport*- but worse'.
*S Wales not RI. I suspect that the 2014 NATO summit was held there because Mr Obama got the two confused. Goodness what a disappointment he will have had.
Could have been the one on the Isle of Wight ...
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Mind you, I wuz born in Newput.
We lived up the road, mind. Cwmbran.
'A's no better but at least we 'ad the mountain and yew could walk out the lanes t'wards Usk.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Panda
Shipmate
# 2951
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
...
I pretty well gave up travelling when I discovered that Victoria, BC, was barely distinguishable from Moncton, NB, except for a slightly hillier profile, and a few blocks around the harbour (Moncton has a tidal bore instead, and virtually no downtown)
...
Great, I knew I didn't really need to bother with the West Coast! Especially after four years in Smackville.*
*Sackville, NB, a tiny university town close by, with good pizza.
Posts: 1637 | From: North Wales | Registered: Jun 2002
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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
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Posted
I live in a place that is well groomed but despised as "soulless".
When visitors come for the artificial Floriade in Spring, I take them to the Tulip Farm just outside the city too. When they want to visit Parliament House (a cavernous modern concoction) I make sure they see the old Parliament House as well, with all its wood panelling and old leather. There are many national monuments to see - and mostly they are worth seeing as there are lots of interactive exhibits these days, and they are curated to be of ever changing interest. Foodies can always find delights - currently one can tour the 'Poacher's Way' - a string of country eateries along the old bush ranging routes in the region.
All the press about our city is inevitably bad and there is nothing I can do about changing that or the climate here. But even if it was the most hip city in the world, it would still be despised as the seat of politics in Oz. We are the pimple that the face of Australia has to have to pick on. Such is life.
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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
Panda: The West Coast offers a somewhat warmer, but also much wetter, climate...until you move inland, where, among the vertical bits, there is, basically, a desert.
And, IMNSHO, the vertical bits are overrated - lots of grandeur, but so large as to make one feel irrelevant.
I like the Saskatchewan farmer's comment, after he had moved out near the Coast to be near his now-non-farming children: He thought the mountains were alright, but "they did kind of get in the way of the view". As a flatlander, I appreciate Tantramar and the other marshlands highly ("breathing space") and the views into the distance along the shore are very evocative of thought (which ids fortunate because Fundy is not a good swimming locale).
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Lolly
Ship's Lollygagger
# 13347
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Posted
I too group up in the Detroit area (where the weak are killed and eaten) and graduated mid 60’s, right in the heart the most wonderful music revolution. We frequented the Grande, the Hideout, Pine Knob, and free concerts in the Park in Ann Arbor while listening to The Up, MC5, Stooges, Rationals, and every other group that could “Kick out the jams!” Before stereo and underground radio it was Elvis or Motown. I miss Coney Island hot dogs, deli meat (Chicago style), Woodward Ave, Plum Street, the Detroit Institute of Art, and the Henry Ford Museum. Sigh.
I was fortunate enough to move to the Seattle area when Grunge was taking off and it felt like home. My favorite thing to do in this area is to go up into the mountains and eagle watch or head to the beaches The “Welcome to Washington Now Go Home” bumper stickers used to be funny until I realized that people meant it. There are a lot of touristy things to do here but the out of the way hikes and trails will sooth your soul.
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And draw us near and bind us tight
all your children here in their rags of light - LC
Posts: 179 | From: East of the Sun, West of the Moon | Registered: Jan 2008
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
Lolly, I'm jealous - all that part of Detroit was immediately before I was born. I love hearing people describe it, because it must've been quite wonderful - if you were the right age to enjoy it (and it sounds like you were).
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
Most of the cities in North America have become almost indistinguishable. They were built in a rush in the steam railroad era, using very similar materials and architecture, then went through a long slump during the Depression and WW2, and then went crazy on replacing as much as possible of the identifiable downtown with mile upon mile of suburb and shopping mall, none of them distinguishable from any other.
True, but also hyperbole. One of the other issues was the City Beautiful movement, which came out of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and Daniel Burnham's design for the Chicago waterfront location of that fair. (It was actually called something like the Columbian Exhibition, but it was the same thing as the World's Fair.) So you see a lot of Beaux Arts architecture, especially in the civic centers, of US cities as far-flung and different from each other as Detroit and San Francisco, all due to the premise that copying classical Greek and Roman architecture was the way to bring civic-mindedness to any city anywhere. It took off primarily because of the railway/industrial haphazard building sprees you describe, Horseman Bree. It was largely a reaction to that, but one that ignored the genius loci of each city. Maybe the beginning of the imposition of sameness?
But, despite all that, if you look closely, you'll see the uniqueness and personality of most Northern American cities, I think. It just takes a bit of effort. Or a good pair of sameness-filtering lenses! ETA: in all seriousness, often the uniqueness of cities is not to be found in their layout or physical appearance, but in their history and in the character of the people there.
[ 11. February 2015, 17:44: Message edited by: churchgeek ]
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
We live in one of National Geographics 50 top places to see, but happily [and by design] we live back aways from the really touristy bits. We do see tourists in town, both international and domestic, but not too many. We are very close to the ancient Spice port of Muziris and this is where both Christianity and Islam first arrived in India - there was also a thriving Jewish community here from ancient times until the 1950s when most of the families emigrated to Israel.
The area is mostly river delta forming the Kerala Backwaters. We tend to make visitors to the less touristy places and to show them how life is lived in a fairly ordinary Indian village and walk them across parts of the Backwaters or take them to Kottayil Kovilikam, a amazing example of 14th[?] century social engineering with Mosque, Temple, Synagogue and Church all in the same village.
The essence, if you will, of Kerala is openness and tolerance - and people from busier countries often benefit from experiencing the gentler pace of life here in the tropics.
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Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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