Yesterday my friends Chad and Lisa dropped me off at the Norfolk, VA airport for my vacation-ending direct flight back to Boston. It's always gloomy going from the relaxed and verdant South to the crowded concrete North. The airplane part isn't so bad, but the subsequent subway ride to Wonderland Station, the bus transfer from there to Lynn Central square, and the walk from the square to my apartment, take one progressively deeper into post-industrial urban decrepitude.
There are a lot of sensory clues that you are entering a crummy area: The smell of the old man next to you on the bus, the feeling of rattling over potholes, the rustle of Walmart shopping bags full of Coke and Doritos. Mainly, though, it's the sight of garbage everywhere. On the road, on the sidewalk, in the marsh grass, snagged on fences, in melting snowbanks, in the branches of trees. It gives you the feeling of living in a place where nobody cares about each other or about anything; a human dumping ground.
While my car was in the shop this morning ($768.00 parts and labor for a new water pump and three new belts- F'ing A!) I took some pictures around my neighborhood and made them into this depressing musical montage. Then so nobody could accuse me of whining without taking action I got some old trashbags and picked up the parking lot next door. We'll see how long it lasts.
The song in the video is "4th of July" by Soundgarden.
Friday 11 1 24 morning call
20 hours ago
5 comments:
Looks like a cold version of Caracas.
Awww, c'mon. One town is not representative of all of Boston, let alone MA, let alone the whole Northeast!
Granted, the weather here still sucks. April in Boston is a deceitful month. You think it's Spring, but it's really not. By May, everything's cool.
There are plenty areas of the South that are nasty! Ever take 95S all the way down. 4 words: "Pedro's South of Border". Not to mention all the Popeye's and Bojangles on every corner.
At least Boston doesn't have that. Instead we have a Dunkin' Donuts on every corner :)
Dad- Yeah. I was all set to blame the trash on a majority of the local residents being recent immigrants from third world countries where littering is the norm, but then I saw some gringos throwing their candy bar wrappers on the ground, too, so that theory is out the window.
BLCS- Well, I reckon there's trash and decay in the South, too, but it tends to be more spread out and interspersed with greenery. What gets me in Lynn is the combination of densely crowded population with trash and decay. At least in the South they have lawns to park their junk cars on, and backyards to throw their Bojangles boxes in. :)
I agree that Lynn is not representative of all of Boston. Every other part of town I've been to has been nicer, with the possible exception of Revere. Nahant is practically idyllic- just out of my price range by about an order of magnitude.
PS- I've passed South of the Border many times but only stopped there once. Once was more than enough! :)
What did you use to mix the images and music together?
You should have run the photos through Adobe Lightroom and you could have really made it more depressing.
Lynn has never been considered much more than a low income neighborhood.
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