Most people write about Roadside America - the lost geography of strip malls beside highway exits--the paradox of a landscape that defines so much of the American identity yet is so aspecific geographically. But I love the landscape that lies adjacent to the highway--what you see through the window. That's where I see the history of America--the juxtaposition of farmland against theme parks, abandoned farmhouses abutting corporate islands, outlet architecture that references an imaginary past, the encroachment of assembly line Levittowns wrapped superfically with the motifs of construction that once alluded to craftsmanship (and therefore wealth)...the grandeur of the natural landscape against the harsh verticals and horizontals of manmade highway barriers. Most potently for me is the moment each day when we're on the road, when the sun starts to approach the horizon, in preparation for dusk--the light spreading across the plains, and the steady movement of our van through time. And I know that this life right now is only temporary--of 6 friends traveling across America, making music not just at the shows, but in our van, in parking lots, in highway rest stops...And I know personally that my search for "America" is necessarily a search for that reverse "Other"--to locate a history that is not my own in order to explain this (my) present. What will ethnicity mean anyway after a 2nd, 3rd generation, besides a visual marker of our past that we had no control over? The 2010 census is coming up--what box will you check?
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