Chronicles of a Suburban Past Sheldo’s America

I am from the suburbs, a pure product of the last half of what was called the American century, and my world - the world I come from - is unrecognizable today… at least to those who grew up there, to those who dreamt it in the first place… Now I live in Paris… but that’s another story…

I am from the suburbs, that penultimate example of the American dream that permeated so much of late 20th century thought. I grew up in a world fashioned by Robert Moses and the two New York World’s Fair of ’39 and ’64. A technological dream-world leading directly to a backyard and garden, a technological society aimed at cutting itself off from the technology that made it possible – the highways all ending in some leafy cul-de-sac where each individual ruled their own natural kingdom, but no kingdom of ends were these…

This had been the future, then…

The roads that are now all pot-holed, the bridges rusting…

This had been the promised land, after the amusement parks closed down, after the highways were built, where else could you go ?

The big bridge cross the Hudson at Tappan Zee opened in the mid-50’s, the only amusement park in the Bronx closed a couple of years later. Where it stood there’s now a place called CO-OP city, right in the middle of a swamp when you pass by the New England thruway but it must have been beautiful wetlands at one time. This is the far reaches of the Bronx, half way between the white sands and 30’s style buildings of Orchard Beach and the neighborhood of City Island, a still small fishing village with boats, Latino music and deep fried fish. Today, now with Coney Island so small and far away, the only real place to go for rides and the beach would be farther up the Sound, outside the city limits heading up the inland coast roads through small suburban towns… following the old Boston Post Road, US 1, to Rye Beach and its old playground… still there in all its 20’s splendor, still sitting on its beach and boardwalk and loudly shining itself into the Sound each summer evening.

But that’s another story and not the direction I come from. Back in 1961 my family crossed the Hudson to the other side, headed away from the Sound toward Jersey, but farther north, where New York begins again, arriving in Rockland County where Edward Hopper was born, where Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya moved when they came to the US… where, in Nyack, you can still walk along the wide Hudson River ...or where you can go inland, like my parents, to Spring Valley… “Easy to reach by car or bus, not really by train, but it ain’t much” as a 70’s song proclaimed… “Where the Thruway meets the Garden State, Palisades Parkway too,” surrounded by interstates, I grew… Spring Valley.

It was the dream incarnate, 20,000 people in the early 50’s, apple orchards and small farms and a particular summer life of bungalow colonies, it was far from the city, but only 45 minutes away, and by the 60’s it had transformed into one of those bedroom communities that were making their mark on what it meant to be a New Yorker… population doubling every few years, schools growing, it was essentially white and essentially Jewish. Spring Valley was our center, the place you walked to on Saturday afternoon for a piece of pizza, to see your friends. And your friends came from all over - but all was within walking distance because there was no public transportation - places, sleepy ones like Monsey or where I lived, a little hamlet called Hillcrest about a mile north on Route 45.

Then things began to change, or maybe they were always changing. I remember coming back from college and, I guess it was around ’73 or so, when I first noticed that a struggling deli turned beer-boiled-hot-dog place had become Mexican… The village could fall and could be rebuilt a thousand times, but this one change stuck… stuck so well it’s still here today - El Bandido - something made this restaurant with all its fake stucco interiors and mariachi music more natural than what had come before .

It was here, if anywhere it occurred, the line where dreams change hands and those dreaming change places.

The change was so great that the New York Times noticed, writing in 2001 that, since 1980, “...the proportion of whites… dropped to 21 percent… the number of black residents jumped ninefold, to 49 percent… The number of Asians… has grown by more than 260 percent and Hispanics by 366 percent”. And this in the small hamlet of Hillcrest, caught between the village of “...Spring Valley… overcrowded housing, drugs and economic redevelopment” and to “the southwest and northeast… the Orthodox and Hasidic enclaves of Monsey and New Square.”

This suburb changed.

No longer a suburb at all, it had rotted away organically, ceasing to be a “bedroom community” of the city, but instead assumed a personality all its own.

It seemed to acquire an identity in aging and decaying (quickly, all to quickly like a passing life) that was more than it was created to have. What was left for us was a shell of our memories, but for them, they that inhabit this place now, what is here for them is something vibrant in a way we could never understand, vibrant with a beat we never heard, different, cut from the present in a way we could never quite place.

The earth might have protested, but it was mute.

My memories might have protested, but they were not understood, they spoke a different language, an unknown one.

What language will you speak when you come here ?

English ? Not really, Creole or Yiddish, or maybe some dialect of Spanish that encompasses the strange foods sold in the local supermarkets. What about a strictly Orthodox, women-separated-from-men, Rabbi supervised, Kosher Sushi bar ? Or try the Haitian mechanic who keeps a thousand cars in his back yard, and receives in front, a bus load of Hasidic women, driven to him by their Rabbi, all because this mechanic is also the cheapest and best tailor in the surrounding streets.

Spring Valley, where 14th Century Eastern Europe, meets the tropical world in an arctic and desolate winter. How hard to be from the Caribbean when it is below freezing like the Eastern European steppes, covered with ice and snow for weeks on end. How difficult to be a Hasid in that tropical summer, wrapped in your layers of medieval garments when the temperature is hot enough to boil water, the humidity near 100% and you don’t have any right to take off your leggings or black flapping coats and hats.

Spring Valley, last stop up from Hoboken on the one track Pascack Valley Line. Spring Valley whose mayor George Darden is vice president of the World Conference of Mayors and whose middle initial is claimed by some to be “O”, and has been rumored to sign official papers G.O.D.

Spring Valley, a line where dreams become reality, or illusion, where dreams becomes someone else’s, where you lose possession, where what was mine, becomes yours or the others, or just someone else.

There is a moment when people say a dream has become reality.

There is another moment when they say that same dream has died.

But, I realize coming back here, that there is a moment in-between, when the dream is neither alive nor dead, when it is not possessed by someone. When this dream is not possessed it has no signification, it has no value, there is no one who understands it, or grabs it, or makes it their own. It is there to be taken, or lost, or molded again and given life.

This is a dream - not the next fashion, the next website, the next trend - and yet this idea of dreaming is more real than all of the others.

This dream is the world I came from. On that line between wishes and promise.

It does not exist anymore, not the way I knew it, but it was here I grew up, here I learned to define my life. It is different now, not better, not worse (though far more populated)…it is simply what it is.

Come and visit !

report by Sheldon Heitner

Article published in Technikart Paris-New York

 

You just bought an agency in New York,

why did you decide to set-up something

over here ?

Well, actually, we didn’t buy but created an agency from scratch in New York. It’s not a standard communication agency, but a digital marketing bureau. I observed that we were very late in France concerning the Internet and new technologies ; then we finally repaired our delay and, today, France is in reasonably good position. But I saw that the next big thing was mobile marketing. I’ve always dreamt of exporting myself to the US. I used to dream about New York when I was a kid. I was quite conscious that, for an independent advertising man, to set-up an agency in New York was pure madness ! To land in the US, the advertising Mecca, had no practical interest, my aim was to bring in something new. I observed that Americans were a bit late as far as mobile applications were concerned.

I asked local consultants to join and help me to conceive new solutions.

For example, we sold the M Passport to an insurance company. M Passport means both Medical and Mobile. If you are a client of this company, you qualify for a service which forwards your medical file to the hospital where you are treated in case of emergency. The system also forwards an SMS to your relatives to let them know what’s going on. New links are created through cellular phones.

Do you think the US and France regard communication and advertising differently ?

Americans do have something we are lacking : courage.

French people are probably more creative, but Americans are proactive and not afraid of taking risks. Today, if you own a trademark, you have to find quickly all available means of marketing it ; in the past, there was only television, radio, and press. Today, with the Internet, Americans react faster. I think we could equal their performance if we were confident enough in our ideas. We have a lot to learn from Americans regarding their business mentality. The American businessman does not focus on people, but on opportunities. He jumps on ideas, even when provided by their worst enemies, unlike French ones.

I learned quite a lot in New York : Being punctual, never “over sell” or “under sell”, being precise, to stick to positive energy… unlike French incumbent mediocrity.

Do you think that the present crisis is the best moment to express such avant-gardist positions ?

I won’t repeat the classical stuff, but the crisis could be a fantastic opportunity, even more in the United States than anywhere else. For us who are independent there is no longer any language barrier. Great ideas are universal, even in period of crisis. Our problem is the axiom that everything that works is inevitably French. France has been world famous in the past, unfortunately it is no longer true today, music excepted where the French touch is back. That’s why it is absolutely necessary to face this crisis, and communication is a good way to achieve it.

My opinion is that, unlike the US where shops are empty, France is not yet really affected by the economical crisis, which makes this endeavor so thrilling.

You worked with Nicolas Sarkozy. What did you think about Obama’s political communication ?

I came to the conclusion that their communication strategies were quite close. I imagined the motto Everything’s becoming possible, a concept very similar to the famous Yes we can.

As with Sarkozy, Obama comes from diversity and portrays renewal and change.

Both of them face hard work, and a real opportunity for them to reform their respective societies.

What are your favorite spots in New York ?

I really fell in love with New York City. I am very fond of Times Square, Pigalle’s copycat, euphoric and extraordinary, with its giant billboards. I also like Soho, Thomson street, West Broadway, Central Park. I really like running and I take part in the New York Marathon.

I like the Statue of Liberty, where I brought my daughter recently.

For me, New York is the universal refuge, where anybody feels at home.

You can do whatever you want at any time there, eat when you want ; I admire the energy of that city that never sleeps, as Frank Sinatra used to say.

Interview by Mélanie Mendelewitsch

Article published in Technikart Paris-New York

They are called freegans, locavores, guerilla gardeners and they are the latest New York sensation. For these urban freaks, the fight against globalisation begins in our plates. To get a grip on the phenomenon, we tracked them down in the Big Apple. Is France the next stop ?

THE LOCAVORES

In a recent episode from Law and Order, Robin Williams played the part of a suspect charged with an offence committed against a fast-food outlet, who defends himself with a shock alibi : he is a “locavore” ... You might as well say that the word, elected word of the year in 2007, has relegated the organic movement to a sectarian position and nipped in the bud the very trendy “carbon neutral” fashion although it was spreading in Hollywood. The buzz is so strong that the Google M.D.s, who are not really known for being green fanatics, have turned the head office cafeteria into a local restaurant, which was given a new name on that occasion--Café 150. 150 is the golden number for locavores, who are supposed to eat only what has been produced within 150 miles at most.

Why ? Because of the “carbon impact”, the well-known unit measure which shows you care about future generations. The principle is quite simple : forget about hunting pesticides--which is so 90s--the time has now come to rail against carbon dioxyde by boycotting anything that needs (too much) fuel to get to your plate. There is one problem, though : come winter time in New York, finding anything but roots around one’s home is quite a feat. So following a strictly locavore diet is the ultimate trip which makes you one of the leaders of the movement, such as Alisa Smith and J.B. Mc Kinnon. Those two Canadians explain in their book—A 100 Mile Diet, which has become the locavore Bible—how they spent one year feeding on berries and corn. The experiment was not a smooth ride—they had moments of madness and depression, arguments and shameful cravings for junk food—but they made their point : yes they can !

JARS AND CANS

Leda Meredith too went down this initiatory path. She became the star of the community by feasting frantically on tubers and posting notes on her blog about her everyday menu for a year. We meet up with her in Park Slope, a Brooklyn district which is home to the underground gay scene. In this area which has become, like Williamsburg, the private kingdom of bourgeois bohemians and hipsters (pierced under-twenties who are all part of—at least—one rock band) people pack in the local restaurants at brunch time. Leda, a smiley urbanite, looks more like a zen ethical shopper than a carbon footprint ayatollah.

“People are in the habit of rushing to supermarkets to buy food, without really wondering where the things come from, she explains. Being a locavore makes it possible to remain connected to nature and think about what makes us alive.”

Her apartment is crammed with jars and cans—the survival kit for winter, those four, slightly tense months when you try to make that one pizza last and your friends turn away from you because the fridge’s empty. In other words, going locavore is a chance to rediscover, in these days of overconsumption, the good old virtues of frustration : “Kids used to have oranges for Xmas and that made their day. That’s sort of the locavore spirit.”

But, despite the fact that some of the trendy intelligentsia have joined the movement—such as cartoonists Jessical Abel and Matt Madden, a couple who organize local dinners once a month--, locavores are not that popular. Because calculating the carbon footprint of beets depending on their place of origin could be hot air, as journalist Joel Stein, from Time, asserts. Joel defines himself as “a locavore with many exceptions” and has lately organised a “distavore” counter dinner at his place, serving food which had travelled at least ... 3,000 miles. Was that mere provocation ? « Some studies have proved that eating local food does not necessarily consume less energy, he says with a laugh. Tomatoes which have been shipped from Spain, for example, are much more carbon neutral than those which have been carried by truck over 6 miles.”

THE FREEGANS

Manhattan, 10pm, on 3rd and 86th, in very chic Upper East Side. About twenty people are pacing up and down in the cold in front of the garbage cans of a hypermarket. Other journalists are standing about. CNN cameras are looming—the channel has ordered a documentary. Indeed the “freegans”—which is a contraction of “free” and “vegans”—have lately become the US media’s darlings, especially because of their favourite activity : dumpster diving.

For those activists, who believe in a new age type of marxism with degrowth inspiration, shopping at a supermarket is the equivalent of going to… Auschwitz. Their credo--overconsumption has brought about a decline which is comparable to that of the Roman Empire, and we all contribute to it when we load up our caddys. As a consequence, those working boys and girls, who often have respectable jobs and wear neat clothes during daytime, fish for their food in dumpsters alongside bums at night.

MUFFINS FROM THE TRASH CAN

Adam Weissman appears, roller-skating at full speed. The 29-year old leader of the movement — with the complete anti-globalisation outfit and a vague resemblance to the Che--, gives the kind of talk that would make José Bové look like a centrist representative : “My mother died in a Nazi camp. I think we are all responsible for what happened over there, because no one said anything. We have to stop supporting the system.” He mentions Thoreau and the English Luddites, those nineteenth-century workers who broke their machines. And he gives figures, which he tirelessly repeats in front of cameras : every year, 40 % of the food produced in the United States is thrown out while it is perfectly edible.

Theory is put to the test and the round begins. Janet, one of the pioneers of the movement, harangues the rank and file and gives away her best spots : where to find cakes, pizzas, thaï sauce, and even organic squash. A good pedagogue, she begins with easy stuff for the newcomers : the trash cans outside a Dunkin Donuts shop. After thirty seconds at most, she triumphantly pulls out a bag of muffins which she waves about as proudly as if she had made them herself : “Look how beautiful they are, all soft on the inside !” Passers-by stop and stare. “I wouldn’t mind jumping in with all those vegeterian chicks, but it’s 20°F”, says Ron, a cab driver wearing a hat and a red parka.

THE WILD FORAGERS

Although not everybody is ready to hit the garbage dump, it does seem that not eating out and not buying groceries anymore are becoming essential features of the New York lifestyle. The success of Cathy’s blog is enough to prove it. In “Not eating out in New York”, she gives a list of all the places where you can get bad and free food in the city. “I got this idea from my media studies teacher at university. He imposed a media fast on us, forbidding us to read the press or watch TV for three months. It did me a whole lot of good. I have been trying to reach that state of abstinence again by not buying food anymore while living in New York.”

As opposed to their predecessors from the 70s, the challenge for these food warriors consists in proving that their diet is adapted to urban life, that it enables them to maintain a social life and even to make new friends through the community forum. Gone are the days when living in the wilderness was idealized. All of them are urbanites who would move to the countryside for nothing on earth.

PICKING BERRIES IN CENTRAL NEW YORK

Even better : for them, the city is the ultimate spot to unearth our pre-civilisation roots. Or at least, so says Steve Brill, aka “Wildman”, the leader of the “wild foragers”, who feed mostly on what they pick, in this case berries and plants from New York parks. Really ? “Yes, you can find more things than in the forest. For one thing, wild animals eat everything, and, the undergrowth is less diverse because of the lack of light.” He adds : “Should there be a famine, modern populations would not survive.” Thus, every week, Steve and his followers engage in picking berries and plants right in central New York. The activity is seldom understood by the local cops, who once questionned him rather brutally while he was peacefully chewing on dandelions in Central Park.

THE GUERILLA GARDENERS

For those who may find that in the end nature has little to offer when you are starving, there remains one last solution : “guerilla gardening”. Or : growing what you feel like eating yourself, wherever possible. This trend blossomed in New York in the 70s and was given fresh impetus in 2004 by Richard Reynolds, who launched a site which has united green rebels from around the world. An ad executive in the daytime, Richard spends the night throwing “seed bombs” in the most inaccessible places, which he harvests after nature has done its job. But the main thing is the thrill of the illicit raid : “We are modern warriors, says Richard, showing off a little bit. We have nothing to do with the hippies’ “flower power”. Those guys dreamed of a better world on acid. Whereas we want to use plants to fight against the general apathy that society encourages, the type that leads you to passively switch on your TV when you get home at night.”

This struggle gave birth to real urban vegetable gardens in New York, some of which have become institutions over the years : community gardens, that is to say gardens managed autonomously by neighbour communities. A guerilla beekeeper has even put hives on the roofs of Manhattan and collected urban honey. But the ultimate goal of this nice & green Third International is—of course—to pull down boundaries. During the White Night in Paris in 2008, Richard planted asparagus in a flower bed near the City Hall. “Guerilla gardening is comparable to tagging, except it is something alive that may be eaten. The stakes are the same : leaving one’s mark in the anonymous city.”

STEVE, FORAGER

“I got the idea of foraging one day when I was riding my bike through Queens. I saw two Greek women picking up things in a park. I did the same. They were vine leaves, I cooked them and I loved it. Since then, I have been living on gathering only. Sometimes, freegans come along with me. But I would never do what they do : once, I ate bread they had given me, which came from a trash can. That was the crappiest stuff I had ever eaten in my life.”

ADAM, FREEGAN

I spend almost no money. I live with my family so I don’t have to pay rent and I haven’t bought any food in ten years. What I find on the street is more than enough for me. Even then, there is so much left that we redistribute some to the homeless or save it for Sunday community meals. I have been offered money many times. The problem is that people don’t understand that I am not a freegan to save money—it is a matter of principle.

“SECT-LIKE”

The author of “The Hypermodern Eater” and an urban economy specialist,

François Ascher bristles when someone mentions food warriors. Why is that ?

FRANÇOIS ASCHER, WHAT IS YOUR TAKE ON FOOD ACTIVISTS ?

We are facing a sect-like social phenomena. Indeed, those groups break away from mainstream social practices, they proclaim their difference and are often very proselytic, which means that the will to convince others progressively takes over individual practices. These movements are based on a scientific approach, with studies and figures to back their claims, but they urge people to adopt irrational behaviours, which lean towards control obsession. Today, eating is becoming increasingly politicized, because globalisation is so powerful that it is making itself more and more visible in our everyday lives, even in our plates.

ARE THEY AHEAD OF THEIR TIME ?

Quite the opposite. This behaviour is a way of resisting today’s hypermodern eating patterns. A hypermodern eater is someone who is capable of using the multiple choices which globalisation has made possible : today, we can eat organic or fair trade products, at home or in fast-food outlets ... Knowing what we are going to eat has become a constant issue. And indeed there are so many injuctions that sometimes it makes life almost impossible. So certain people have decided to simplify the injunctions by narrowing down their choices. Confronted with the upheaval of landmarks caused by globalisation, they have recreated a fantasmatic territory based on nostalgia for traditional territories. It has become important to belong “somewhere” and to eat apples coming from that “somewhere”. It is a perfect niche for marketing, in so far as every one responds more or less positively to homeland.

SO, WHAT’S THE FUTURE LIKE FOR THOSE MOVEMENTS ?

These phenomena affect social classes which have some control over their time, that is to say well-off and idle people. This is one of the reasons why they are doomed to remain a very small minority. That being said, due to the growing recession, they can take new political shapes and lean towards autarkical practices. But the movements inspired by degrowth theory like the freegans cannot find a political audience in a context of recession and restrictions.

Reading : «LE MANGEUR HYPERMODERNE» (ODILE JACOB, 2005).

by Marjorie Philibert

Article published in Technikart Paris - New York

Welcome To NYC

In an art fair, like the Armory, Art practitioners must market themselves within an informal network of perverse rituals, what are the rituals of allegiance to art you have to perform ? ( i.e., unconfortable handshakes…)

The Armory is like other fairs, a speed-dating museum. We appreciate make a solo-show at the Emmanuel Perrotin’s booth but the ritual that consists of licking the dog’s tongue of the collector’s wife, we don’t really appreciate it very much.

Artists like pop stars, galeries openings like red carpets events, what happened to the art world, why has it become so popular, so hip ?

It’s because we rent the services of beautiful girls for openings.

Can the mainstream people identify to the art scenesters the same way they do with singers, or actors ?

If they have enough imagination, of course yes.

Why do we need Art in our lives ? Is Art an alternative religion ?

In gold we trust.

Why do you think Art is so undemocratic, and why do art citizens keep their world so secretive ?

Because galleries are too small

How come a gallery is so austere, the critic’s language so intimidating, an evening auction so snobish, for a world supposedly full of unconvential and anarchic people, the artists themselves ?

They saw too much cubist painting. Imagine people loving Botero too much.

The art chart/ What’s your top 5 artists ?

It depends if there’s a dope control ?

Out of the tents / Where do you have dinner ?

We try to stop eating. We are taking some pills.

A drink ?

Still water in a yellow submarine.

Where do you party ?

In the middle of the desert. There’s no neighbour’s trouble.

Five things you love about Art

Everything and nothing.

Five things you hate about Art

The opposite.

What’s the Art world’s worst secret ?

It losts money.

What’s your favourite piece of clothing for an Art event ?

A black vine leaf.

What’s the art world coming to ?

A particle accelerator.

by Eve Therond

Article Published in Technikart Paris-New York