A. Aubrey Bodine Loves Maryland
A. Aubrey Bodine (1906-1970) was a pictorialist. He mostly photographed Baltimore and other places in Maryland in the 1950s. Pictorialist means it was more than just taking pictures. It was real art. He often dolled up his photos with better clouds or special chemicals.
Bodine dropped out of school in the ninth grade and started working for the Baltimore Sun. He later would attend MICA.
Bodine captured the different Baltimores. He photographed the steelworkers, the harbor, the architecture, the families living in the city (before it was filled with crack.) He focused especially on Baltimore’s landmarks abd traditions though.
Tugboats pull a freighter into the harbor. In the background are the smokestacks of factories and the famous Domino sign: one of the more notable parts of the Baltimore skyline, second only to the winking Natty Boh guy. Bodine captures the importance of the harbor and shipping industry to Baltimore’s economy. The ship is the focal point, larger than the city itself.
Cruising Central Maryland
This is the Double T Diner. The owners are Greek. It is open 24 hours, so you can go here whenever you want. The one in Catonsville is best because it still has a smoking section. There is better people watching in the smoking section. The waitresses call you “Hon.”
This is the Ottobar. This is where the best shows are. It is in Downtown Baltimore. After concerts, you can go around the block to the Paper Moon Diner. It is also open 24 hours. You used to be able to smoke at the bar, but not anymore. There are toys and mannequins glued all over the walls. Hipsters go here. My best friend and I used to go every Saturday. She was in love with one of the cooks. We went to his house once.
This is the playground and Park-N-Ride by Long Gate Shopping Center and across from the Y. Kids come here and get drunk and do lots of hallucinogenic drugs.
This is Old Ellicott City. It’s supposed to be one of the most haunted towns in America. There was a huge flood here once a long time ago. It almost reached the bottom of the railroad overpass. Now it is a quaint shopping area with cafes. If you see Homeless Ed here, do not talk to him.
There used to be a couch in the woods on the edge of Old Ellicott City. Teenagers also came here to drink.
Hell House used to be on this big hill between Old Ellicott City and Catonsville. They tore it down recently though. There are still some spooky ruins. It was a seminary once and there are stories about priests killing nuns there. It’s supposed to be very haunted. Kids also go here to get drunk and have sex. There are lots of beer bottles.
Ed Norton is from Columbia, that’s where the nicer mall is. I worked at that mall. Sisqo is from Silver Spring, that’s just outside Washington D.C. My mother and her husband are moving there. Will Smith almost moved into the neighborhood next to my high school, it’s called the Preserves, and the houses there are enormous.
New York/First Love
I was really into the comparison of love for New York to the love one feels for his/her first love. White and Didion both mentioned it, and for some reason I’m thinking Abbey did also, but that might be wrong. It seems totally accurate and I can really identify with it. Why is that though? What is it about New York that’s like a high school sweetheart, etc.?
P.S. As I’m sitting under my covers, smoking a cigarette, and listening to “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses on vinyl, I realize it could be about New York or that special someone.
On New York
White, Kazin, Abbey, Didion, and Schulman can be divided into two categories: those who are still intrigued by New York, and those who have become jaded with it. White and Kazin still believe in the good of New York. In “Here is New York,” White sees it as a place where all aspects of life have been compressed and pressurized into one super-intense experience. It does not have just one draw, it has all of them: “art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance.” White sections New York into three kinds. The first is the New York as seen by its natives. Its size, variety, and uniqueness seen by outsiders are taken for granted by the natives. This is what life is to them. The second is New York as seen by commuters. New York to them is just a place that ends with the blow of the whistle. The third and most important group is the New York as seen by the settlers, the people who have journeyed there to make a new life. The wide-eyed who venture from some small midwestern town, etc. with idealism and passion to start the life they’ve dreamed of. They, White says, are what give New York its life. They are the ones who love New York as if it is their first love. To them, no other place could ever feel more perfect than New York City.
To Kazin, New York is Manhattan. Everything outside of that may as well be just another small town to be escaped. Manhattan is the place of adventure, is what White’s settlers seek. Manhattan is the center of New York’s passion. This idealization of Manhattan causes all other towns, even those in New York, to pale in comparison. After being in the real New York, his world of Brownsville is no longer the same. Manhattan changes the way he sees what was once his home. When he returns, things seem rundown and small; it could never live up to the grandeur of Manhattan.
Abbey bridges the gap between the two groups in “Manhattan Twilight, Hoboken Night.” Like Kazin, Abbey sees New York as only Manhattan. It is the City. Living in Hoboken, across the river from Manhattan, the New Jerseyites see the city as something desirable, they long for the glamour of what he calls “Glitter Gulch, U.S.A.” But as Abbey travels across the ferry and nears the city, its glamour seems to fall away. Like a Monet, all the little imperfect pieces come to the surface. The anger, the dirt, and the crime all become visible when the he enters the city. It is no longer something better than Jersey; it is a doomed place that can’t possibly survive.
Didion is in the other category, the one that has grown tired of New York, sees all its faults and can no longer take them, as the title “Goodbye to All That” suggests. The bravado and charm and grandeur that first draw White’s settler types, which she once was, gradually fades and now drives them away. Didion calls New York “a city for the very young.” She goes there with the typical idealism, plans only to stay for a short while then is sucked in. However, she says, “It never occurred to me that I was living a real life there.” New York is a fantasy world, a playground for the idealistic. But with age and the loss of idealism and the rise of realism, the places that once were home become unbearable and the settler becomes hardened. Didion, too, refers to the love for New York as like that for a first love. However, as most do, she falls out of love with the city that was once her high school sweetheart, and she most move on, and away, back into the real world.
Schulman in “People and Their Streets, Places,” also has discovered that Manhattan is not a perfect place. After living there, she realizes that rats weren’t just, “Something that bit babies in an unreal and faraway ghetto.” She discovers the real problems of living in such a compressed city, infestation, unemployment, and selfishness. She finds that the problem with New York is that its residents only care about themselves, and that is what makes it dangerous.
Personally, I most identify with Didion’s views in “Goodbye to All That.” Right now, I feel like I’m in the throes of some teenage romance. But as she said, I do not feel like I’m living a real life. I am partitioned off from the poor, if I get in a bind I can still call my mom, but still be far enough away to feel like I’m independent. Going on adventures at two in the morning still seems feasible. One day though, I know I’ll grow tired of this. I’ll want a real life and a husband and maybe some babies. I hope though, that I can remain here. That’s the beauty of Brooklyn, you can get to the City, but you can also escape from it.
