food is on my brain (or in, or in my brain). once, when i was just on-the-verge-pubescent, and i’d gone over to mow my grandma’s lawn, she opened the door and said “boy you are going to be a tall glass of water”. i was thinking about that today (and smiling) (and how i didn’t understand what in the hell she meant) and food symbols, and somehow it lead me back to my skyline post, long planned. little trumpeted.
skyline is a total metonym, my favorite metonym, for cincinnati-ness. when people ask me why i delve the city, i go back to this moment as a child, sitting in the montgomery parlor, where somehow i became aware that things people do in this city are not the same as in other cities; it wasn’t just unsited-sitcom-forever land. PLACE = DIFFERENCE. it wasn’t that big a moment, and i do believe i’m fabricating the skyline setting, but there was a 60 watt somewhere there.

it's a stand-in, or physical representative, of "cincinnati"-ness
anyway. recently i had an idea, as an anthropologist, for a field working (hardworking) site. i feed off of cincinnati [OH I AM GOING TO SLATHER ON THE FOOD IMAGERY — I HAVEN’T WRITTEN IN A WHILE AND MY HEAD FEELS STIFF, SO THIS WILL KICK START ME I HOPE], or more accurately this bubbly cincinnati-ness. so i thought – HEY, what about those skyline restaurants in florida? i bet my bottom dollop i can access that somehow and maybe dig into that ellusive sense of displaced urbanity of midwestern/great lakes/southern (eat all [ this is my best so far: “eat all” for “et al”]) ex-pats. obviously they are leaving the rusting belt, but what do they thinking do? CLEVER ELEGANT DELECTABLE
skyline [dot] com has one of those Leave-Us-Your-Story things,* sadistically called Skyline Nation. well if we are a nation, i wanted to meet our emigrants. TO SKYLINE (i just don’t want to see money here. not because it isn’t there–i know it’s a market ploy for a mail order biz–but i just don’t want to think about it today) ABROAD.
well, obviously i didn’t board a plane. [but that’d of been cool. what an adventure vacation!]. and for a little bit i dropped it – but then i thought – google that shit, immediately [2 searches = CO2 emmissions of an electric kettle boiling water! ooOOOOOOoooo {BBC 2009}].
i planned to look at the restaurant reviews and see a cache of Cinci food ferment, in the vein of what you see on the skyline website, where people cry about how terrible life is in indianapolis, detroit, or iraq, and thank god they can get skyline in cans.
well that was a no-go. in fact what i found was a kind of disconcerting middle-class fleetingness across a suburban post-fordist landscape.
actually, no FL, i’m going to quote some from cleveland area, because it was more, egh, bland:
5706 Mayfield Rd, Cleveland, Cuyahoga, Ohio 44124 <<http://www.lilaguide.com/reviews/skyline-chili-520478.aspx>> (by the historic Greens of Lyndhurst)
- your normal-expected-ho hum-joe-shmoe-hamburger-with-nothing-on-it review:
“small. Not your normal tasting chili. I was disappointed. I didn’t like it at all. Lots of ginger in chili.”
- but it was more one’s like these:
“I lived in Cincinatti for 3 years and lived on the stuff! You must get the 3-way with pasta, chilli, and cheese. The atmosphere is perfect for kids and the food is extremely cheap! It’s not the healthiest choice but something everyone should indulge in once and a while. Trust me, you will become addicted to this place! Amazing!”
or from 4752 Ridge Rd Cleveland, OH 44144 <<http://www.insiderpages.com/b/3719465917>>
“Ok i lived in Cincinnati for 8 years as a young adult! This was the only place to go after the bars were closed! But seriosly, the chili has such a unique flavor that you will soon be hooked! I go to the store often to buy the cans of the chili also- its almost as good as fresh!!! A five way!!!! I’m reminiscing!! I ate alot of those and now enjoy the chili on spagetti at home.”
in the first one they do that classic no-no, misspelling cincinnnati, but for both of them it’s clear that skyline/cincinnati was a phase, that they’re kind of re-living. it’s like if someone was on Real World Cincinnati (oh god please make), and X amount of years later they pop a video in to relive something.
in general, from these reviews there are surprisingly few ex-pat “Cincinnatians, and many of these transitory figures. “4 years here, 7 years there”. i don’t know why, but it was unexpected. it depressed me when i originally looked into it 2 months or so ago. and the locations of the skylines are in the most far-flung strip mall locales, like above (^), supposedly there’s a skyline back there. i went to a strip mall skyline like this in indianapolis, it was not fun. they had a salad bar. i felt like my “community” ideas were being eaten by anonymity.
i found the same stuff for florida, though i have some additional observations for FL that i will reserve.
well, if the “cincinnatian ex-pat” is a myth is the “cincinnatian” a myth?! is the “cincinnatian” dead?!? OR SMIRKING SMILING let’s reinvent. let’s frankenstein, because that’s always neater. look, the valuable thing i’ve been able to take away from this is that it undermines seriously the conception of CITY <—> CITIZEN (native). which is good, because we can always use more theoretically flexible or processual objects. so, down with the native, up with the shifting and uncertain
*personal disclaimament: my sister won a t-shirt for one of those
let’s write with no blushes
cinci blogosphere social commentary!, part 2
this entry by one of the local realtor bloggers last week was possibly the nadir of the economy crisis in the cinci blogosphere. i like him a lot; he writes well, seems blunt, uses numbers reasonably and well, has a good smile picture to the side, looks like a combo donny osmond + rob low (dayton ohio product, lived down street from my mom’s house). this particular post is wonderful because it works a lot of ways both Against and For the typical civic booster stereotype.
on the one hand it says “THE FUTURE IS DEAD”, which is an almost impossible statement for civic booster types to make. the future, especially a rosy one, means everything. other important and relevant civic-politicos can predict urban decay as a justification for policy decisions, but a realtor can never sell a house based on the fact that it’s value will drop (right? hmmmmmm i think i am buying into a too-rigid salesmanship model) [UPDATE: i realized what my logic failure was here. the realtor CAN say that the future is glum, sure, because: a) that means that the realtor still knows what the future looks like at least b) and the realtor can “pitch” the house by saying it’s better than everything else (i’m guessing). our blogger buddy’s particular abdication is so stunning because it’s saying: “i don’t know what the future is going to be like; you should buy this house, but it might fall into a gigantic sink hole filled with carrot-flavored jello tomorrow.”](and to clarify, this digital real estate agent doesn’t say the future is dying, he just says that it might be dying, which is still pretty wacky). that’s why this is the nadir, that statement must be so hopeless and frustrating for a guy whose blog has trend-charts on the regular. i imagine that brow was furrowed and worried while typing about the unpredictability of the future.
on the other hand, the explanation for the entry could also be read: “fuck the predictions, buy a home anyway!” which i like that. only a good realtor can take the over-arching theme of poor housing market and use it as a springboard to sell shit.
a super bright thing he does do though is avoid refering to the cinci specific future. it is an abstracted idea of the future, which gives more rhetorical leeway for empathy.
anyway, read the last line, now the future is hesitantly back
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someday i’ll write about the realtors in the cinci blogsphere and the blogosphere continuum, but i don’t have anything to say write now except trite-isms that you can puzzle out. this is just a mental bookmark.
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