Feelin' Groovy

One thing that many people don't know about

Buffalo, New York,

which is where I live,

is that 

on any given morning

I can walk out my front door 

and smell

the smell

of Cheerios baking.

That's right,

Buffalo smells like Cheerios.

borninBuffalo

And it's not an unappealing smell at all.

In fact, after I moved to this city,

about nine years ago,

it was one of the things that really enamored me

to this much misunderstood town.

It's true,

when driving into this city,

one of the first things encountered

is the monstrous, haunting carcasses of former industry,

in the form of grain elevators.

Grain elevators are one of the inventions that 

Buffalo, at its peak, gave to the world,

which may not seem all that big of a deal until

I find myself someplace like Barcelona, Spain,

where I was a few weeks ago,

and, on looking out at the busy harbor,

and what do I see but

a couple grain elevators:

This does make my chest swell

with a modicum of pride,

but it's a difficult one to explain,

so I generally opt not to.

But I felt it necessary to explain the grain elevator

phenomenon

in the context of the subject of

Cheerios in Buffalo,

because

as one travels along the industrial waterfront,

past rows and rows of empty grain elevators,

one inevitably encounters this:

The General Mills factory, one of the working industries

and proud employers in this town.

In this next photo, from Buffalo Rising,

you can even see the Cheerio smoke

rising out and wafting over the city.

And that's a much better scent than your typical industrial smells, I'd say.

Now, you may be wondering, why have I decided,

after so many weeks and months of silence

to write about the fact that

Buffalo smells like Cheerios?

Well, it is a notable thing,

and I did indeed smell Cheerios

just the other day.

But I also was made aware of this commercial,

and the fact that it's making some people upset:

Yes, it elecited so many nasty, petty racist comments that

YouTube had to disable comments on it.

And that upsets me quite a bit,

because I think it's a very sweet,

brave

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And furthermore, 

it makes me so proud

to live in a city

that smells like Cheerios.

wrappedinfoil 

walking to the eternal flame: Western New York, late September

It's been a way too busy time for me lately,

and I had to do something magical,

like take a walk

in nature.

My partner found the perfect place to take me,

a place that borders on the magical:

we walked to see an

eternal flame.

And here is what we saw along the way:

Unfortunately,

the sound on my camera

is broken,

from having dropped it into similar brooks

one time too many:

. . . Now, at this point, you may think:

What's the big deal?

This is just a walk in the woods.

And that was what I thought too,

until I saw this:

(I'm sorry to say I can't get Blogger to accept
the film I made myself, though
I have now processed it in a number of ways.
Good ol' Blogger.
So I'm borrowing this film from YouTube.
At least this one has sound!)

If it appears to you that this flame is burning behind water,

well,

you're absolutely correct.  

This is a natural methane leak

right inside a water fall,

and the result is,

well,

quite elemental.

Here it is, in winter,

with more water:

Well, that truly made my weekend perfect.

I walked away looking

for elves and fairies,

while approaching children squealed in anticipation

of the magic

just up beyond the bend.

May you all have a magical week.

(except for the YouTube video, all photos and film by me.)

Surviving Third World America, Part One: Grain Elevators

Now, before I get started, I have to admit:

I have never read Arianna Huffington's book

on Third World America, though perhaps I should.

It's just my own private, personal interpretation

that I now impart: 

The U.S.A. is rapidly becoming 

a former First World Country.

I really believe that.

And as we plummet, we're becoming

the 21st Century Wild West,

most recently embodied by the armed laid-off worker

who killed his former boss in broad daylight.

It used to be, if there was to be

a dual, that both parties got a weapon.

But no, not in Third World, Wild West America.

Why are so many people going crazy?

Because so many of us have experienced so much wealth 

that we really don't know how to handle it

when it's suddenly gone.

That is, unless you live in an American city

that's been suffering recession longer than the rest of the country.

And that's where the title of this entry comes in,

because

I do.

O.K., I'll finally admit it:

I live in #2:

Buffalo, New York.

No, I wasn't born here,

(remember, I was born over 400 years ago,

in Greece, and have lived in countless places

since then) but right now,

I live in Buffalo.

And like so many other places, Buffalo

is a state of mind,

and for several years after I moved here

it was a state 

of mind

that I desperately wanted to leave.

But, unlike many Buffalonians,

I happen to have a job here, in a field

that it's hard to find a job in.

And it just so happens that Buffalo, NY

is a pretty good place to live

if you happen to have a job. 

There's lots of reasons for that, but perhaps

one of the most intriguing reasons is because,

only 100 years ago,

Buffalo was a very desirable city to live in,

and plenty of people did,

and  because of that, plenty of very famous architects did work here.

Much of it still stands:

Indeed, it's very easy to find a very nice house in Buffalo,

and live very frugally.

Now, I'm not here to convince you to move to Buffalo,

but I will say, it has grown on me.

I've learned to cross country ski

and bike, both of which

are very good ways to get around this city.

And I've been discovering that many of the secrets

of surviving, and living in

Third World America

might be answered right here.

Rather than blast you with a ton of stuff right away,

I'm going to focus on one feature at a time,

and tonight I'm slightly in awe of this:

The Grain Elevator.

Buffalo has plenty of abandoned grain elevators,

because they were actually invented here, in 1843,

by a fellow named Joseph Dart.

At that time, Buffalo was centrally located 

between the midwest

and the water ways that could bring products to the east.

This produced a need for a place to store grain, in particular,

while it was waiting to be shipped; thus, this behemoth.

And they were used continually, as the city grew, thanks 

to the Erie Canal, 

and continued to be used, a little beyond that thoroughfare's demise.

But when I moved here, I found, they just stood empty,

as they had been standing for years:

huge, hulking structures,

ghosts of an industry long gone, like the mines of 

Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, 

the work these monsters housed,

and the workers too,

are gone, long gone, and the buildings left to rot.

~ ~

Now, one of the many admirable qualities Buffalonians have

at a level much higher than the residents of other dead cities,

is a strong sense of historical pride,

and some very bull-headed local grass roots preservation organizations.

I'll write later about some of the preservation work they're doing in this town,

because it's quite remarkable.  Remember,

I've lived in lots of places, and the way this city rallies to restore itself

is pretty admirable.  Well, one of the historical fascinations among

Buffalonians is these grain elevators.  Some of them (the one above, in fact,

photographed by me about a year ago) have been destroyed,

but several have become sites of exploration.  Tours go through them now, 

and last night I witnessed an amazing thing:

a performance in a grain elevator.

My admiration was won a few years ago by an innovative theatre group called

Torn Space, and they got the job of mounting this show,

which included dancers pirouetting above from wires in the high, 

echoing, empty storage chambers,

to Beckettian monologues

to classical minimalism

(all photos from The Buffalo News )

It was, quite simply, transformative.  And when we all walked out,

to watch videos by different artists projected on the largest screen I've ever experienced,

nearly everyone there was seeing this structure

no longer as an eyesore, but rather

as a place of potential.

Knowing Buffalo, they'll keep using the grain elevators this way,

making them another exclusive hang-out spot 

for their abundance of gritty artists and performers and musicians

and cool wanna-be's from the suburbs.

This is, I would say, one of the coolest ways to 

survive Third World America:

turn it into an avant-garde art venue.

Oh, and by the way, did I tell you admission was free?

Maybe it won't be the next time,

but the flame has been lit

and there will be

a next time.