Friday, September 17, 2004
Preaching to the choir
I'm bothered by this again. (It has comments now.) And no, I don't feel like arguing. I just feel like preaching to the choir. And if you don't agree with me, tell it to your page.
I feel like a hypocrite; I have made many of the arguments against Houston that are being made now. But I do feel like I need to defend it for some reason, because I was wrong.
Number one, I would venture to say the majority of the people who complain about the class issues in Houston, as well as the gentrification and other issues, such as the pollution, never do a damn thing aside from bitching about it. I would venture to say that even when they do bitch about it they don't do so to anybody who matters. They do it in smoky coffee houses to their pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-bohemian friends.
Houston is a goddamn piazza. It is a cultural haven. It is rich with a diverse population, art, music, theater and anything else you would expect from a major metropolitan area.
One of the things I hadn't noticed about Houston before I left town for a while is that it really is balanced. I'm realizing now the perceived apathy I so often criticized is not really apathy at all: it is the creative expression of choice.
Houston is a city with so many people and so much going on that you can choose what to be here, what to do here, how to spend your time and with whom.
The possibilities really are endless. Many events come alive here, Downtown and otherwise. I got into running while I was in Austin, and came to Houston to find there are so many places to go running here I never even thought about in the past: Memorial Park, Rice University and Buffalo Bayou, to name a few. You can even join clubs where they will help you train.
Houston has many festivals every year: just this weekend there's some Hot Sauce festival and a beer tasting thing going on. There's the international festival, the Bob Marley Festival, Shakespeare in the summer, etc.
And I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Houston has more restaurants than any other city in this country. I just ate at Dumpling King today; it's a little ma 'n' pop place that has been in business for years.
It's a college town without the annoying pretentions of a college town: e.g. the UH System, Texas Southern University, Rice University, St. Thomas, Houston Baptist University, Houston Community College, San Jacinto College, Baylor Medical School, and I think there are some others.
Houston really is beautiful in some places, and improvements are constantly being made. I'm guilty of bitterly denouncing these changes verbally, unjustly thinking these changes were only made to benefit visitors from certain businesses and social classes, but for whatever reason, this is my home. How could I object to better streets, transportation, lighting and just an overall more asthetically pleasing environment?
I'm not arguing Houston is the best city; we all know I loved Seattle and I thought Portland was amazingly gorgeous, although I didn't have much time to spend there. But Seattle and Portland are not the fourth-largest city in the United States. Maybe the comparison is unfair in the first place. But I'm sure it could be compared and contrasted to New York, L.A. and Chicago in a number of ways.
A multicultural population inspires a creative marketplace, which is why it is so easy to find your favorite places while still having somewhere to go to mix things up occasionally. And you can do this in different parts of town, if you want. It's not like Austin where everybody goes to the main drag all the time. You can hang out Downtown, or in Montrose, or in the 'Lief, or even the Museum District.
Speaking of the Museum District, I don't recall Dallas or Austin having anything that could possibly rival the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Not to mention the Contemporary Arts Museum or the Menil. Then again, there's a whole area of town here basically dedicated to museums, so that's just the tip of the iceberg there.
Shall I go on and talk about the zoo, which, I'll admit is not so bad ass as Brookfield or Lincoln Park in Chicago, where I went when I was a kid, but it's still much better than San Antonio's or any other in this region of the country.
What about Miller Outdoor Theater? There's something to be said about being able to just stroll up a grassy hill and put down a blanket and watch a play for free.
All right, I'm done. For now. But I'm just a little offended about this all the sudden. It's just like someone said something about my sister or something. I'll be OK. (Sigh.)
I'm bothered by this again. (It has comments now.) And no, I don't feel like arguing. I just feel like preaching to the choir. And if you don't agree with me, tell it to your page.
I feel like a hypocrite; I have made many of the arguments against Houston that are being made now. But I do feel like I need to defend it for some reason, because I was wrong.
Number one, I would venture to say the majority of the people who complain about the class issues in Houston, as well as the gentrification and other issues, such as the pollution, never do a damn thing aside from bitching about it. I would venture to say that even when they do bitch about it they don't do so to anybody who matters. They do it in smoky coffee houses to their pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-bohemian friends.
Houston is a goddamn piazza. It is a cultural haven. It is rich with a diverse population, art, music, theater and anything else you would expect from a major metropolitan area.
One of the things I hadn't noticed about Houston before I left town for a while is that it really is balanced. I'm realizing now the perceived apathy I so often criticized is not really apathy at all: it is the creative expression of choice.
Houston is a city with so many people and so much going on that you can choose what to be here, what to do here, how to spend your time and with whom.
The possibilities really are endless. Many events come alive here, Downtown and otherwise. I got into running while I was in Austin, and came to Houston to find there are so many places to go running here I never even thought about in the past: Memorial Park, Rice University and Buffalo Bayou, to name a few. You can even join clubs where they will help you train.
Houston has many festivals every year: just this weekend there's some Hot Sauce festival and a beer tasting thing going on. There's the international festival, the Bob Marley Festival, Shakespeare in the summer, etc.
And I've said it before, but I'll say it again, Houston has more restaurants than any other city in this country. I just ate at Dumpling King today; it's a little ma 'n' pop place that has been in business for years.
It's a college town without the annoying pretentions of a college town: e.g. the UH System, Texas Southern University, Rice University, St. Thomas, Houston Baptist University, Houston Community College, San Jacinto College, Baylor Medical School, and I think there are some others.
Houston really is beautiful in some places, and improvements are constantly being made. I'm guilty of bitterly denouncing these changes verbally, unjustly thinking these changes were only made to benefit visitors from certain businesses and social classes, but for whatever reason, this is my home. How could I object to better streets, transportation, lighting and just an overall more asthetically pleasing environment?
I'm not arguing Houston is the best city; we all know I loved Seattle and I thought Portland was amazingly gorgeous, although I didn't have much time to spend there. But Seattle and Portland are not the fourth-largest city in the United States. Maybe the comparison is unfair in the first place. But I'm sure it could be compared and contrasted to New York, L.A. and Chicago in a number of ways.
A multicultural population inspires a creative marketplace, which is why it is so easy to find your favorite places while still having somewhere to go to mix things up occasionally. And you can do this in different parts of town, if you want. It's not like Austin where everybody goes to the main drag all the time. You can hang out Downtown, or in Montrose, or in the 'Lief, or even the Museum District.
Speaking of the Museum District, I don't recall Dallas or Austin having anything that could possibly rival the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Not to mention the Contemporary Arts Museum or the Menil. Then again, there's a whole area of town here basically dedicated to museums, so that's just the tip of the iceberg there.
Shall I go on and talk about the zoo, which, I'll admit is not so bad ass as Brookfield or Lincoln Park in Chicago, where I went when I was a kid, but it's still much better than San Antonio's or any other in this region of the country.
What about Miller Outdoor Theater? There's something to be said about being able to just stroll up a grassy hill and put down a blanket and watch a play for free.
All right, I'm done. For now. But I'm just a little offended about this all the sudden. It's just like someone said something about my sister or something. I'll be OK. (Sigh.)
0 Comments:
