Providence - “At the Heart of the Swamp Yankee”
The habitual way of getting around Rhode Island is by foot or cycle. If you drive, you’ll be out of the state within ten minutes. But then maybe they want that.
Though New Englanders are vehemently proud of their Anglo-Italian heritage, they really don’t care for Anglos, or anyone else for that matter. The male of the species is extremely territorial. Really all of New England is. They get this from the English – “Southern Ferries”, “Northern Bastards” - that sort of bullocks. The Irish own Boston, and Providence is really, well, up for grabs. The accent here is Cockney English drowned-out by American-Italian, or vice versa. This of course makes for huge issues at the level of procreation. The English and the Italians were never really meant to be together, ever.
The Rhode Island education system is a dreary scene. It’s a popular destination for immigrants on the Eastern Seaboard – all those boats that couldn’t make it to Canada. There are Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Haitians, Dominicans and West Africans… the whole of Guadeloupe. (I’ve even heard rumors of remnants of Suharto’s ex-government hiding out here.) Perhaps this is why they refer to the colony as “the Ocean State” – you never know what catch the Great Blue will yield!
So Providence is the starting point for all those wide-eyed educational reformers. Everyone wants to deconstruct the system, wants a hands-on roll for building the America of tomorrow. Its failures loiter in between the Elizabethan houses and tuck-shop art galleries. The mad, the unemployed, the hip and the arty. There is a lot of sense of “come to Providence and fuck the system”. Though the only system-fucking really happening is the cost one pays for tobacco rolling paper - $6 for a sheet of 50. Don’t smoke! Big Tobacco has got their eyes on you!
Failure in the American system really means active rejection of the system, refusal to work within it. However, in a slow and jacket-drawn town like this, everyone seems to be doing something - even the youth - just not up to the expectations of the rest of the economy. It must be the latitude. There’s a lot of blowing on your coffee, rolling a second pipe, tucking in your sandwich… a “how you doin?” and “I’m not too sure about that?” How does anything get done here? Yet it does! Maybe it’s all that pretty architecture. It keeps one livid and content. It is nice to walk around Providence – pastel columns, Victorian and Elizabethan maid’s quarters, old brick smoke stacks. Every house has an enormous front door, attached to a burdening atrium. However, I’m not too sure what this facilitates, as locals are afraid to let other people (local or not) into their houses.
Providence sits solemnly on the North East hugging the Atlantic. It tempers the bounty of big-city crime that comes out of Boston. It’s a suburb in search of a city, which may prove difficult, as the tallest building I encountered in “downtown” was the five-story shopping mall. Providence city itself seems ludicrously non-violent, but on the West Side, ghetto-inhabitants taunt the local paper-youths and out-of-towners/college students.
What really happens in Providence after dark? I don’t know. At half-past-five the drowsy inhabitants climb their spiral staircases to their Victorian lofts to lay and drink eggnog and eat turkey. They don’t come out until Starbucks reopens at 8am. I feel that sex is not a common occurrence here either. It’s too much effort to pull-off ankle warmers and pull-on your lover’s organs. The cold tends to make people dirty, irritable and obscenely neurotic (of course the last two can be blamed on the lack of sex. The first on the unwillingness to remove garments). Add to this the fact that the average Rhode Islander is pretty damn unattractive (recall the Anglo-Italian genes), and you get a declining white population, coincided with massive non-white immigration. This of course makes everyone more fearful, which in turn keeps him or her locked-in at night and away from said lovers. Cyclically viscous.
The more boisterous way in which Rhode Islanders sublimate all this tension and fear is through showcasing their aggressive personas. Bar chat solicits a lot of “peckerheads” and “fuckin’ cockroaches” and “those fuckin’ Boston motherfuckers”. This makes for random outbursts from just about everyone to everyone else. But I’ve yet to see a punch thrown. I’ve yet to see any physical display of aggression. What shitty part of the English gene did they get (again, recall Italy)? I feel that Australia or England could take over this State through a strategic and decisive onslaught of pub brawls.
To add further anxiety to the witches pot, Rhode Island has the highest percentage of troops per population sent to Iraq of all 50 (51 inc. Australia) of the American States. There is a great deal of both pride and regret. The war and its perpetrators are condemned, but of course the troops are honored. The posters for Iraq food/Christmas drives sit side-by-side with “Bush Lied” and “The Neo-Conservative Dream is Over”. But of course Rhode Island has always seen itself as the custodian of the conservative dream. The official name of the state is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was the first colony to declare its independence from the Commonwealth, though now some think this was a bad decision. There is not a lot of talk on the war, only talk of political turmoil and change. The Right and the Left live harmoniously side-by-side, drinking each other’s coffees, serving each other’s suppers and car-pulling each other’s children. However they dream at night of a time where they might have each other’s throats and bodies. Until then, they’ve got other problems.
All this anxiety and dread over the war, the immigrants, the education, each other… Rhode Island is but a simple representation of every other State in America (minus California who should really annex). Slowly one-by-one, the Americas are realizing too that their dream is over. Their days in the sun have left them swollen and brown. Of course the browness comes from other things too.
Though New Englanders are vehemently proud of their Anglo-Italian heritage, they really don’t care for Anglos, or anyone else for that matter. The male of the species is extremely territorial. Really all of New England is. They get this from the English – “Southern Ferries”, “Northern Bastards” - that sort of bullocks. The Irish own Boston, and Providence is really, well, up for grabs. The accent here is Cockney English drowned-out by American-Italian, or vice versa. This of course makes for huge issues at the level of procreation. The English and the Italians were never really meant to be together, ever.
The Rhode Island education system is a dreary scene. It’s a popular destination for immigrants on the Eastern Seaboard – all those boats that couldn’t make it to Canada. There are Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Haitians, Dominicans and West Africans… the whole of Guadeloupe. (I’ve even heard rumors of remnants of Suharto’s ex-government hiding out here.) Perhaps this is why they refer to the colony as “the Ocean State” – you never know what catch the Great Blue will yield!
So Providence is the starting point for all those wide-eyed educational reformers. Everyone wants to deconstruct the system, wants a hands-on roll for building the America of tomorrow. Its failures loiter in between the Elizabethan houses and tuck-shop art galleries. The mad, the unemployed, the hip and the arty. There is a lot of sense of “come to Providence and fuck the system”. Though the only system-fucking really happening is the cost one pays for tobacco rolling paper - $6 for a sheet of 50. Don’t smoke! Big Tobacco has got their eyes on you!
Failure in the American system really means active rejection of the system, refusal to work within it. However, in a slow and jacket-drawn town like this, everyone seems to be doing something - even the youth - just not up to the expectations of the rest of the economy. It must be the latitude. There’s a lot of blowing on your coffee, rolling a second pipe, tucking in your sandwich… a “how you doin?” and “I’m not too sure about that?” How does anything get done here? Yet it does! Maybe it’s all that pretty architecture. It keeps one livid and content. It is nice to walk around Providence – pastel columns, Victorian and Elizabethan maid’s quarters, old brick smoke stacks. Every house has an enormous front door, attached to a burdening atrium. However, I’m not too sure what this facilitates, as locals are afraid to let other people (local or not) into their houses.
Providence sits solemnly on the North East hugging the Atlantic. It tempers the bounty of big-city crime that comes out of Boston. It’s a suburb in search of a city, which may prove difficult, as the tallest building I encountered in “downtown” was the five-story shopping mall. Providence city itself seems ludicrously non-violent, but on the West Side, ghetto-inhabitants taunt the local paper-youths and out-of-towners/college students.
What really happens in Providence after dark? I don’t know. At half-past-five the drowsy inhabitants climb their spiral staircases to their Victorian lofts to lay and drink eggnog and eat turkey. They don’t come out until Starbucks reopens at 8am. I feel that sex is not a common occurrence here either. It’s too much effort to pull-off ankle warmers and pull-on your lover’s organs. The cold tends to make people dirty, irritable and obscenely neurotic (of course the last two can be blamed on the lack of sex. The first on the unwillingness to remove garments). Add to this the fact that the average Rhode Islander is pretty damn unattractive (recall the Anglo-Italian genes), and you get a declining white population, coincided with massive non-white immigration. This of course makes everyone more fearful, which in turn keeps him or her locked-in at night and away from said lovers. Cyclically viscous.
The more boisterous way in which Rhode Islanders sublimate all this tension and fear is through showcasing their aggressive personas. Bar chat solicits a lot of “peckerheads” and “fuckin’ cockroaches” and “those fuckin’ Boston motherfuckers”. This makes for random outbursts from just about everyone to everyone else. But I’ve yet to see a punch thrown. I’ve yet to see any physical display of aggression. What shitty part of the English gene did they get (again, recall Italy)? I feel that Australia or England could take over this State through a strategic and decisive onslaught of pub brawls.
To add further anxiety to the witches pot, Rhode Island has the highest percentage of troops per population sent to Iraq of all 50 (51 inc. Australia) of the American States. There is a great deal of both pride and regret. The war and its perpetrators are condemned, but of course the troops are honored. The posters for Iraq food/Christmas drives sit side-by-side with “Bush Lied” and “The Neo-Conservative Dream is Over”. But of course Rhode Island has always seen itself as the custodian of the conservative dream. The official name of the state is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. It was the first colony to declare its independence from the Commonwealth, though now some think this was a bad decision. There is not a lot of talk on the war, only talk of political turmoil and change. The Right and the Left live harmoniously side-by-side, drinking each other’s coffees, serving each other’s suppers and car-pulling each other’s children. However they dream at night of a time where they might have each other’s throats and bodies. Until then, they’ve got other problems.
All this anxiety and dread over the war, the immigrants, the education, each other… Rhode Island is but a simple representation of every other State in America (minus California who should really annex). Slowly one-by-one, the Americas are realizing too that their dream is over. Their days in the sun have left them swollen and brown. Of course the browness comes from other things too.
Labels: America, providence, rhode island
posted by Daniel Grove at
2:45 PM
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