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I find people here to be very friendly (when not driving). Peole will just come over and start a conversation. It wasn't like this in South Florida, you had to be on your guard becuase of the hustle and bustle mentality and people always trying to take advantage of you. I admit, I am not the type that will approach and start a convo, I am big and intimidating, but when people start talking to me they realize I am just as nice as everyone else here.
I think it was that comment in your post about being a childless, Anglo lesbian (or something like that). I thought you were being literal rather than hypothetical. Apologies.
I am glad, however, that people on this board (such as myself) can learn to be civil and engaging in their disagreements. A couple more things about hating/loving San Antonio:
-Recently, I've been thinking about the similarities between living in San Antonio and feeling--at least somewhat--like an ex-pat. We're definitely in the United States here, but SA has always felt like one of the most unique and non-mainstream American cities in the country to me. Heck, we're dominated by a demographic that has much in common with the region as a whole, which encompasses the border and northern Mexico. SA often reminds me of the capital city of a Latin American country in which I lived for a few years. I think there's something about life in SA that appeals to folks who've enjoyed the ex-pat life. I'll think more about this and post in a different thread. . . .
-Related to that idea is my realization that when you do meet someone who shares your interests and background in SA you're pleasantly surprised. (Is this just about having low expectations? No, I don't think so.) For example: A couple of days ago I was sitting in a bar down the street throwing a few Lone Stars back while watching the Magic/Lakers game and eating a pizza. (A very nice pesto margherita pizza, might I add.) Over the past few months, I'd become "drinking buddies" with a middle-aged Mexican/Latino/Hispanic guy whose name I didn't even know, but who shared my love for the Spurs and my desire to see the Magic trounce the Lakers.
Well, the last time I saw this man (a few nights ago), he made some comment about meeting his girlfriend at the zoo. I asked a question, and it turns out that he's a zookeeper. I told him that I had students who do research there, and he was surprised to learn that I'm actually a professor. (While not at work, I more or less maintain the appearance of an aging punk rock/indie rock "kid": tight jeans, black T-shirts, tatoos, etc.--not a typical academic!) And I was surprised to learn that he doesn't simply clean the gunk off the hippo pool but actually has a degree in wildlife biology--which he got after 12 years in the Marines. It turns out that he has traveled extensively through Latin America, and that we had both been to the same tiny reserve in Amazonian Peru. His knowledge of tropical ecology was superb, and we proceeded to get into a long discussion about the possible identification of a small feline in "my neck of the woods" (i.e., the Ecuadorian-Colombian border) that might be a new species.
Anyway, I was extremely surprised and pleased by it all. On one side was me and my low-brow appearance, attitude, and approachability. On the other side was him, with a very different look but a similar friendliness and perceived class/education "status." All we knew about each other came from beer and basketball, but it turns out that we had insanely similar passions, politics, and "backgrounds"--even though I'm a 30-something native of Chicago with a PhD and he's a 50-something native of south Texas who spent more than a decade in the military.
I've got a bunch of stories like that, and I've only been here a couple of years. Appearances can be deceptive in this city. I've found a great number of folks from all walks of life who are extremely interesting in unpredictable ways. What defines them all? Their friendliness and their openness--two qualities that I've found to be lacking in the other major metropoles in which I've lived.
-One final point: The actual average income in SA is pretty close to that of Texas's other large cities. I agree: it does seem very blue collar here. But there are also incredible pockets of wealth. I was in Chicago over Christmas, and I was at a swank party thrown by a family I know from the North Shore who have a multi-million dollar condo on Michigan Avenue and loads of savings from their venture capital firm. I talked to the youngest daughter, who had recently graduated from Pomona (I think), and who had a classmate from a prominent San Antonio family. She has visited here multiple times, and she proclaimed that the level of wealth and "distinction" she saw among her friend's social circle (largely centered in Alamo Heights and Olmos Park) put her upbringing in a Winnetka mansion to shame! (There's a ton of cash around here, but it manifests itself in strange ways.)
OK, enough for now. Back to work!
Interesting thoughts.
I concur with your sentiments regarding being surprised when someone here shares something in common with you - as an example, I was shopping at the now defunct Sharper Image at La Cantera, and this guy was playing Minus 8, a rather obscure nujazz "band" out of Switzerland.
Turns out, he was also into that kind of music, and it caught me a bit off guard, because that's what I call cosmopolitan music, and I just didn't expect anyone in San Antonio to have such tastes. As you know I'm sure, the music here tends to swing toward metal, tejano, or the country sort.
And interestingly enough, I'm from the North Shore of Chicago. I lived in several communities, one of which being Wilmette, which interestingly enough, is in the same school district as Winnetka, New Trier.
Yes, there are some very exclusive mansions in Alamo Heights, Olmos Park, Terrell Hills, and Monte Vista, but they really can't touch communities like Kenilworth, Lake Forest, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Wilmette, and the like, in my personal opinion. But of course everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and admittedly, I'm not familiar with south Texas "old money" set.
I concur with your sentiments regarding being surprised when someone here shares something in common with you - as an example, I was shopping at the now defunct Sharper Image at La Cantera, and this guy was playing Minus 8, a rather obscure nujazz "band" out of Switzerland.
Turns out, he was also into that kind of music, and it caught me a bit off guard, because that's what I call cosmopolitan music, and I just didn't expect anyone in San Antonio to have such tastes. As you know I'm sure, the music here tends to swing toward metal, tejano, or the country sort.
And interestingly enough, I'm from the North Shore of Chicago. I lived in several communities, one of which being Wilmette, which interestingly enough, is in the same school district as Winnetka, New Trier.
Yes, there are some very exclusive mansions in Alamo Heights, Olmos Park, Terrell Hills, and Monte Vista, but they really can't touch communities like Kenilworth, Lake Forest, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Wilmette, and the like, in my personal opinion. But of course everyone's entitled to their own opinion, and admittedly, I'm not familiar with south Texas "old money" set.
L3XVS-Reading through your threads on here-im not sure whether your are attempting to embrace and try to like where you are currently living-complaining is a lot of negative energy that could be better used on looking for the positives in San Antonio and comparing Chicago to San Antonio is an apple to oranges comparison. I love San Antonio since i was a child for a lot of reason-you should try the same!
Thank you, L3XVS, for your thoughtful, intelligent, and detailed response. Thank you also, JuneOf48, for your fantastic articulation of San Antonio's vibe and for clarifying some of the stakes in what I posted.
L3XVS, let me make it clear: I am not saying that San Antonio is better than any of the great places that you, JuneOf48, and I have mentioned. In fact I'm writing right now from my girlfriend's apartment in San Francisco, happy to be bundling up instead of roasting for the summer, eating Rin's Thai and Eric's Chinese in my old neighborhood, having coffee at Phil'z in the Mission, seeing great performances at the SF International Arts Festival out on the peer of Fort Mason, and catching an unbelievable William Kentridge retrospective at the SF MOMA I would be very surprised to see make a San Antonio stop.
It's great to be back, and I have very few negative things to say about San Francisco; my complaints are really negligible in the face of how much I love this city. My response to San Francisco is like my response to most world-class cities: wow, what a great place! In their own ways, places like San Francisco and Chicago clearly blow San Antonio out of the water for sophistication, ability to attract top-notch talent, arts funding, international cosmopolitanism, and notoriety. I sometimes wish San Antonio had these things in greater abundance.
But most of the time, I'm glad it doesn't. I'm glad that the arts in SA are more homespun, a little more threadbare in their means, and that not as many people would ever pay millions for small condos to live there. That does not mean San Antonio is better than the great cities for its dilapidation, only that I am glad these differences exist. In a similar way, I am both glad that a wonderful World City like London exists and glad that there are small funky industrial towns like Sheffield outside of it, where cheap warehouses facilitate great artistic innovation almost impossible in more expensive places. I am also glad that both Paris and Avignon exist, even though the latter is smaller, medieval, lacks the Eiffel Tower, and only becomes a rival cultural destination during its annual festival. San Antonio is parochial, relatively isolated, and less wealthy. That's all true, and yet I love it, as do many others.
As it happens, historically, San Antonio was not a backwater. Besides being one of the oldest cities in the country, one of the only major cities to have been part of Spain, it was also a cultural capital of sorts in its modern heyday in the 1910s and 20s. Theatres and museums lined Commerce, the great film director and innovator Georges Melies set up a film production studio, and the wealthy art consumers flocked to neighborhoods like Monte Vista. Blues badass Robert Johnson recorded at the Gunter Hotel, while Louis Armstrong was a big part of the birth of Jim Cullum's Landing. In the following decades, the city lost much of its relative wealth and population, changed substantially, and kept its historical influences poorly, stuck in the past, like a crumbling stone wall.
What if San Antonio had maintained its Golden Age wealth and power? What if it grew and grew into an ever greater and more noteworthy metropolis? What if it was more like San Francisco or New York? Well, it would probably be pretty great - but it would also have lost the slow, lame, weird, dusty, kitschy, funky, punk rock charm that makes it a place where something truly unique can happen. If it's off the beaten path, then so much the better.
You're quite right, L3XVS, that you have to have lots of people from all over the world to make a city cosmopolitan. And I think you are mostly right that San Francisco is international in a way that San Antonio is not. Now, San Antonio certainly has people from all over the world, but primarily the bulk of its population and its cultural influences come from Mexico, the Canary Islands, Germany, Texas, the US South, and the US Southwest. The Asian, Asian-American, and African-American cultural influences are not as thoroughly well represented in San Antonio as they are in San Francisco. (You might say a similar thing about San Francisco, though, that it is primarily Chinese, Italian, French, Latin American, and Northern Californian. Still, I concede it is more international and more cosmopolitan than San Antonio is.)
San Francisco, almost like a miniature version of giant World Cities like London, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, Berlin, etc, has loads of influences from all over; it is a hub, a center of economic and cultural globalization, a predictable destination for the jet set. To the degree that this is true (and it is certainly less true in San Francisco than in other major American cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles), the city's particularity gives way to the infinite universality of the global community. Get to the very center of most World City downtowns, and they look similar. Businessmen and businesswomen carry briefcases and speak on cell phones, tourists gape, large buildings tower, public squares sport massive and striking (but necessarily inoffensive) artworks, large theatres show the same Broadway and West End shows, the same expensive stores sell the same expensive clothes designed by the same expensive international labels, and buildings owned by the same multinational banks attest to the power of global finance.
Now, these great cities have their unique parts to them as well (Chinatown, Little Italy, Ukrainian Village, Park Slope, the Haight, Kreuzberg, etc), but those parts are away from this World City center, this center that must conform to the centers of other World Cities in order to participate in their global influence. To the degree that a city is a World City, it loses that much of itself as a particular city, as a city unlike any other.
In a sense, San Antonio is a great city because it is not a great city. At the center of a World City is a Union Square, the union of all cities, of civilization itself. At the center of San Antonio are old dusty stones, Mexican markets, kitschy souvenir shops, a beautiful riverwalk, and people who are not particularly concerned with "civilization itself."
You might need a London or a New York to get the most highly renowned Grand Opera performances of Wagner, or to attract the most famous and written-about chefs. All I'm saying is that I love, and find wonderfully refreshing, how patchwork and grainy San Antonio artists, musicians, and writers are. The particular blend of the limited cultural influences that have shaped this city -- Spanish, Mexican, German, Texan, Southern -- have created a sauce that is a lovely blend of spicy, sweet, and savory, a sauce, which, like a good mole, comes in as many varieties as there are families.
Is mole inferior to beurre blanc because it is often made by less-refined chefs, because it is less European? Certainly not. You are absolutely right that a city's cosmopolitanism emerges from the contacts between different cultures. That is a major part of the equation, and the beginning. But then a city becomes itself, a new culture, by simmering in relative removal from the immediate fads of the culture that happens to be in power at the moment. Paris needed Gallic and Roman influence as well as its subsequent isolation to become Parisian (a once quite particular character, gradually homogenized over the course of a millenium). Rio de Janeiro needed Native South Americans and Portugal but also its particular removal to create a Carnival that the whole world would come to love. This is how evolution happens: a population becomes isolated from the mainstream, perhaps interacts and breeds with another isolated species, mutates, and adapts to its particular circumstances. So too with the evolution of language, religion, and law: first influence, then stewing about in it.
Provincialism is not the antithesis of cultural influence but rather its necessary container, the barrel to its vintage, the delineator of its differences.
San Antonio is stewing about in a pot of jalapenos, bratwursts, gravy, and grits; it is good -- not better, but good, even wonderful -- because it is homespun, dusty, gritty, and lovely. When I said I hate the impulse to turn a nose up, I don't mean there aren't things to criticize, and we should try to make the city as great as it can be. Great is good. Improvement is good. But any real improvements of San Antonio, in my book, will attend to its uniqueness, not try to obliterate it. You could pave the Riverwalk, demolish the Missions, and erect skyscrapers instead. You could replace the Mom and Pop Mexican restaurants with chic gourmet four star establishments. You could make SA more of a World City -- it could go the way of Houston and Dallas. But that would not be improving on what San Antonio has to offer, a thing that only a few other places have: authenticity, particularity, one-of-a-kind real, homespun, regional presence.
Even as I ride the light rails of SF up and down its beautiful hills, bundled against the cold fog, I am craving a chorizo y papas taco and a stroll through King William followed by a beer at Blue Star. Even as I look at the mansions of Nob Hill, I can't help but squint my eyes and imagine what they'd look like if they were leaning a bit with pealing paint. I like it here very much, especially for all the parts of the SF neighborhoods that are far away from its increasing World City status. It's not that I am not glad to be here. It's just that I'll also be glad to go home to San Antonio.
That's a great post, and now, I must admit, not only do I have a greater appreciation for, but can also empathize for your desire to experience a metropolis that is not defined by the qualities that make a place cosmopolitan or world class.
It's kind of like living on a lush tropical island for an extended period of time - yes, the weather, beaches, and view might be great, but after awhile you naturally want to experience something different, perhaps something that's polar opposite.
However, in my case atleast, I need to spice it up, because San Antonio's cultural and culinary milieu just don't cut it for me, and close by atleast, I find Austin to have much greater variety and diversity in this regard. No, it's not San Francisco or Seattle, but Austin is a music-lovers haven, and there certainly are more visible mom n' pops than in San Antonio.
All in all I can appreciate where you're coming from and look forward to further discussion!
It's kind of like living on a lush tropical island for an extended period of time - yes, the weather, beaches, and view might be great, but after awhile you naturally want to experience something different, perhaps something that's polar opposite.
That reminds me of a trip to Hawaii several years back...we chatted with a military guy who had lived in Oahu for a couple years and asked how he enjoyed living in paradise. He said he hated it. Land-locked, no variety of different places to hang out, and the locals were stupid." And the rest of the military guys agreed with him.
Love:
Laid back, friendly
Downtown - Riverwalk and King William
Flying Saucer, Blue Star and Freetails (great beer!)
Fajitas! Tamales!
Hate:
Oblivious inept inconsiderate drivers: Don't understand freeway merging (speed up!)
Cell phone talkers
Allergic to turn signals
No HOV lanes on major arteries.
1604 needs to be finished and 10 lanes wide everywhere.
Frustrated, as many of you are, with the state of the roads and freeways, especially knowing that TXDOT could have done something about it years ago had the state not pilfered the highways monies for other projects.
...Unfortunately...we cant leave anything outside without bolting or welding it down...i was mowing the yard...went in to get a towel...4 min tops...came out...mower gone...2 days later...Barbecue grill gone...it was in the back yard...which is privacy fenced...8ft high...how?...We love the hispanic folks...but it seems theres a "history" here in texas that keeps the two cultures from integrating fully...We moved here from Tn a few mts ago...the hispanic immigrants there are welcomed with open arms and hearts...and we never had problems...My hispanic neighbors now...which is all there is on my street...look at us like we're going to attack them...so last week...my wife and i took a cake for her...and a twelve-pack for him... and went to their door...we are now the best of friends and they spread the word to a few other good neighbors...awesome neighbors...all it took was a little tact and consideration...things are looking up......
Last edited by BIGDAWG420; 06-16-2009 at 03:58 AM..
Reason: ...fogot something...whats with the interrogation!...no water-boarding!...ill talk!!...
Originally posted by L3XVS
It's kind of like living on a lush tropical island for an extended period of time - yes, the weather, beaches, and view might be great, but after awhile you naturally want to experience something different, perhaps something that's polar opposite.
I think that's right; everything grows old. Even things that were once great to us become difficult and uncomfortable. When I first moved to San Francisco I fell in love with the hills. After 8 years, they are a pain in the ass on your calves and on your brake pads.
Quote:
Originally posted by Buffyfan
That reminds me of a trip to Hawaii several years back...we chatted with a military guy who had lived in Oahu for a couple years and asked how he enjoyed living in paradise. He said he hated it. Land-locked, no variety of different places to hang out, and the locals were stupid." And the rest of the military guys agreed with him.
Exactly - I've heard similar things in Glasgow from a young woman from Paris who despised her hometown, who thought its crowds, tourists, and government structure made it absolutely intolerable to her.
Like notes in music, it is only by contrast that any note, chord, or sequence has any kind of value. With cities, we notice that San Antonio is this way or that way compared to where we just came from, where we grew up, or where we wish we were. As the city's unique aspects grow to make you feel trapped or restricted, you compare them to other possible worlds.
It's remarkable to me how many people I have met who once left San Antonio but who missed it so much they move back to it. Something about its food, its people, its particular way of enjoying life pulls so many people back. Why? Others on this thread have suggested that it would be difficult to appreciate San Antonio if you had any knowledge of really great cities. It may indeed make it difficult to move from, say, New York to SA and not remember fondly your parks or your good bagels and pizza or your subway. But I would suggest that the inverse is also true: that for some, even the things they take for granted about SA, or even that they think they hate, become the very things they miss most about it when they leave.
From San Francisco (which I love, as I've said) I miss many things about San Antonio, even though I will be back shortly and haven't been gone long: I miss warm nights with Margaritas outside at a cabana; I miss Mexican restaurants that make their own tortillas as a matter of course (even in SF's muy Latino Mission District, most taquerias have store-bought tortillas -- unthinkable in SA); I miss the dilapidated houses from the 1920s (all the old houses here are lovingly restored, repainted, retouched, and made new again); I miss the relaxed feeling of being on the street without worrying how I am dressed (whether hipster, hippy, gay, metro, or Euro, SF is a city that expects you to be fashion forward); I miss sipping a longneck and watching the train go by from behind the cacti at La Tuna; I miss real spice; I miss barbecue (the kind that takes 48 hours to smoke); I miss huevos rancheros at Cafe Regio for $2 (hard to get under $10 in SF); I miss looking at the Tower of the Americas from my apartment window (even though my view of Twin Peaks is beautiful); I miss driving around the Olmos basin on a Sunday; I miss parking wherever I want downtown and not having to look (it can take up to 45 minutes to find a spot in SF); I miss my unpretentious friends; I miss sharing pitchers of Dunkelweiss at the Beethoven Maennechor while singing along to German folk tunes and eating potato pancakes; I even miss the old stretches of Blanco and West with all the hub cap and junk shops (you'd have to go to Oakland or East Palo Alto to find something similar in the Bay Area).
I only CAN miss these things because I am in a place that lacks them. As soon as I return to SA, I'll resume missing the fog, Asian food, and hills of SF.
Maybe the thing we need to enjoy SA is frequent trips to opposite places, places that both relieve us from SA's difficulties and deprive us of its pleasures, places that return us home refreshed and grateful.
I think that's right; everything grows old. Even things that were once great to us become difficult and uncomfortable. When I first moved to San Francisco I fell in love with the hills. After 8 years, they are a pain in the ass on your calves and on your brake pads.
Yes, exactly - I've heard similar things in Glasgow from a young woman from Paris who despised her hometown, who thought its crowds, tourists, and government structure made it absolutely intolerable to her.
Like notes in music, it is only by contrast that any note, chord, or sequence has any kind of value. With cities, we notice that San Antonio is this way or that way compared to where we just came from, where we grew up, or where we wish we were. As the city's unique aspects grow to make you feel trapped or restricted, you compare them to other possible worlds.
It's remarkable to me how many people I have met who once left San Antonio but who missed it so much they move back to it. Something about its food, its people, its particular way of enjoying life pulls so many people back. Why? Others on this thread have suggested that it would be difficult to appreciate San Antonio if you had any knowledge of really great cities. It may indeed make it difficult to move from, say, New York to SA and not remember fondly your parks or your good bagels and pizza or your subway. But I would suggest that the inverse is also true: that for some, even the things they take for granted about SA, or even that they think they hate, become the very things they miss most about it when they leave.
From San Francisco (which I love, as I've said): I miss warm nights with Margaritas outside at a cabana; I miss Mexican restaurants that make their own tortillas as a matter of course; I miss the dilapidated houses from the 1920s; I miss the relaxed feeling of being on the street without worrying how I am dressed; I miss watching the train go by from behind the cacti at La Tuna while I hold a cold beer; I miss real spice; I miss barbecue; I miss breakfast tacos at Cafe Regio; I miss looking at the Tower of the Americas from my window; I miss driving around the Olmos basin on a Sunday; I miss parking wherever I want downtown and not having to look; I miss my unpretentious friends; I miss sharing pitcher's of Dunkelweiss at the Beethoven Maennechor while singing along to German folk tunes and eating a potato pancake; I even miss the old stretches of Blanco and West with all the hub cap and junk shops. I only can miss these things because I am in a place where many things are in many ways the opposite.
I happen to be in that place today as well. San Francisco.
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San Antonio and the Urban
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