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Friday, December 17, 2004
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SNAPSHOTS FROM HOME: A Regular University Diaries Feature The Common Ground of Hummering UD, as you know if you've been listening, lives sort of in Bethesda, Maryland (her little incorporated town, Garrett Park - where UD grew up by the way - is, despite its autonomy, part of the Bethesda area), a rich close-in suburb of Washington. She and a good friend who also grew up here have evolved over the years a sort of shorthand with which to talk about the place -- its Hummers, malls, and real estate agents. It all adds up, for UD and her friend, to 'thesdan Culture, and, like anthropologists, they enjoy mapping its ways. Key to 'thesdan culture is a depth and breadth of affluence unimaginable outside of the Atlantic seaboard and certain pockets of Palo Alto. Most places in the world have some rich people (example: Rupert Murdoch just spent 44 million dollars on an apartment in New York City), but here it's pretty much everybody. Everybody drives a late-model LandRover with Josh Groban pouring out of it. Everybody adds 10,000 feet to their house for a second entertainment den. 'thesdan women are slim and paranoid, 'thesdan men bulkier and more paranoid. Due to lawsuits, bankruptcies, botched plastic surgeries, and divorces, they live in gated communities where it's hard to find them. The conceit is that they're being exclusive. In reality many of them are hiding from creditors. Two locations dominate the mental and physical world of the 'thesdan: treeless fields with empty houses, and long avenues of gas stations. These are the lodestars of their lives. They orbit the first in search of a television, and the second in search of a five cents per gallon savings. The 'thesdan is almost always driving, and, when driving, talking on his cell phone. Let us listen in: "Amoco is a dollar eighty-five! Fuck that! I was in Kensington the other day and Exxon was a dollar eighty!" |