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Read my book, TEACHING BEAUTY IN DeLILLO, WOOLF, AND MERRILL (Palgrave Macmillan; forthcoming), co-authored with Jennifer Green-Lewis. VISIT MY BRANCH CAMPUS AT INSIDE HIGHER ED





UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Sunday, April 09, 2006

Snapshots from Home
A Regular University Diaries Feature

‘thesdan cultures aren’t just in Bethesda, of course -- they’re all over the greater Washington suburbs where UD grew up, and where she still lives, in a small ‘thesdan town called Garrett Park.

Northern Virginia is a ‘thesdan culture too, and a thoroughly ‘thesdan dispute - rich v. rich - is raging there even as we blog. Since there’s some amusing prose involved in the dispute, she’ll share it with you.



UD has met Zbigniew Brzezinski on a number of Poland-related occasions (UD’s husband, remember, is Polish). He is an extremely well-mannered Pole of a certain generation -- scrupulously polite, a bit icy, old-fashioned. She likes the type because they’re easy to deal with by obeying the forms.

Outside of formal occasions, the Zbig type can be more difficult.



Years ago, when it was rural and pre-pretentious, the man bought a house and some acres in Northern Virginia. Being a European, he did not restlessly move to bigger and bigger houses over the years, but stayed in his rather modest (by ‘thesdan standards!) estate.

Steadily, throughout those decades, McMansions sprouted around him, houses for which Zbig expresses, in the Washington Post article about the dispute, open contempt. They are "reflective of cultural pretension and pomposity." They "make the whole area look like a joke, a Disneyland imitation of the European aristocracy, without the land."

Clearly Zbig has been seething for thirty years as crude rich ‘thesdan culture has had its way. And now, because of a sidewalk, he’s been given a chance to exact a little revenge.




What with all the new houses, residents would like a sidewalk through the area, including the area in front of Zbig’s house. A small request of him, perhaps (the county can’t proceed without the homeowner’s permission), but one to which he is bringing all of the rhetorical and strategic resources of his years of international diplomacy. "Dr. B is treating this transaction as if he were negotiating a strategic arms treaty," writes one neighbor to another in an email.

Here’s a sample from a letter he wrote to the homeowners in response to their request:

"As you can see, there are a number of complex issues that have to be evaluated in some detail. And there will be more, once experts and lawyers have been consulted, as will need to be by all concerned."


Here’s a sample from another letter:

"What commitments are envisaged, how guaranteed, and by whom regarding the preservation of our privacy by replacing new fencing, tall planting and/or brick wall, etc. What alternative proposals are there regarding the foregoing?"


The neighbors have figured out what’s going on and are pissed off, but they know further efforts are futile. They’re not going to get their sidewalk.


Zbig describes this whole thing to the Post reporter as “a clash of civilizations,” and indeed it is. It is a clash between garish new-money ‘thesdanians and a change-averse Pole from a good family. The Pole, a cultured man who appreciates the value of restraint and tradition, has long felt private disgust at the Babbittry that has destroyed his little country road. This is his chance to go public.