williamsburg

brooklyn, ny

i have never heard an unqualified endorsement of williamsburg. i have never heard "williamsburg? i love it!" one single time in my life, be it from a visitor or a resident of the former german village in northern brooklyn. i have never heard the same sentiment about kearney, nebraska or any place in oklahoma, but i never expect to. this is not for reasons of typical east coast disdain of "flyover states", but it's a curious observation when williamsburg is teeming with restaurants, coffee shops, independent clothing stores, bars, eccentric nightlife, art galleries, tattoo parlors, delicious and efficient vietnamese sandwich shops (at least one, but it counts), $1 slice pizza places, taco trucks, music venues, a choice of decent waterfront parks, streetside vendors of ephemera, a waterfront stretch of post-industrial monuments scintillating like topless bars to the urbanist, and enough purveyor's of absurdity to shock anyone exiting ripley's believe it or not. and people. did i mention people? besides the moving vans full of futons and big city dreams coming in from all points north american and global, the streets are always resonant with the buzz of adults in varying stages of their obstinate eternal youth. still, the neighborhood gets no love.

why? a good deal of the reason is that the neighborhood is arguably the epicenter for irony. i will try to dodge the stereotypes that i will inevitably reinforce, but the prevailing notion radiating from bedford avenue is that one is meant to engage in a continuum of pursuits of self-actualization, be that form artistic, hedonistic, outwardly spiritual, drug-induced, or vehemently contrarian, and to project no enjoyment of that whatsoever. exceptions abound and i am not saying that people in williamsburg do not enjoy their lives or are not happy, in fact, i think they might be happier than the average citizen. i'm just saying that at a macrosocial level, the environment is more conducive to criticism than creation. one could be well-advisted to not go into a williamsburg bar, hear a song, and then say "i enjoy this song". because to some of your fellow patrons, the song is either inferior to the artists' earlier work, inferior to another artists' work, or else just so 2007. can you say, "i enjoy this film"? in a private conversation, yes. but to a wider audience, that film cannot compare to some obscure romanian avant-garde project that is no more than 30 minutes of screeching soundtrack to a dangling canister of dental floss bouncing along the cobbled streets of bucharest. do you like barack obama? he's far too conservative for much of this crowd, many of whom share views a lot closer to rand paul than they are openly aware of.

does this bother me? not necessarily. i am not bothered by the irony or the firing squad of opinions. i may even partake in a little bit of both, but never more than the doctor's recommended daily allowance. am i bothered by the prevailing aesthetic? not necessarily. despite its lack of visual appeal, i'm somewhat delighted that people feel comfortable enough to wear jean shorts, neon visors, ironic mustaches, massive sunglasses, mohawks, army boots, or serve as a canvass for as many tattoos as possible. if i'm part curious why so many seem to go so far to make themselves less sexually attractive, then i'm also glad that they feel free enough to express themselves however they please.

are there things that unequivocally bother me about williamsburg? yes. [am i going to continue asking myself questions for the formatting of this blog? maybe just for this post] a nighttime walk along bedford avenue is disgusting. one time i passed three consecutive blocks in which the trash cans at all four corners were overturned, their contents spilled onto the street and sidewalk. every bar has a mountain of cigarette butts outside its front door. grease-stained paper plates lead a trail on the sidewalks to the various pizza vendors. i agree that people should push back against authority to a healthy degree, but there becomes a point at which your disestablishmentarianism is no more than disgusting, thoughtless behavior.

this plays out at a higher level than the street as well. williamsburg is known to quantifiably certified to have very low levels of civic participation. voting is very low and it is expected that many census forms will go blank. i hold nothing against people who want to move in and play for a few years before heeding their clarion call to more sober climes, but there are people who live there, attend these schools, visit these hospitals, and are dependent on public services. at the end of the day, these people are the ones who get the spurned by the thoughtlessness of those passing through. if suggest that if young people are looking for disregarding, selfish debauchery and a quick exit, the las vegas strip is a better option.

i guess i am another to add an equivocal endorsement of williamsburg, but it is an endorsement nonetheless. i owe countless memories of delicious meals, mellifluous music, hearty laughs, bewildering spectacles, and, most importantly, friendships made and solidified to this curious pocket of the city. so while i recommend that the circus be a little more cognizant of the mess it makes, i wish it continue to be a circus all the same.