Dec 15 2008
Snap
I have an ambivalent relationship to winter. It gets equated with authenticity in my mind, because I grew up in Florida and we all know that nothing in Florida is real. When the sky turns that special gray and it becomes inhospitable outside, it feels so terrible that I think, “this must be what it’s like to have a Protestant work ethic, wear unfashionable yet practical clothing, put special snow things on and in your car, and speak with a mid-Atlantic accent.” All of these things are foreign to me. They are the objects of vacation. They are the accoutrements of a Climatic Other. They are what Kracauer is talking about when he says that modern persons are interested in travel because it provides “a new sensorial economy of modernity”. Something different. Bare trees. Brick buildings. Clothing lined with fur and filled with feathers. The un-ironic enjoyment of hot toddies. I’m not used to that stuff.
