THE BIG VIRTUAL EASY?
We see all kinds of postings on all kinds of lists from people who used to live in the path of Katrina and Rita, connecting with each other and with old friends and colleagues elsewhere. The Internet has eased the plight of people displaced and thrown apart from each other in a way that would have been impossible twenty years ago. A number of schools in the Gulf Coast area are pulling themselves together by offering online courses and other services to their displaced students. This trend works in opposition to all the forces that have been operating for years to separate us from our families, friends, and neighbors. Maybe we need to think about ways the Internet could be used more consciously and in more routine situations to keep us in touch with each other.
For instance...
I don't think I'm unique. But the hospital I was born in has been long since closed (Newton Hospital, Newton MA). The kindergarten I attended (The Outdoor School, Hollywood FL) has disappeared altogether. While the public school I attended from first through seventh grade (Hollywood Central School) is still in existence, the actual building in which I went to school burned down a while back. My high school (Assumption Academy, Miami FL) has been bulldozed for condos. My college (Radcliffe) has been merged into Harvard. The street I lived on during my senior year (Hayes Street in Cambridge MA) has disappeared--not the building, the entire street. I sometimes get to feeling like the Nowhere Man in "Yellow Submarine"--remember the grey blobby guy whose world disappears as he walks through it?
I think the recently-deplored epidemic of "hoarding" may result from this kind of living--we hold on to stuff because we can't hold on to our physical world.
Additionally, we can't always hold on to what happens to us in that world. On August 28, 1968, here in Chicago, I went to a rally in what was then the Grant Park Bandshell (the replacement of which has since been replaced) to protest the Democratic National Convention, which was being held due west of there at the time (at an amphitheatre that has since been torn down and replaced by condos.) I went with a friend who was a reporter (for a newspaper, by the way, which has also since disappeared) who did his job by asking one of the cops on duty there for a crowd count estimate. The officer told us that the capacity of the bandshell was 10,000, and there were obviously people standing in the aisles and around the edges, so he figured something like 12,000.
I went home that night (after being tear-gassed while attempting to catch my train) to watch the news; the official crowd estimate for the rally at that point was somewhere around 8,000. When I woke up the next morning and caught the news again, it was down to 2,000. I quit listening at that point, afraid the event would disappear altogether.
And now we have actually seen real physical towns and neighborhoods wiped off the map. But we still have ways of holding on to them, on line, and keeping in touch with those we lived near. It looks as if some people are going to start moving back into New Orleans. It also appears that a fair proportion of the city's population will never move back. But they can form a city on line, with its own celebrations and communities and even business endeavors. This may be the first of the virtual cities. But it will probably not be the last.
For instance...
I don't think I'm unique. But the hospital I was born in has been long since closed (Newton Hospital, Newton MA). The kindergarten I attended (The Outdoor School, Hollywood FL) has disappeared altogether. While the public school I attended from first through seventh grade (Hollywood Central School) is still in existence, the actual building in which I went to school burned down a while back. My high school (Assumption Academy, Miami FL) has been bulldozed for condos. My college (Radcliffe) has been merged into Harvard. The street I lived on during my senior year (Hayes Street in Cambridge MA) has disappeared--not the building, the entire street. I sometimes get to feeling like the Nowhere Man in "Yellow Submarine"--remember the grey blobby guy whose world disappears as he walks through it?
I think the recently-deplored epidemic of "hoarding" may result from this kind of living--we hold on to stuff because we can't hold on to our physical world.
Additionally, we can't always hold on to what happens to us in that world. On August 28, 1968, here in Chicago, I went to a rally in what was then the Grant Park Bandshell (the replacement of which has since been replaced) to protest the Democratic National Convention, which was being held due west of there at the time (at an amphitheatre that has since been torn down and replaced by condos.) I went with a friend who was a reporter (for a newspaper, by the way, which has also since disappeared) who did his job by asking one of the cops on duty there for a crowd count estimate. The officer told us that the capacity of the bandshell was 10,000, and there were obviously people standing in the aisles and around the edges, so he figured something like 12,000.
I went home that night (after being tear-gassed while attempting to catch my train) to watch the news; the official crowd estimate for the rally at that point was somewhere around 8,000. When I woke up the next morning and caught the news again, it was down to 2,000. I quit listening at that point, afraid the event would disappear altogether.
And now we have actually seen real physical towns and neighborhoods wiped off the map. But we still have ways of holding on to them, on line, and keeping in touch with those we lived near. It looks as if some people are going to start moving back into New Orleans. It also appears that a fair proportion of the city's population will never move back. But they can form a city on line, with its own celebrations and communities and even business endeavors. This may be the first of the virtual cities. But it will probably not be the last.
posted by WiredSisters at 12:52 PM
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