The cartoonist is exhausted by NYC and considering moving away, then takes a trip to the country — upstate New York — and sees things she doesn't like in the country, comes back home, and still doesn't like the city either. A simple idea — and probably a simple truth — but the drawings are very good and the simple story is told with fresh spirit.
I recommend it. Click through and read (and here she is on Instagram).
Here's one panel to show you the style:
I chose that panel because I know the feeling of getting out and looking at landscapes. Yes, it's beautiful, but does staring at any given example of beauty take more than 5 minutes, and how many sightly items can you string along in 5-minute segments before you've done enough gawking for the day? The day is long.
The cartoonist doesn't contemplate the middle ground between huge city and complete country. There's a fear of the middle these days. But there are smaller cities — such as Madison, Wisconsin — where you can easily go downtown or take day trips into the country and maybe buy a little house with your own garden and thereby experience — on any given day — multiple gradations on the continuum from city to country.
The middle is forgotten or, worse, feared and hated. I need a word — moderaphobia? mediophobia?
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Travel cannot fix what is wrong in your life. That's something that Travel Editors at big (and small) newspapers will always gloss over. I wonder what Lee was expecting (Apologies for not following your advice to click through and read)
"but the drawings are very good and the simple story is told with fresh spirit."
I literally prefer Corporate Memphis to whatever this is, and I vehemently hate Corporate Memphis.
Mediocraphobia? The country is so gentry and the city is so au courant. The middle ground is where the hoi polloi live. It's the land of mediocrity.
Many people are borderline insane about where they live, in either a loyal way or disloyal way. Some stay in the same place for generations while for others the grass is always greener somewhere else for others.
The world will be a better place when the normies ignore or ridicule the petty whiners. Maybe we can have a broad return to humor instead of stridency about everything?
Suburbophobia? I think a big part of this is the cult of "authenticity." Somehow the city and the country are authentic environments while the near west side of Madison isn't. I lived in that neighborhood 1985-1988, and it was lovely.
FYI - You can only "click through and read" if you're a WaPo subscriber.
Move to Madison; the best of the city and the country.
The grass is always greener on the other side ... no matter which side you are on.
So it has ever been and shall ever be.
Related: You can never be too rich.
"probably a simple truth"
So simple that, in other cases, Althouse might have been inclined to question the sheer triviality.
"does staring at any given example of beauty take more than 5 minutes"
Does it take more than a second? What does time have to do with the experience of visual beauty? Does it make a difference whether the beauty is natural, human-made, or a mixture?
"how many sightly items can you string along in 5-minute segments before you've done enough gawking for the day"
Does the marginal utility of any additional item in fact diminish? Is observed visual beauty like any other useful kind of item in that regard?
Do sightly items differ from soundly items? For example, Messiaen aside, it seems more people derive pleasure from views of nature than from sounds of nature. Why?
For the country people there was the joke of the city people moving to the mountains writing to their friends back in the city. Something like writing on Memorial Say: We love it here so much, the peace and quiet away from everyone, the quaint general store, there’s a deer and her fawn frolicking in the yard and the gradual build to Valentines Day: We miss everyone so
much why won’t you drive up here? It’s so fucking cold and I’m sick of shoveling snow, I fell on the ice and had to drive to the general store that was sold out of everything and on the way home I hit a fucking deer.
I don't do it justice but you get the idea…
I have never encountered a word for "fear of the middle" but we can coin one now! I think the correct term has to be "mesophobia," from the Greek Μέσης for "middle," as seen in such classics as Mesopotamia (between the rivers) and Mesoamerica (middle America).
Those extremophile species living in deep ocean fissures have been warned about being mediophophic.
When people talk about travel, they want to go to where everything is happening or to get away from everything that's happening. Halfway in between, where too much and not enough is going on, may be a nice place to live but nobody wants to visit there.
Then again, when big city people talk about getting away from it all, they often aren't going to the wilderness. They're going to small towns -- Cape Cod, the Berkshires, the Hudson River Valley, coastal Maine. So maybe they are trying to find that middle balance in small and medium-sized towns. Small cities, though, are too big for urbanites looking an escape. It's not just peace and quiet they're looking for. It's also the picturesque. Do you have that?
The problem with a lot of people is they can't get away from themselves. No matter where you go there you are. Not all of us are lucky enough to be born with a positive attitude and blessed with joyful stoicism that embraces the duality of Man.
WaPoo! in the style of yodeling.
That said, a Green blight. I miss green.
You don't really know a place until you actually live there for awhile. It's a common thing for people to vacation in a place and think it'd be great to live there. Not so fast. Best to try it out for a few months. Rent a place for a bit before you make the final move. It is a truth that you cannot be happy in a place if you are not happy with yourself. However, the right fit of a place for a person can make them happier with themselves.
But having someone suggest a a good 'place' for you is like when people tell you what restaurant is 'good'. It's highly subjective. How many of us have had a friend tell us how great a restaurant was, only to dine there and find the menu was full of deep fried things and lots of red sauce to go with it? (apologies to those who like lots of red sauce ladled on deep fried things). We all have our own taste.
I know when my wife and I were tiring of the Atlanta metro area- not so much the people or the city itself, but just the awful traffic which made it impossible to to the simplest things- we did a multi-year search. We had a list of the key things we wanted in a smaller town. We went all over and found a town that checked off more of the boxes we had than any other town. It surprised my wife. It was not where she had planned to go. But we followed our list and ended up here. My wife loves living here. And I go by the simple bromide: Happy Wife, Happy Life.
PS- We looked at a lot of college towns, wanting to be near younger people and opportunities for continuing education. We liked both Madison and Ann Arbor, among others. But...winter canceled out those great northern college towns for us. We love where we ended up, on the Gulf in South Florida, in a medium sized town.
I have lived in the asshoe of nowhere, suburbia, in large cities, and in small towns. I am the same the person in all of them modified only by life years lived. I would prefer to live in the asshoe of nowhere, but it is always up to me.
those might be some of the worst "drawings" i have ever seen. I would make some joke about her being 4-years old but they don't even really rise to that level... Yuck.
True enough. The dailiness of daily life in Wisconsin is series of small pings like distant guitar tuning - sunrise, ping, Lake Michigan, ping, Queen Anne's Lace out, ping, water reflections by Memorial Drive. The news and gas and grocery prices are more of a splat. To me the problem is that if everything goes up a dollar and I usually buy 200 things a month (groceries, gas, insurance, clothes, books) then I need $200 more a month but I have the same $ a month. So how can I do airline travel (which now requires a large extra amount of $ on hand in case of being stranded); how can I buy the delicious fresh fruit I see around me? raspberries $7.95 that used to be $5.95 in season? how can I eat out? First world problems? Yes, but every day I wonder what happens to people who started with less and also have to come up with that $200. It isn't travel and eating out and fresh, local food that they're cutting out. And nothing is being done about it all except a daily trip up de Nile river by Dem PR people. Salt water or fresh water, what floats? Biden is still shutting down oil and gas supplies; the supply chain as a whole and baby formula supplies in particular are still a mess. Basically Biden isn't cracking heads and getting stuff done except for the supply chain for the IRS and a close investigation of Melania Trump's closet. One's scary and the other is pretty silly. Goldenrod, black-eyed Susan, ping,
I dunno, travel brings new experiences which is, IMO, almost inherently A Good Thing:
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone . . . .
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things;
The cartoon perfectly exemplifies the actual saying. The headline is backwards.
Eva,
New York is where I'd rather stay
I get allergic smelling hay
I just adore a penthouse view
Dah-ling I love you but give me Park Avenue
"Yes, it's beautiful, but does staring at any given example of beauty take more than 5 minutes, …"
I can stare at any given example of beauty all day long. An example: we booked a hotel room in the Southern Alps which had a knock-out gorgeous view of Mt. Cook through expansive windows. Shortly after we arrived my wife wanted to know when we were going to "do" something. "We're already doing something" was my response. "We're enjoying the view". She spent the day "doing things". I spent the day enjoying the view from our room. I saw the idea of doing anything else as inferior to what I had right there.
Maybe I'm weird.
I used to travel often and far, for business and pleasure. My brother, who never did, once said, "I don't know why you travel so much. No matter where you go, you are still the same person."
That was a splendid insight.
There is an element of that in the cartoonist. You just aren't that special. Living in NYC doesn't make a person a captain of industry. Living in the mountains doesn't make a person a wilderness sage. Neither of those choices mean you had the balls to go for the brass ring, and you made it.
There are mid-sized cities and suburbs all over the country. These places just sound so banal.
Living Waukesha County, WI Suburbia - It used to be the best of both worlds. You could be downtown Milwaukee for city fun in 25mins, Miller Park and State Fair Park in 20, or you can head a short distance west and be in the boon docs or on a lake.
There is more open space here than Chicagoland. In my neighborhood everyone has 1/2 acre lots. You get the occasional herd of deer walking through, and wild turkey's. It's quiet and safe.
But Milwaukee isn't as fun as it used to be. And safety matters, so I don't go downtown as much. Maybe it's my age.
I've driven down to Chicagoland a few times in the last month. I don't miss it. When I left the Chicago Suburbs in 2014 I felt like the last clown packed in a phone booth. I don't miss the traffic. I do miss the availability to international cuisine. Chicagoland is great for that.
"All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream."
Doesn't like the city, doesn't like the country.
That's what suburbs are for...
I laughed at Althouse’s comment about 5 minutes of scenery watching is about max. It’s so true. When I drive to Lake Michigan that first glimpse of vast blue always gets me. And then I look for a restaurant. As Ronald Reagan once said, When you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all.
Cue the "Green Acres" theme song.
I cross the Golden Gate Bridge everyday, from Toontown to Tent Town. I like the change, need it, actually.
Goshen, Indiana is a great small town. I’m a booster.
My mother's mate selection turned up two very different husbands, at least on the surface. Under the hood? More alike than either would have wanted to admit.
Both of them were constantly moving around the countryside, always looking for that "new horizon" that was gonna fix everything. It never did. The unhappiness they found everywhere was actually something intrinsic that they carried within themselves, and were never able to recognize or deal with effectively.
People tell me they're unhappy somewhere? What I've learned is that it's mostly them, and that moving ain't going to magically fix it. If you're unhappy in the city, you'll be unhappy in the country, and likely because you're just a miserable human being in the first place. My take is that you should stay where you are, fix yourself, and don't inflict your misery on others. If you do manage to "fix" what ails you, and you still want to move elsewhere? By all means, do so: Just don't do it thinking that the move itself is going to help in any way, shape, or form.
I witnessed my father go through that crap so many times that it wasn't even funny; it was like watching reruns of some lousy TV series that somehow made it to syndication, and it was only after undergoing training for how to recognize abusive relationships and their victims that I realized he was going through the classic abusive progression every time he moved himself. Every move was going to fix his life, and every new place was paradise. Then, as the honeymoon wore off, you would hear bitching about little things, progressing to big, and after awhile, paradise was actually hell on earth. Then, the cycle would begin again with some new locale...
I don't think he ever realized that it was him, not the location or the people living there. He was just a generally miserable human being whose sole purpose in life was inflicting that misery on others, because he was so unhappy with his life and the choices he made. In the end, he'd driven away so many people that it took a week before anyone realized he was dead. I presume that most of his neighbors were simply glad they hadn't encountered him, and never considered that he might have expired.
Hell of a way to die, but it was entirely self-inflicted.
Used to LOVE the city. Now I avoid them like the Monkeypox. Why would I want to go to a place where criminals run free and being law abiding will get you prison time (for protecting yourself?)
This strikes me as first-world whining and negativity/ingratitude. Ugh.
I have a 65 pound mixed breed dog - half heeler, half pit bull and half who knows what. He LOVES to go for a ride And no matter where we went or how long we are gone, when we turn onto our street, his tail goes nuts and he gets a big dog grin on his muzzle. He LOVES to come home. I feel the same way when we go out in our small RV- love going and getting to where ever, and love getting home.
Actually, 5 minutes isn't NEARLY time enough.
Sitting on a rock, looking a a valley; watching the sun sink below the far hills; watching the sunset fade to midnight blue.. STILL isn't enough time
Now do the same once a week (on the same rock), for a year; watching the sun go south, and come back; watching the leaves turn/fall/bud.. Now you're talking
"What does time have to do with the experience of visual beauty?"
If you've traveled to a place, you've allotted time to it. As the cartoon asks "What now?" There's a time element. One reason I hesitate to travel is that I know how to use all my time very well when I am based here in Madison. If I go somewhere else, how will I use my time? If it's at some lovely place, like a National Park, what am I supposed to do *the whole time* when I'm there? The things you can do may be very valuable, but they might not fill the time. Now what?
One answer is: long hikes. But not everyone wants to walk and walk and walk. I, for one, cannot be in the direct sunlight for long. Another answer is: eat in restaurants. I don't know about you, but I get tired of having to go to restaurants. The obligation to go to a restaurant 3 times a day, for several days in a row is burdensome. It *could* be good, but I prefer the casual, spontaneous relationship with eating that I have when I'm staying in my own house. I would never go to a restaurant more than once in a day, and I could easily let weeks go by without feeling any need to go to a restaurant. Even months, to tell you the truth.
"I have never encountered a word for "fear of the middle" but we can coin one now! I think the correct term has to be "mesophobia," from the Greek Μέσης for "middle," as seen in such classics as Mesopotamia (between the rivers) and Mesoamerica (middle America)."
Thanks!
I was trying to think of the Greek root and didn't Google effectively. I kept thinking of the Mediterranean Sea.
"People tell me they're unhappy somewhere? What I've learned is that it's mostly them, and that moving ain't going to magically fix it. If you're unhappy in the city, you'll be unhappy in the country, and likely because you're just a miserable human being in the first place. My take is that you should stay where you are, fix yourself, and don't inflict your misery on others. If you do manage to "fix" what ails you, and you still want to move elsewhere? By all means, do so: Just don't do it thinking that the move itself is going to help in any way, shape, or form."
I agree.
As it's been said since the 15th century: "Wherever you go, there you are."
'Goshen, Indiana is a great small town. I’m a booster.'
Stayed there once when we couldn't get a room in South Bend.
To this day, Goshen is my benchmark for obese people.
Other than the Amish, I've never seen so many fat people in my life.
The fast-food restaurants on every street corner probably don't help.
'Other than the Amish, I've never seen so many fat people in my life.'
I realize the above was poorly constructed.
What I mean is, the Amish were the only non-fat folks in town...
Some comments reminded me of a ‘joke’ (although more an observation on human nature).
A traveler stops at a small country store. He asks the store owner what the people are like in the local area. The owner responds by asking what folks are like around the traveler’s home. The traveler responds that they are the friendliest, most helpful, and nicest folks around. The store owner says, “Well, that’s just the kind of folks you will find around here”. Time passes and another traveler stops and asks the same question. The store owner responds by again asking the what folks are like in the traveler’s home area. He says that they are the meanest, most selfish, and grouchiest folks around. The store owner says, “Well, unfortunately, that’s just the kind of people you will find around here”.
Alcoholics call it the "geographical change". The notion, if you get away from XXXX, your life will improve. The discovery, no matter where you go, there you are.
My nephew and his family moved out of Chicago in June. It hit them, they both work full time from home. They can literally, live anywhere on the planet. They picked Las Vegas. Desert, mountains, entertainment. They settled in quickly and fell into there their old grove. Happy to be away from Chicago in general, but out of the Chicago Schools for sure.
Reminds me of this brief scene from National Lampoon's Vacation:
https://youtu.be/AqNwo2NpmGY
"Yes, it's beautiful, but does staring at any given example of beauty take more than 5 minutes"
I know that feeling but in a little different way. Back when we were in our 60's and 70's we traveled at least 4 months of the year, in spring, and then in the fall. Some sights are so awesome and beautiful they become trite after miles and miles of them. But I wish I could go see them again.
I always thought it would be a fun thing to spend a full year in some of those places; see all their seasons. We never managed to do that.
Alcoholics Anonymous has a term for people who move, thinking it will solve their problem. It's called "doing a geographic".
Okay, two additional comments:
1) The last 10 years I lived in Seattle, I hated it. It wasn't my problem, it turned into a progressive s***hole. I'm much happier down here in AZ.
2) JAYsus, I used to get a room in an old hotel in Alexandria overlooking the Med and could spend WAY more than 5 minutes loving the view of the wine-dark sea.
I've lived within the same few mile-wide goose-egg almost all my life, and like it just fine. I do enjoy visiting other places but after a few weeks I'm glad to get back home.
I cherish every moment of travel-travel (as opposed to having to fly somewhere for work) that I can recall from my 69 years. Landscapes and landforms interest me, and so do our attempts to exploit or overcome them.
Not to mention the great cities and historical sites. I sometimes Google places I've been just to refresh my memories. (In 1978 my wife and I took 600+ photos in a two-month Eurail trip; we've been to France, Germany, and Czechia in the last five years and I have three (3) images on my phone. My wife took a bunch with her smartphone, though.)
The Prof has a very focused, efficient and high-energy mind, and to such people getting there is rarely half the fun.
The grass isn't always greener, but it's easier to keep lit.
I really liked the BUGS! image followed by the very similar one with the ROACHES a few panels later, that was great a driving the point home visually.
What stuck out to me most about the other artwork at the linked instagram was all the causal nudity. I was not expecting that from the art style in the "grass is greener" comic. The Pink character that appears the most often is naked the majority of the time. It's very non-sexualized, with breasts that swing from sagging down to pointing up or even sidewise depending on the image.
I assumed the Pink Being was human - maybe a nudist? - but there are a couple what looks to be a human sized rabbit hanging out with it, so maybe not. On the other hand, the naked Pink Being is often contrasted with people who are noticeably wearing clothes too, and feeling uncomfortable or exposed, so maybe that's what the artist is highlighting.
Interesting style for sure!
Joe, said: “To this day, Goshen is my benchmark for obese people.”
Wrong. We’re no more obese than any other place and maybe less. We have a big Mennonite population and they are quite trim as a group. Meanwhile, you need to update your thinking on the Amish. They’re obese now. We have plenty of them here. The women add about 5 pounds a year after marriage. The men maybe 3. I’m not kidding. Don’t romanticize them.
Btw, you can avoid Goshen by staying on the toll road. Please do.
"What does time have to do with the experience of visual beauty? / If you've traveled to a place, you've allotted time to it. As the cartoon asks "What now?" There's a time element. One reason I hesitate to travel is that . . ."
Though I'm not travel-averse myself, partly because I can still get to do things I normally do while also enjoying new experiences, I agree with some of Althouse's reasoning.
But I meant my question in a more philosophical sense. Althouse suggested that one can experience the full measure of a particular instance of visual beauty in about five minutes. Another commentator suggested a whole day of "enjoying the view" would be fine. But what is it about visual beauty that makes a second second better than the first, and 10 minutes possibly too much?
In music, that's less of a problem: beauty has a built-in time structure. It may be essential: without it, say in bird song, few of us rhapsodize over sounds encountered in nature. Of course, it is possible to enjoy a musical moment, etc. etc., but still. Practical constraints aside, much visual beauty is inherently time-less. You have to bring time to it.
'Don’t romanticize them.'
I'm not. Just going by observation.
As I am not an expert and don't live around them, perhaps it was Mennonites I saw.
This was about fifteen years ago so maybe there has been an outbreak of health spas in your town, but when I was there our entire family remarked on the very large people.
In general, the midwest (including really large folks in Wisconsin) seems to have a lot of large people. The CDC confirms it...other than the 'Deep South,' the midwest is fat.
See also, "God's Country", a documentary by Louis Malle and life in Glencoe, MN in 1979 and 1985 which is on YouTube. A good summary is at https://criterioncast.com/column/a-journey-through-the-eclipse-series/a-journey-through-the-eclipse-series-louis-malles-gods-country
Hey Joe, let’s be honest, Americans are fat and Europeans are catching up to us. Even Chinese are getting heavier.
'Hey Joe, let’s be honest, Americans are fat and Europeans are catching up to us. Even Chinese are getting heavier.'
True.
Indiana is the 11th fattest state.
Only Michigan (the 8th fattest) is outside of the South-ish states.
Goshen is about 20 miles from Michigan.
I rest my case...
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