We may need to rethink the whole Florida thing.
During my very cursory, five-day visit, I felt a resigned malaise. The natural world seemed too exhausted to replace the decaying artificiality -- like someone dropped LA into a swamp, and then sprayed it with a fine dust.
The green seemed not quite green. Like one of those movies where everything is shot with a blue filter to make Mel Gibson killing stuff look cooler. But instead of blue it was all gray.
And the heat and the sky didn't do much to temper the gray -- it just washed out the contrasts.
The new and shiny parts (Orlando I'm looking at you), seemed desperate.
I'm not sure Ponce de Leon arrived in Florida so his name could one day adorn a shopping mall featuring a Sears and a Blockbuster. Actually, I don't know, maybe that's exactly what the Spanish were thinking when they arrived.
Along my drive, I began imaging a Florida edition of "Escape from New York," in which the whole state is walled off and depopulated and then filled with criminals.
But without the criminals part, because then that's really not changing much (Election 2000 I'm looking at you).
Anyway, it'd be cool if we gave it back to the alligators, just until it gets its color back.
I did not see any alligators, although there were signs alluding to their existence.
During my very cursory, five-day visit, I felt a resigned malaise. The natural world seemed too exhausted to replace the decaying artificiality -- like someone dropped LA into a swamp, and then sprayed it with a fine dust.
The green seemed not quite green. Like one of those movies where everything is shot with a blue filter to make Mel Gibson killing stuff look cooler. But instead of blue it was all gray.
And the heat and the sky didn't do much to temper the gray -- it just washed out the contrasts.
The new and shiny parts (Orlando I'm looking at you), seemed desperate.
I'm not sure Ponce de Leon arrived in Florida so his name could one day adorn a shopping mall featuring a Sears and a Blockbuster. Actually, I don't know, maybe that's exactly what the Spanish were thinking when they arrived.
Along my drive, I began imaging a Florida edition of "Escape from New York," in which the whole state is walled off and depopulated and then filled with criminals.
But without the criminals part, because then that's really not changing much (Election 2000 I'm looking at you).
Anyway, it'd be cool if we gave it back to the alligators, just until it gets its color back.
I did not see any alligators, although there were signs alluding to their existence.
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