Ultrasparky

Anyone who’s ever done time in the suburbs should have a look at this sharp little essay from the New Yorker about the great American lawn, a totally artificial aspect of landscaping that’s turned into a bit of an environmental nightmare at this point, and has even turned into the focus of various kinds of communal bullying.

Back in Staten Island, where each yard had a postage-stamp size patch of turf that more often than not was groomed better than the average head of hair, we saw a lot of lawn-based hostility over the years. I always admired my parents for not taking the lawn too seriously. I feel vindicated to read that a lawn like ours — filled with its share of dandelions, crab grass, clover, and other “unwanted” bits of flora — is actually a more ecologically viable state of affairs. We never had a lush carpet of homogenous green like the most of our neighbors, and ours tended to be a little less tidy. The neighbors hated it.

To the neighbors on either side of it, the front lawn was practically a fetish. It was a pastime, an obligation, a status symbol. It was also never meant to be touched, except by mowers or fertilizers. Our house had two strips of grass on either side of the property, cut off from the main lawn by the driveway and the walkway up to the door we used. Over the years, those strips were annexed by the neighbors.

At first they just started tending the grass along with their own, but it got a little out of control once they started yelling at my nieces and nephews for setting foot on grass that was still part of our yard. Eventually, one of the neighbors started sending his son out early in the morning to mow our lawn when it got a little unruly. My folks never really minded, since it saved them some effort, but the underlying expectation that they ought to be towing the line always pissed me off. The other neighbors, well, they were just self-involved assholes about the whole thing.

But yeah, sign me up for the backlash.

I’m in the middle of moving to a quiet little attic (“loft” in the local parlance, but that’s just confusing to people back home who know that the lofts I used to live in meant something very different) in London.

That’s less glamorous than it sounds, in many ways. For one thing, I’m down in Zone 3, in the far eastern end of Tooting. Saying I’m moving to London is a similar obfuscatory truth to saying I grew up in New York City when it was really Staten Island, which only just barely counts. For another, it’s a total wreck of a place. It’s got a great volume — basically meaning it’s a nice space if you ignore the physical stuff that actually encloses the space — and I have it all to myself and it’s relatively cheap considering that, but as for the state of the way the place was fixed up and supposedly made habitable…well, I have never seen such appalling workmanship in my life.

And I lived in the middle of the projects in Bushwick, in a loft built out by a crackhead.

It will be OK once I hound the landlord about a couple of issues and complete a short list of minor repairs. Also, I’m just enough of a bohemian art fag still to pull off some clever camouflage with color, cheap furniture, and strategically positioned knickknacks and artwork on the walls.

I’m still living in Reading, even though I’ve had the new place for a couple of weeks already. Aside from the condition of the place, I still own nothing but books and cloths anymore, so I’ve been stocking up at the Ikea in Croydon, preparing to make the move. (Incidentally, the strangest part about the Ikea in Croydon is how perfectly it feels like every other Ikea I’ve ever seen. It was hard to remember that I wasn’t actually buying my bachelor-friendly kitchen-in-a-box back in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Except for the food in the café, which — being English — was worse than I could have imagined.) I can’t really move in until I get the broadband hooked up, anyway, since I still need my home to be my office studio until I can find a proper work (and accompanying visa) situation.

What I can say is that a promising side venture is coming together as I continue my happy-go-lucky freelance career. Mr. Moore and I have joined forces to work on type and design projects with one another. Behold! — The Colour Grey! (Nothing to to see at the site yet, since we’ve been too busy with actual projects to deal with out own site yet, but give us a little time.)

The other big summer project will be getting Gina ready for a proper commercial release, hopefully before the year is out. I’m also going to speak at a conference in Cork in July, and do a little teaching in the Netherlands this August/September, which ought to be fun. Very interdisciplinary stuff, which I always love. More later on those, probably.

Wow, I really need to get out of bed and get to work now.