#WHY IS THERE ENOUGH SPACE TO HAVE FLYOVER COUNTRY

[teeforhee]

the fact that America is so big that it has "flyover country" rather than like. those three cities with airports and you can drive between them and any other place in the country in a day or way less never ceases to terrify me.

#FLYOVER COUNTRY. WHY IS IT SO BIG THERE. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN FLYOVER COUNTRY #WHY IS THERE ENOUGH SPACE TO HAVE FLYOVER COUNTRY #okay listen so scotland? theres an edinburgh airport a glasgow airport aberdeen probably has one and the islands have either airports or #like. A Landing Beach depending #dont take my word for that actually ive never been to any of the islands. #what do you MEAN its not a max two-day trip from the very top of your country to the very bottom. thats the whole island here #its like a 9 hour drive from Edinburgh to london but thats like!!! almost the whole landmass!! #give another like. 5-6 to the top of the highlands and another 1-2 to the bottom of england and like. thats it thats this whole island #FLYOVER COUNTRY. i dont consider myself afraid of big open spaces until i think about america and like #freak out. if i had an encounter with the vast all it would have to do is drop me off in America and thats spooky enough #mine

[lyselkatzhappynerding]

Richard Speight Jr's speech at the All Heroes Monument in Tonawanda

A couple of articles in full in case you have trouble accessing the links without a VPN:

Article by Peter Gallivan

BUFFALO, N.Y. — On June 6th, 1944, Warren "Skip" Muck was one of hundreds of American servicemen who dropped into Normandy to force Adolf Hitler's army out of France and beat them back to Germany.

On January 10, 1944, the City of Tonawanda native was killed in a foxhole in Foy, Belgium at the Battle of the Bulge. For decades, his family back here in Western New York had few details about his service and the day he died. That all changed with a simple phone call according to his niece, Becky Krurnowski. Becky says her mother, Skip's sister, got off of a call back in 2001 with more questions than answers. "She said there's an actor trying to get a hold of me, and something with Tom Hanks. They want to make a movie."

As it turned out, the actor was Richard Speight, researching for his upcoming role in "A Band of Brothers." Becky and her sister began a series of emails back and forth with the actor, telling him stories of Skip growing up, such as the time he swam across the Niagara River. Speight then took the stories to the writers and all of the sudden what was a bit began to grow, and Skip Muck became a series regular.

Krurnowski adds that this 75th anniversary of the Normandy invasion will have special meaning to her, taking her back to the world premiere of "A Band of Brothers"— one she attended as a guest of the studio, on Omaha Beach, Normandy.

Krurnowski says until Episode 7, they had no idea exactly how Muck had died. It showed him sharing a foxhole with one of his best friends, Alex Penkala, when they took a direct hit from a German canon shell. Becky says her mom found comfort in knowing that Skip was with his men and with his friends when he lost his life.

Lou Michel article from the Buffalo News

Saluting 'unbelievable sacrifices' Monument honors local ties to "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers"

As some area veterans know, the story lines of two epic movies about World War II - "Saving Private Ryan" and "Band of Brothers" -- center on two local families.

Now the memories of those World War II soldiers will be enshrined along the banks of the Niagara River in the City of Tonawanda.

That's because the four Niland brothers, whose story helped inspire "Saving Private Ryan," and Sgt. Warren H. "Skip" Muck, a central figure in "Band of Brothers," hailed from Tonawanda.

An Amherst couple, Rick and Lisa Lewis, donated $150,000 for the multistone monument to pay special tribute to the Nilands and Muck for their sacrifices.

"There will be one stone for each family, and etched on the stones will be the stories of the Niland brothers and Skip Muck," said Rick Lewis, whose family lived nearly a century in Tonawanda and became prominent when it owned the Talking Phone Book.

In the center of the veterans memorial plaza, which will be dedicated Saturday, will be a 10-foot-tall granite replica of the Washington Monument with a tribute to all other City of Tonawanda veterans from various wars.

"This will be in Niawanda Park directly behind City Hall, and at night it will be prominently illuminated, and I believe it will become a signature landmark for the City of Tonawanda," Lewis said.

The story about the Niland brothers is well known in some veteran circles.

On June 6, 1944, at the start of the Normandy invasion, Michael I. and Augusta Niland received the first of three telegrams that three of their four sons were missing in action. Two other telegrams soon followed, notifying the parents that two more sons were missing.

Their fourth son, Sgt. Frederick W. "Fritz" Niland, an Army paratrooper, was participating in the invasion.

War Department officials wasted no time ordering Fritz Niland out of the combat zone, once his whereabouts were determined. It was that effort that inspired the basic storyline of Steven Spielberg's 1998 movie starring Tom Hanks and Matt Damon.

The other Niland brothers were not as fortunate. Tech. Sgt. Robert J. Niland perished on the day of the invasion, and the next day, Lt. Preston T. Niland died. The third missing brother, Tech. Sgt. Edward F. Niland, was shot down over Burma and captured by the Japanese. He survived 11 months as a prisoner of war.

As for Muck, he became famous posthumously, with his story told in the best-selling book, "Band of Brothers," and later in the HBO cable network movie miniseries of the same name.

Muck was a member of Company E, 506th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, and one of about a dozen main characters. The story told of how the soldiers, first meeting in paratrooper school, became like a family.

"They banded together because they were up against so many hardships. That's why they called themselves the Band of Brothers. If any got injured, they would go to the hospital, get patched up and want to be back with their guys," said Becky Krurnowski, a 55-year-old niece of Muck.

In her City of Tonawanda home, she has a reminder of her uncle, who was killed Jan. 10, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge.

"A million years ago, my mother gave me the American flag that had covered my uncle's coffin," Krurnowski said. "It's been in my family room for about 20 years now on display."

Adding a sense of irony, Lewis said, is the fact that Skip Muck and Fritz Niland were best friends before going off to war.

"The sacrifices made by the Muck and Niland families in Tonawanda are just unbelievable," said Thomas Beilein, a Niland family cousin and former sheriff of Niagara County who now serves as head of the State Commission on Correction.

"As children, we didn't hear stories about the sacrifices. The family never talked about it. They never held it out there for the world to see. They didn't wear it on their sleeve," said Beilein.

The monument will be officially unveiled at 11 a.m. Saturday with members of the Niland and Muck families present. Surviving members of the Band of Brothers, all around 90 years of age, are scheduled to travel here from different parts of the country to attend.

The actor who played Skip Muck, Richard Speight Jr., will also attend and speak at the dedication.

A military flyover and reception are also planned, and HBO has agreed to provide free showings of Band of Brothers after the ceremony in the nearby Riviera Theatre on Webster Street, North Tonawanda.

Pete Niland, son of the late Edward Niland, also is scheduled to speak at the ceremony.

"I'm going to especially thank Rick and Lisa Lewis, who are sponsoring this, and I'm going to make mention that this is an honor not only to our family but to all the Tonawanda families who sacrificed, and there were a number of them," said Niland.

Lewis said he and his wife have wanted to honor the two families for years and put a spotlight on the City of Tonawanda.

"The area has been very good to my family, and we're anxious to do some things for the community," said Lewis, who organized a special committee a year ago with City of Tonawanda Mayor Ronald Pilozzi and representatives from several veterans groups, including Post 264, American Legion.

Pilozzi, a Vietnam veteran who was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor and a Purple Heart, says he feels a special closeness for the monument.

"One of the reasons I'm so proud of it is I was in the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam," Pilozzi said, explaining that Muck and a Niland family member were in the 101st.

The 101st faced its toughest assignment during the Battle of Bastogne, one of the more famous encounters against the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge.

"The 101st Airborne was completely encircled and cut off by the Germans, but they made their stand and held out long enough for Gen. [George S.] Patton to come in and relieve them and basically defeat the Nazis," Pilozzi said of the division's bravery.

Describing himself as an amateur historian for the modest working-class City of Tonawanda, Lewis said the memorial will ensure that no one ever forgets the sacrifices and bravery demonstrated by the deceased relatives of the Niland and Muck families.

The City of Tonawanda has a tremendous history of which it can be very, very proud," he said. "I still have family members there and consider myself an amateur historian of the city."

The monument, Lewis explained, is designed with enough open space to add additional stones in the future, should Tonawanda want to honor other veterans.

The monument was chiseled and inscribed by Stone Art Memorial Co. of Lackawanna. The grayish colored granite was quarried in Maine.

#skip muck #warren muck #the niland brothers #band of brothers #saving private ryan #richard speight jr #niland brothers #wwii #history #memorial

[questionthebox]

I’m too lazy again.

So I’m writing this via a fancy

Red iPhone.

It’s dawned on me through this output

Via tumblr and Instagram.

That my most dedicated fans

Are people from overseas.

And I love that !

For example the messages I get in my inbox

Are

From people, from Europe, Canada, Latin America and Oceana.

And

I want to say this,

I’m going to move back to writing

“Good” poetry, I don’t want too be all “dark” seemingly,

But you have to understand something

Where I am, in this country,

In America it isn’t like where you all are.

So this is what America is. So that the picture is painted clearly.

Everyone has mental illness here, from the elderly to toddlers, over the past few days, it’s been hitting me, how absolutely nuts everyone is here, and it literally can’t be underestimated, within this rampant mental illness, are physical ailments, take for a moment to think of the pandemic, unlike Western Europe, unlike countries like Vietnam or Cuba, The USA has completely fumbled the response to the pandemic and now as of this week the new “delta variant” is running rampant through our country, and our government is paralyzed, part of the paralysis, is that our Conservatives here, are pretty much “Neo Fascist” they are openly telling people to not get vaccinated and to not wear masks,

Violence is endemic to the mental illness, over the weekend, there was a shooting incident at a sporting event, in the past 3 years, we’ve had a mass shooting every month, Violence is also racial, the police routinely kill blacks, right wing and Neo fascist violence also takes place,

People our people are fundamentally isolated and trapped, it’s worse for our people who live in what we call here “flyover country” where there’s literally nothing, no jobs, nothing to entertain people, over large swaths of our country, areas have basically become hollowed out. Everything’s also very expensive, it’s extremely expensive here in California and New York, they did a study recently, that showed no one in America can afford a one bedroom apartment, that we would have to work 70 hours in one day, to be able to afford rent on our own, in this atmosphere, people rent rooms, in college my girlfriend told me I should rent a room because my family life at the time was extremely dysfunctional. People rent rooms in other peoples homes, people live with a bunch of other people, or they live with their families, and extended families, when I worked for the government last year, and I was going around interviewing people, the majority of people we’re living in small homes and apartments, with all of their relatives, that mix of so many people living in these confined spaces contributes to the insanity and chaos.

Everything’s expensive, and everything has a price, I had to go to an “underground dentist” in order to get the treatment I needed because my health net insurance wouldn’t cover those procedures and the dentist office I go to wanted to charge me hundred and thousands of dollars. Food is extremely expensive, alongside Gas, Rent, Utilities, I don’t mind saying this, I supplement myself with grey area economic dealings, but like everyone else I too worry about the bills, and it’s extremely stressful and makes me suicidal at times. But everything is expensive, from car registration to insurance, everything is fucking expensive.

Mainstream American Culture is super dumb, loud, chaotic, and fast, and over Sexualized, it’s pretty much like that movie idiocracy, that’s why we voted for someone like Trump to lead us, it’s a society, where every song on the radio is vapid, vulgar, extremely corporate, Celebrities are like Gods here in America, and the public follows everything they do, as if they’re part of them, or they’re cheering them on, there’s also this faux progressivism that makes everything polite, and nice, and it’s hated and despised by people, especially right wingers, because it comes off as so fake, and contrived, Mainstream culture has become extremely Bland, they use LGBTQI culture to further that blandness, it’s all so damn fake.

The interpersonal relationships people have with one another, are highly volatile, and weird, you could be literally dating someone, and a little thing occurs, and they block you on social media and that’s it, the vast majority of people are weird, and strange, you meet them at work, college, wherever, and they’ll reveal that shit about themselves. Finding people, like a collection of people, is hard, one of my best friends is a filmmaker lives in Echo Park in Los Angeles, and when I told him I’m going to focus on being in the LA arts scene, he revealed that he wants to too, thus revealing that he still hasn’t found anyone, and he went to art school!

People also don’t like talking over the phone which honestly makes me violently mad, for example my college girlfriend, preferred we’d talk over Instagram, and when I’d be all like, I’m going to call you, she’s be like I don’t like talking over the phone, when we’d be together her vibe wasn’t even like someone you’d think would not want to talk over the phone, but later on while in the car with some friends, one of my friends said, “some people like to talk, talk over the phone, or just text” and I was sitting there steaming, because I couldn’t believe how everyone just accepts this, if you are lucky to make friends with a collection of people, then you quickly have to adjust to what I call “normalcy life” going to bars, going to music shows, etc, and that can be nice up to an extent, but if you want deeper conversation or connection, or some sort of impulse towards adventure, you better look elsewhere. At most those people are just going to be down to snort Coke with you and do drugs.

There’s no conception of the future, having a future, certain friends will try to pretend like they’re going somewhere, but they aren’t, everyone pretty much is stranded, because there’s not enough money anymore in circulation, to live from. I’m 29 years old, I have friends in the same age range who aren’t married and who don’t have kids, and none of us talk about having kids or getting married anymore. Everyone’s more concerned about the struggles and stresses of the present. The friends that did have kids, are pretty much stranded in unhappy marriages or relationships, and it’s hell for them.

There’s no help either. Whatsoever, none of my friends, or people I know can ask their parents for help, either because their parents don’t have the money, or they’re neglectful or they’re totally fucked up.

If anything all these things have revealed a truly barbaric society, that is misogynistic and sexist, that is racist, that is prejudice against people who have physical and mental ailments and so on.

This will be part 1. Of my revealing of American life, diary posts.

#poets on tumblr #writers on tumblr #my thoughts #diary #personal diary #my musings

[psychic-war-in-the-usa]

Ror Faorgt Zilda

Castiel is sulking. Sulking in that particular way he has when he is trying to maintain plausible deniability, and failing. Out in the summer, or even in the winter, out in flyover country, Castiel is as agreeable as you can wish for an eldritch being. Wide, flat, open spaces seem to make him most comfortable, only upped when an overpass is within his line of sight. 

Asking why only results in Castiel saying something about fixed stars, which eventually makes sense, but not much. 

However, at the moment, the world is enclosed in endless green and silver, endless in every direction. You are in the Western Cascades of Oregon, and its damp miserable cold is already beginning to wear down tempers, what with trackless muddy green in every pointless stupid direction. In fact, half the gear is tetchy because of how many people have died in the area, and going out because of some klucker’s trap was never high on your list of priorities. 

The two of you are huddled in the backseat, you, at least, wishing the heater could be turned on, but that’s why the backseat is a mass of blankets and functional gear, so you don’t get hypothermia. In a rainforest. Because that’s a thing.

You’ve never seen Castiel this miserable. Not enraged, not righteous, just plain flat out miserable. He stands outside the car, staring up at the sky, shaking his head free of the constant droplets over and over again. 

When he sits back in the car, he shakes himself all over as if trying to rid himself of something nasty. “Sin.” he says, his voice at its most strained. “There is only sin here, and we should leave.”

Castiel is not often one for proselytizing the ways of his kin, and he doesn’t seem to be addressing you, just the sky and the endless drowning world. 

“It’s a rainforest, Cas.” you say, trying to keep cheerful even as thoughts of cults and body dumps slide into your mind as easily as the damp. “It’s not like where we usually go, yeah, but--”

Looking over at the sodden angel, you notice every time a droplet rattles against the car windshield, Castiel gives a twitch of raw terror as though he’s been hit, eyes wide even as he cringes back into the seat. His eyes shut tight, his coat drawn up and the collar arranged past his ears, raising his shoulders as high as they can go. He makes a sound that is almost a bass beat, and settles into a little chant of what sounds like a prayer. “Ol gil de zacam salman. Ol trian zacam salman. Ol gil de zacam salman. Ol trian zacam salman. Ol gil...”

This goes on for what could possibly be ten minutes, although it feels more like ten months. Finally, that’s it, you are done.

“Cas. It’s raining. You’ve seen rain before, you know what it is. What are you going on about?”

“It is the Deluge again.” he says. “It is the Deluge and we cannot do anything.” 

This...explanation...is put forward with such blunt honesty that you can barely keep from laughing. “Cas. It’s not the Flood. It’s just...it rains all the time. And the people suck here. But it’s not the Flood.”

“You are certain?”

“Yes.” 

“I do not think you are correct.” Castiel says, glancing anxiously up at the car roof. 

You shrug, drawing him closer. Castiel twitches, half fighting your touch, as if expecting somebody or something else, but recognition traces over his features as he sees you. 

“The rain’s not so bad, Cas.” you say, cajoling as you settle your bodies into a roughly comfortable position. His coat, still damp from outside, is a wall between you, but it’s easy to do one better and draw the shaking angel into a cocoon of blankets. It’s easy enough to arrange his rumpled coat correctly, shifting it so it encircles him even more safely.

“See? It’s more sensible than spreading them across the entire backseat, Cas. Less wasteful. It’s safe, Cas. And here we are, together. You’re safe. We’re safe. It’s okay.”

His breath comes oddly as you hold him, sometimes shallow and hurried, other times even as usual, and then managing to be relaxed.“Thank you.” he says, very softly, even for him, glancing at you from under his collar. “I do not mind if we are going to die now.”

#my fic #title translation: Sky Watering #chant translation: I want to go home. I will go home.

[functionalechoes]

It’s a full twenty minutes before he’s ready to admit to himself that this isn’t just some poor taste prank that the kids had talked Laura into.  Twenty minutes before he can admit that this is real and that his family is gone.

It takes another ten minutes to unearth his back up kit from the barn, and the phone in it that he has never used but has always kept charged.  He’d been promised once, long ago when the farm was first set up, that a call from that number would always be answered.

Fury does not answer. Hill does not answer.

Natasha does not answer.

He tries the last ditch line to Coulson. Clint hasn’t had direct contact with his former handler since that terrible night in 2012, but he’s positive that the number will still work. Phil’s had that phone since 2001. While it works, Phil does not answer. Instead the line goes straight to voicemail and it takes all of Clint’s will to not throw his phone at the wall. He eventually tucks it back into his kit and goes for the landline that Cooper had spent so much time mocking.

He’s called every number he can think of for everyone he can think of. His “parole officer” is the first person that answers, but he has no more information for him than the alerts the radio has been spitting out for the better part of an hour now.  People have fallen into dust and faded away all over the country. Phone lines are going down as people frantically try calling everyone that they know; website traffic is spiking as Twitter and Facebook and all those social media things he’d never bothered with were over run with speculation and desperation. 

He’s passed up the line of authority as it becomes more and more clear that he’s the only immediately available Avenger. Or ex-Avenger. Or whatever the hell he is now. There’s a growing pit of worry in his stomach and a black hole clawing at his heart.

[head canon continuation below the cut; this gets kinda meta and ramble-y]

Hoo boy. So. Half the population of the planet has just disappeared with no rhyme or reason. 3.85 billion people have just disappeared. I think it’s safe to say that another 150 million will die in the first few months of aftermath, and bring that up to 4 million dead or disappeared. 

Why would 150 million people die after the Snap?

Well. You can lose 100-500 people real easy with just one flight crew vanishing, between all the non-vanished passengers and the people on the ground or in the buildings that get hit by uncontrolled planes. And just because a driver has vanished, doesn’t mean that the vehicle’s momentum has gone with them. There’s probably a 49 foot trailer or seventy that have just caused a variety of accidents with a nice body count.

There are the kids who have lost their parents while on vacation; kids that don’t know how to survive in the mountains or how to sail a boat or how to get home. Kids with big bright targets on their backs now that they’re alone.

You’ve got the religious extremists who think the world just got Raptured, and they need to fight off the minions of Hell before the Kingdom of Heaven can come to earth. You’ve got the crazier side of Doomsday Preppers, the kind that have so many guns that they’ve just been dying to use for so long and now they have reason to! Anyone who comes onto their land, even those who have just turned down the wrong road, is now an “invader”.

There are the gangs and terrorist groups that break and fracture and turn to bloodbaths while they sort out their hierarchies. That throw themselves into a “war” for power and control and land. There are the people who suddenly see a route to power and try to build their own little fiefdoms.

And this is happening all over the world. 

So yeah. Four billion people are missing or dead. I think it’s safe to say that there’s at least one government in the world that just got gutted. And given the initial flyover in the time skip, I’d say that the United States is one of the gutted governments. 

Now. I don’t really know how the US government works. I’m Canadian. I’m Canadian and I barely understand how the Canadian government works. So... something something something, the President is incapacitated and the VP takes control. VP becomes incapacitated and the... I dunno somebody who’s title starts with an S? Secretary of State? Speaker of the House? anyways the next person in line takes control. And so on and so forth.

I have arbitrarily decided that the MCU’s US President does not get Snapped, however the next seven people in line for the presidency do. Just, y’know. For funsies! (actually it’s because I don’t want to try and figure out how having two Presidents once the unSnappening happens would work)

Ross definitely got Snapped. I’m not sure where he is in that line up, but he’s gone. I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t have famous “can we get a selfie?” Hulk if he didn’t. 

But yeah: a gutted government and no one knows what’s going on. All of the Avengers and Avengers affiliates are in Wakanda or space at this point, excluding Clint and Scott. Scott is Sir Not Appearing Until After the Time Skip, so he’s out too. It’s all on Clint now.

Fury and Hill are gone. Coulson doesn’t answer. Tony is in space. It’s doubtful that Natasha or Steve or any of the others carried a cellphone into battle, and even if they had they probably wouldn’t be able to get through. 3.85 billion people have just vanished. 3.85 billion other people are trying to contact everyone they can think of. Phone lines get over run with just a few million people trying to call out in an emergency.

In those first few moments? Clint doesn’t know if this is a nightmare or an illusion or if he’s the only person left on the planet. The lack of response to his phone calls is throwing him into a very bad mindset; so when he gets through with his  government contacts he clings to it. Things may be chaotic within the government, but even with so many people missing they have a framework there. They’re recalling everyone that they can, trying to fit as many trustworthy people into position as fast as they can so they can present a solid front for the American people.

Clint is asked to escort a few people from the mid-west to DC, as all planes are grounded until whatever happened can be explained. He agrees and finds himself playing armored chauffeur to more than just “a few” people, especially after the first couple days when things start getting really rough. Gangs and home grown terrorists and all kinds of nasty power hungry people realizing that they’ve suddenly got that option open to them now. Clint just about falls face-first back into the black ops lifestyle. 

It doesn’t even take a week for the OG Avengers (minus Tony) to return to the United States, but by the time that Natasha is able to respond to Clint’s phone call he’s already out on is first “official” government mission. It’ll be three months before he can check his own voicemail and by that point he doesn’t want to drag her back into this mess.

She’s escaped it. She got out and became an Avenger; a real one not just a sniper on stand-by.  She was repaying her debts and cleaning her ledger. She deserves a better life than partnering back up with an aging black ops sniper slash government sanctioned assassin.  He’s not going to do that to her again.

So he just. doesn’t respond. 

And I think this is long enough for now.  I’m still flip-flopping on the part where he goes from Hawkeye to Ronin and how Maya Lopez and Matt Murdock should be incorporated into that story.  I do have the New Avengers issues that cover the 616 version of events, so I can definitely pull from that but ugh. I hate the way those issues are written/drawn. Jumping back and forth through flashbacks drives me nuts.

#lots of rambling in this one #and a bit of that world building thing that endgame didn't give us #and that we won't get in the post-endgame movies #but that I think about a lot because I like disaster documentaries #d : plot #v : in the gap #d : headcanon

[sanantonioswebdesign]

30 Fun things to do in San Antonio

1. It Ain’t Texas while not A Rodeo Rodeo - Things to try to to In urban center

If you aren’t in city for the urban center Stock Show and Rodeo in February—one of the most important rodeos within the country—that doesn’t mean you have got to miss out on seeing this urban center tradition. The Tejas Rodeo holds events from March through Nov. Giddyup!

2. trying to find one thing Spookier? Take A Ghost Tour!

In a town therefore wealthy with history, there ar inevitably lots of urban center ghost stories, too—discover them 1st hand with butchery town Ghost Tours or the Sisters Grimm Ghost Tour. Check them out… goodbye as you don’t scare easily!

3. Become a part of The “CSI” Team At The Witte depository

maybe it’s additional edu-tainment than academic, however the Witte Museum’s CSI: The Experience—created in cooperation with the CBS show—will be a success with fans of the series. And if “CSI” simply isn’t your issue, the Witte features a rotating choice of exhibits regarding science and history, particularly Texas history.

4. Get In Some Historic Drinking Why can’t all history have happened during a bar? The Menger edifice Bar is, famously, wherever President Teddy Roosevelt recruited his Rough Riders whereas the Buckhorn Saloon boasts of being the oldest saloon in Texas—though the Menger would argue it’s the oldest unceasingly operated saloon. Visit the Menger for a cultured cocktail and therefore the Buckhorn—which is, as delineate, stuffed with a good assortment of horns, looking trophies, and alternative exhibits—for kitsch.

5. Visit The Exotic life At The urban center installation If you’re trying to find one thing additional exotic than the ducks and squirrels that inhabit the remainder of Brackenridge Park, venture into the urban center installation. Nearly a hundred years previous, the installation options over three,500 animals together with lions, tigers, and bears—oh my!

6. investigate associate degree E-Book At The Country’s 1st All-Digital Library Bexar County’s BiblioTech may be a library while not one physical book, providing solely digital books and audiobooks. however the power itself is price a visit, with a large number of e-readers, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers on the market to use throughout your visit.

7. Get Some searching In At La Villita And mart There ar countless places to buy in urban center, however none quite just like the La Villita Historic Arts Village—in the oldest a part of the city—or the outside, Mexican-style marketplace of mart. once you’ve exhausted your case searching, each have events throughout the year—not to say nice people-watching. You won’t notice something like them outside San Antonio!

8. Go Spelunking In one in every of San Antonio’s several Caves If you’re bored with all of the outside and recent air, and ar desire one thing a touch additional brave, head underground to explore one in every of the area’s several caverns. Natural Bridge Caverns, Cascade Caverns, and Cave while not a reputation all supply some spectacular sights.

9. For Above-Ground Excitement, Ride The Coasters At fete Texas If you’re trying to travel air sure, you can’t do higher than Six Flags fete Texas that options many high-octane roller coasters just like the Iron Rattler. however if you don’t have a style for thrill rides, there ar lots of milder rides and family-friendly diversion on supply, too.

10. Take Special wants Friends and Family to go to Morgan’s Wonderland Morgan’s Wonderland may be a completely different quite common, designed and designed to be utterly accessible to youngsters and adults with psychological feature or physical challenges whereas being a fun expertise for all guests.

11. See urban center From higher than At The Tower Of solid ground

Sure, metropolis likes to brag regarding its house Needle, however at 750 feet, San Antonio’s Tower of solid ground is taller. It’s the tallest building in urban center—and one in every of the tallest in Texas—and it provides you a stellar read of San Antonio and therefore the close Texas hill country.

12. Play holidaymaker At The watercourse Walk (Even If You’re A Local)

Yes, the watercourse Walk may be a holidaymaker destination, however it’s a holidaymaker destination for a reason—it’s an attractive place to spend associate degree hour, a day, or an entire day. absorb the sights, grab a bite to eat, and simply get pleasure from the city district.

13. See the most important assortment Of Asian Art within the South You wouldn’t extremely suppose to go to urban center to examine Asian art, however the urban center depository of Art on the north finish of the watercourse Walk has an intensive collection—as well as works from solid ground, Europe, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The crazy juxtaposition of east and (south)west is well-worth seeing.

14. See trendy Art In Spanish Colonial vogue The first trendy art depository within the state of Texas, the McNay Art depository is found within the former home of Marion Koogler McNay, a Spanish Colonial Revival mansion located on twenty three acres of improved grounds. even though trendy art isn’t your jam, the grounds ar an excellent place to wander and explore.

15. Skip The Museums And notice Some Street Art Instead For all the museums we’ve mentioned, you’ll notice art in urban center while not ever setting foot in one. We’re notably keen on F.I.S.H. by Donald Lipski, that options fish floating over the watercourse Walk below the I-35 flyover close to metropolis Street. If you retain your eyes open, you’ll conjointly notice murals everywhere the town.

16. Cheer On the house Team At A Spurs Game If you’re in urban center you’re responsible to root for the house team—and four-time NBA Championship winners, the Spurs, can provide you with masses to cheer for!

17. Brush informed Your Texas History At The butchery

nothing says Texas—or San Antonio—more than the historic butchery. And tho’ we’ve all detected the story, it’s price taking the time to go to. over simply the long-lasting facade, the butchery may be a four.2 acre complicated of gardens and exhibits—and ideal for a stroll before or once a ride down the watercourse Walk.

18. And investigate San Antonio’s alternative Historic Missions, Too Though the butchery continuously gets advert, urban center is home to over simply the one historic mission. Missions Conception, San Jose, San Juan, and Espada form up the urban center Missions park situated on the urban center watercourse.

19. wish to examine It All? Bike The Mission path From The butchery A hike and bike path runs from the butchery all the approach right down to the south Mission Espada. Rent a “B-cycle” from urban center B-Cycles and revel in the ride!

20. See The Nation’s Oldest Cathedral Built in 1750, the Cathedral of San Fernando in downtown urban center is that the oldest cathedral within the United States—and remains the middle of Catholic life within the town.

21. absorb Military History At Fort politico San Antonio features a massive military presence—enough to nickname the city “Military town USA.” Still a full of life military base, Fort politico is home to many museums and a grasslike, animal-filled quadrangle ideal for defrayment a day feeding the (rather demanding) birds.

22. Visit A Historic Homestead (Or 2 Or Three) Architecture lovers are in heaven. urban center is packed with historic homes, from the eighteenth century Spanish Governor’s Palace to the Steves Homestead and Villa Finale within the King William District.

23. See geographical region Fall colours while not confronting The weather condition

Texas might not be glorious for the dynamic  seasons, however that’s solely as a result of not everyone’s visited the Lost Maples State Natural space west of urban center. There, you’ll notice over two,000 acres of Bigtooth Maples and Texas Red Oaks that provides a sensible show each fall.

24. get pleasure from The Country while not exploit city The Lost Maples ar a touch of a drive, however Brackenridge Park offers 343 acres of out of doors diversion right within the heart of city. You’ll notice birds to feed, methods for walking or biking, playgrounds for the children, a links, and even a miniature railroad.

25. And Take Your Dog on Phil Hardberger Park - Things to try to to in urban center

Dogs ar allowed on-leash in Brackenridge Park, however at the 2 dog parks within Phil Hardberger Park , your hirsute friend will burst off the leash to run and play with alternative dogs.

26. notice Your Zen At the japanese garden For a touch additional Asian culture within the heart of urban center, swing by the japanese garden in Brackenridge Park wherever you’ll watch the swimming koi, relax by the water, or simply stroll the garden.

27. See Some ocean Life At SeaWorld SeaWorld - Things to try to to in urban center

You don’t have to be compelled to trek the 250 miles to town to examine marine life, as a result of the world’s largest marine park is correct in urban center with SeaWorld. make certain to catch up with Shamu and friends at the One Ocean show and take a swim with the stingrays at Aquatica!

28. Take A Spin At woman Bird Johnson Skate Park OK, therefore the town of urban center solely calls it woman Bird Johnson Park, however there’s a sizable—and free—skate park on the property. what percentage alternative 1st girls have their own skate parks? we tend to can’t consider any.

29. Entertain And Educate At The urban center Children’s depository San Antonio Children’s depository - Things to try to to in urban center Source: urban center Children’s depository

This kid-friendly—and, as a result, parent-friendly—museum focuses on interactive exhibits and learning through play. With 3 floors of show house, the urban center Children’s depository is bound to be a success with the miscroscopic ones.

30. Catch A Show At The butchery Drafthouse Or The Majestic Theatre The butchery Drafthouse Or The Majestic Theatre - Things to try to to in urban center

You can’t return through urban center while not catching a show. For recent run movies, strive the Texas original butchery Drafthouse Cinema, that serves up movies, food, and drinks tired identical place. For theater and alternative events, the historic Majestic Theatre is wherever you must go.

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[johnbizzell]

Goodbye, Dolly

Ocado sent me a 20% discount voucher in the same month that David died. It felt like fate was telling me never to go out again, so I didn’t. It’s not the grief, I joked, it’s the means. He left me the flat and some very successful investments – and honestly when you can have a boneless organic chicken thigh delivered straight to your door, why risk getting your hair wet?

He loved this flat. He used to say he loved me, Barbra Streisand and the flat, mostly in that order, but Barbra and I were interchangeable if I’d forgotten to put the rubbish out or if she really hit that high D5 at the end of A Piece of Sky. It’s a recording, I’d say, she hits the same note every time. Yes, he’d say, but sometimes I just feel it more.

The flat is on the top floor of Ben Jonson House on the northern edge of the Barbican estate in London. It has two rooms, side by side, each with a barrel ceiling. From the inside the rounded white roofs make you think you have more space than you really do. From the outside I like to imagine it looks like two sleeping giants cuddled up under a duvet.

David started renting the flat when he was studying at the Guildhall School of Music, or Downstairs as he always called it. When the owner sold up in the early nineties David had to buy the place because he’d filled it with too many records to move. 1423 records line an entire wall of the living room in orange crate shelves. They are mostly original cast recordings of musicals in all the languages of the countries he visited. Only sixty-seven of them are by Barbra, but she does have her own crate. I got my own crate in 2006. Well, it was a drawer. David was twenty years older than me and everyone assumed I was more in love with his south-facing balcony in Zone 1 than with him, but I would have moved into one of his orange crates under the Hammersmith flyover if he’d asked. Me, David and 1423 records living happily ever after. Or, in the end, about twelve years.

The Barbican estate was built over the wreckage World War II left of this part of London. David loved that it was someone’s vision of optimal living realised on such a large scale, that from a bombsite they thought they could rescue the future. His balcony overlooks the entire complex, the terraces and tower blocks, the mewses and the museum, the Arts Centre and its plazas. From that angle all the odd shaped buildings and covered walkways form an insane Escher print. When I’d go out there to water the plants he would wrap his arms around me from behind, his chin resting on my shoulder, and let his hand trace a path for some new adventure across the cityscape. With all there is, he’d sing in my ear, why settle for just a piece of sky?

Even then I used to think it all depended on the piece of sky you were looking at.

I haven’t been out on the balcony since he died. I’ve barely opened the curtains. Half of the plants dropped their leaves over the side like desperate passengers jumping from a sinking ship. The half that couldn’t reach the edge just curled up on the floor. David left me the flat and the money and the records and the plants, but do you need me to tell you he took away more than he left? Because I can’t be bothered to go into it – actually, that sums it up: David died and I couldn’t be bothered anymore.

***

When anyone remarked on the twenty years between us, and anyone often did, David would rush his hand to his cheek as though he’d been slapped. I was born on the 26th June, he was born on the 27th. There were nineteen years and 364 days between us. It never mattered to me, but since other people seemed so keen on numbers he liked to make sure they got it right.

On my birthday, the first thing he’d do was fling the covers off and crow about how young he felt. On his, the morning after, he’d play the ancient crone. Of all the time we had together, those twenty-four hours in between were often our happiest.

Sometimes we never left the flat. Sometimes we never left the bed. Once, on the day I turned thirty and he’d failed to cook the chicken for long enough, we spent most of it in the bathroom. He claimed it was because he’d heated it on the dying embers of his forties. If you can find a man who makes you laugh after giving you food poisoning, he’s the one.

David’s warmth evaporated time. Today, those same twenty-four hours yawn with their lack of promise. I am now thirty-eight and I’ve woken up alone in our bed for nearly a year. The same bed that it felt so decadent to stay in as the turning of the world notched up another number for me then him. There’s nothing decadent about staying in bed all day when you have nowhere else to be. Or nobody to share it with.

I get up at 7am and shower. I realised quite early on that it was easier to get rid of time at the start of the day. Also, for all of the talk about optimal living, the walls between the Barbican’s flats are thin enough that I know when my bedroom-side neighbour Bianca has had an overnight guest – because I hear her shower going twice, not because she’s a screamer (though the guests sometimes are). With the noise of her, possibly plus one, and Pete and Soph on the living-room side all getting ready for work in the morning there’s really no point in trying to lay in.

I eat breakfast and get on with my Big Job of the day. There’s only ever one. If you don’t work or even leave the two rooms you live in, your To Do list is minimal. The art is to spread it out over the course of the week: one day for cleaning, one day for washing, changing the bed gets a whole day of its own because it usually takes everything I have. One day I throw things in a casserole dish. Everything tastes the same anyway and one bucket of stew will last me all week. That’s unless Soph is away and Pete comes over. But if it runs out I usually eat cereal for dinner. Or nothing.

By 9am everyone in bothering radius will have left the building. If I put on one of David’s records I’m either feeling brave or the exact opposite. Usually I stick to some quiet, measurable task: today I will knit fifty rows of this scarf or today I will read two-hundred pages of Persuasion or today I will open at least three of the letters that continue to get forwarded for David and try to forgive the writer for existing in a world where he is still alive.

At 6pm I heat up my dinner. If any of my neighbours are going to knock to check that I haven’t made their lives awkward by killing myself, it’s usually now. If they don’t, I put on David’s ancient headphones that are attached by a spiralling wire to a radiogram thing on a shelf above the bed. I lay down and listen to a crackling Asian radio station that could be broadcasting cricket scores or prayers, but that completely drowns out the sounds of Pete and Soph making their evening meal together or Bianca laughing into her phone on the balcony as she lights another cigarette. I’d take the sounds of endless morning ablutions over their easy early evening chatter and hopefulness.

It’s meditative, listening to a language you don’t understand. After long enough you can hear the music in it. Music that doesn’t remind you of anyone.

He would’ve been fifty-eight tomorrow.

***

My dad and I get on fine, thanks for asking, though we joke that he threw me out at eighteen. He just wanted me to want more than the generic comfort of middle class Bristol. He stays because it makes mum happy and he loves her. He’s a doctor who wishes he’d been a sculptor or a fashion designer or a maker of anthropomorphic miniature ceramics – it all depends on what documentary he’s watching at the time. I was quite happy pulling up weeds and laying turf for the housewives of Clifton Village, though I was well aware that I didn’t want to lay anything else for them. I applied to art college for him really. And, fair enough, to sleep with someone other than the barman at the Queenshilling.  

My mum was more comfortable with my lack of ambition. She called it being an old soul. When they dropped me off at Ravensbourne she gave me a backgammon set and enough tinned soft fruit for a lifetime of untroubled dentures. Following a succession of diabolical paintings and haircuts, a Duke of Edinburgh Award in navigating my way home from a different part of London every other morning -  before the advent of Google Maps - and absolutely no backgammon, I graduated and got a job as an estate agent.

The most creative thing I was doing was arranging the pictures of other people’s homes in the window. I told my parents I was having a fabulous time and they believed me. I told myself that too, but it was less convincing.  

***

Pete is on my balcony sweeping up rotting leaves and quite a few of Bianca’s discarded cigarette butts. He does this whenever he comes over for dinner since I never go out there now. He has a broom in one hand and his phone in the other, into which I hear him shouting to his wife Soph that he’s about to eat one of Dolly’s famous one-pot wonders. I am Dolly. I am microwaving a five bean chilli I made using only two kinds of beans and the entire last jar of fucks I had to give. I’ve barely moved from the sofa in five hours, but have only been trying to ignore Pete’s questions for the last fifteen minutes.

Pete was already David’s neighbour when I moved into the flat. At the time I had a quiff that my friends used to say was maintained by all the comments that flew over my head. I was twenty-five, I’d been passed around London’s vibrant gay Soho like a tray of unwanted cakes and I was finally getting bored of butching it up and dumbing it down. Maybe it’s different now that kids have to build a personal brand online before they’re old enough to drink, but back when I was fresh meat it wasn’t what came out of your mouth that guys were interested in. I met David in the toilets at the Green Carnation – don’t worry, it wasn’t as seedy as it sounds. We were standing side by side looking in the mirror wearing matching Joe 90 glasses; me tall and dark, him short and bald. He said we looked like Dolce and Gabbana. I looked down at my designer-imposter daps and his wide-fit loafers and said we were more like Dolcis and Garden Centre. When he laughed it felt like someone had heard my real voice for the first time. I came back to the flat with him that night and four months later I lived here.

Dolce having instantly become Dolcis then became Dolly. That’s how he introduced me to Pete. Say hello to Dolly. Pete had been a DJ on the rave scene in the early nineties and still shouted everything inches from your ear like he was trying to be heard over Josh Wink’s Higher State of Consciousness. He smelled so straight and alien, like weed and the hot plastic of a Gameboy. It was the forbidden smell of someone’s older brother’s bedroom and on reflex I stayed silent in case I got kicked out. He looked into the tops of my boxes and asked me if I played backgammon then, with no response from me, reached in and pulled out a Prodigy CD. He waved it triumphantly in David’s face, delighted to finally have a neighbour who might play something other than Color Me Barbra through the wall. David was unfazed. Neither then nor at any time since has there been a CD player in the flat.

Now of course we can instantly play whatever we want to hear on our phones, but Pete and I are both at an age where eating two bean chilli at Prodigy speed could cause intestinal woe for days. He comes in from the balcony and selects a record to put on. It’s Je m’appelle Barbra, the original 1966 Colombia LP. Side two, track six: I’ve Been Here.

We were going to knock on your birthday but the lights were out, says Pete. And on his too. Then, after a deep breath, he tells me that Bianca has told Soph who has told him that she’s been doing some PR for the promoters who put on summer concerts in Hyde Park and that she’s heard that this year Barbra Streisand will be doing one of them and she could get us all tickets and we should go. VIP entry, away from the crowds. It will be the first time she’s performed in the UK for years and might be the last. David wouldn’t have missed it. David would’ve been there in a Fanny Brice sailor suit.

Over on the record player Barbra is assuring us that she is not a frightened dove.

I say I’m not ready.

The record finishes and there’s only static to fill the silence. Pete takes our half-empty bowls and puts them in the sink, where he stands as the whispering record turns and turns and turns and turns.

I need to go Dolly, he says. And I don’t know if I can go without you.

David and Pete had both done a lot of drugs, though it was never part of David’s work like it was for Pete. David travelled – he’d been a singer and then an internationally renowned vocal coach – but when he was home, he was home. Ask Pete if he ended up with a drug problem because it’s hard for a DJ to draw a line between his professional and private life, he’ll tell you that he doesn’t know because he never even tried. He was having a brilliant time and getting paid a lot of money. He got a mortgage for the flat next to David’s in 1999 with the advances from a series of Millennium gigs that he wouldn’t end up playing. Instead he went on what he now calls the Bender Of Destiny. His bookings disappeared. He went from sucking MDMA off a model’s nipple to sucking fag ash from the footwells of Mondeos at a car valeting service. He could barely afford enough speed to get him through the weekend. When he finally got so desperate that he sold his speakers, David knocked on his door. This was years before I'd met David, years before Pete met Soph. At the time they may not have had much in common except a very thin wall, but David was probably the only neighbour in the world who had a problem if you weren’t playing music. Pete’s existence had descended to skirting board level and the flat was basically empty. The highest vantage point was a stack of unopened post. Recently Pete must have fallen off or into or in front of something or someone and there was a dried trail of blood weaving back and forth between the two filthy airless rooms. David sat down on the floor next to Pete anyway and put his arms around him whilst he cried.

David took Pete next door and ran him a bath. He washed his clothes and his bedding. He cleaned Pete’s flat, he cooked for him. He sat with him every night, made him tea whilst he opened all the terrifying post, sorted out his payment plans. He helped him find some furniture, a job at a friend’s recording studio, a reason to go on. He played him the 1964 Original Cast Recording of Funny Girl and the 1970 soundtrack to On A Clear Day You Can See Forever and every single studio album Barbra had ever released. When you can afford your own speakers again we can listen to what you want, David would say, until then let’s have something ageless and evergreen.

Pete gave the eulogy at David’s funeral. I couldn’t speak. He said that David had saved his life. He chose all the music too. People kept thanking me afterwards and telling me how perfect the songs were. I tried to say that Pete had chosen everything but he said it didn’t matter. He took me home and said I didn’t need to explain anything to anyone. I didn’t need to see anyone or speak to anyone if I didn’t want to.

Pete takes Je m’appelle Barbra off of the record player, returns it to its sleeve and its place on the orange crate shelves.

There’s seven months until the gig, he tells me, we’ll start small. He opens the balcony door and steps outside, then he turns back and holds out his hand for me to join him.

#barbra streisand #barbican #short story #fiction #lgtb

[infillinfrastructure-blog]

An Interview with Dr. Anant Maringanti: Director of Hyderabad Urban Lab  1/3

photo from google

I had the wonderful opportunity to talk to Dr. Anant Maringanti, the founder and director of Hyderabad Urban Lab who was kind enough to sit down with me and answer my many, many questions.  Have a read of the interview below:

Q: What exactly is Hyderabad Urban Lab and what do you do in the city?

A: Hyderabad Urban Lab is a bit of a hybrid organisation that was set up initially through a sequence of conversations that came together from many different places. One set of conversations came from a series of research projects that I have been involved in since 2000. I began to think about how to understand urban transformations in the post-Fordist accumulation regimes - where large units are breaking down and the state is withdrawing from certain social spaces. What do we make of these changes? A large part of the research until 2001 was looking at how the state was slowly getting hollowed out and how policy was being driven from the top. There was very little understanding about how people were responding to any of this. So one of the things we did at that time was to set up a research project looking at cities and social and political initiatives in cities across north America; that’s US, Canada and Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, UK) and what we were looking at was to see what kinds of new mobilisations were taking place, what kinds of new collective bargaining mechanisms were coming out. Somewhere towards the end of it, we realized that the transformations that were happening in cities were not driven by one single force but driven by many different forces and those forces changed from place to place, region to region. Then, we started organising a sequence of conferences and one of the ideas that emerged by 2012 was that we need to really have research initiatives that are embedded in particular cities and begin to theorise from the experience of that city. There’s no reason why we must be so overwhelmed by urban theories that comes from research done in a few neighborhoods around the University of Chicago. So what does it mean to do urban theory from Hyderabad? So that’s one set of conversations. But being part of Hyderabad, having grown up here there was another set of conversation that was happening amongst my friends which is that Hyderabad’s modernity is follows a different arc compared to the rest of India. Until 1948, the people in Hyderabad were all subjects to a monarch  who was then an ally to the British. So, in the 50’s you begin to learn to become a citizen - what was that sensibility, who were these people, what were they thinking, what kind of institutions, what kind of sensibilities came out of that and how does that reflect in the public space? We wanted to do this because postcolonial theory until then was heavily dominated by the experience of the rest of India particularly from Bengal and we wanted to think about this question of what does it mean to think about modernity and postcoloniality from a place where the British actually never ruled. So that was another set of conversations. Then the third one was what kind of an institution should this be. This was the time when a number of attempts were being made to create new urban research institutions. We decided that it should be a very simple small urban research centre, not inside a University, because we wanted to do work with a certain rigour but we didn't want to get caught up within the time horizons and protocols of an academic institution. So I’m not worried about doing anything with unintended consequences in a place because I’m not going away so I can take risks. I may screw up but I can straighten out.

Q: So, is your aim to come up with a new theory (for this situation)?

A: Not one theory, there are a number of different kinds of theoretical work that needs to be done. There is also a need to rethink the strict modern boundaries between knowledge and theory and practice.

Q: Do you collaborate with people in architectural or urban practices?

A: We do sometimes - Partly because we need skills of a certain kind. But those collaborations can be in the form of institutional collaborations. Sometimes not. All kinds of collaborations that are concentrated in this sphere. So we engage with architects, we engage with planners quite extensively.

Q: How important do you think it is to physically test something out for your own work?

A: We don’t do that kind of design actually and a lot of things we do are small performative things. We had an intern and we were doing something on busking laws and this guy said he knew how to do busking. He just put together a band in 3 days and went out to the street and perform and document the whole experience. We do a lot of visual work, we produce short films and do an annual event in December which is basically bringing together all kinds of people ( from scrap merchants to architects to planners). Sometimes things work. Sometimes they don’t. We had an architect lead a workshop once and it was a disaster. Architects can be pretty tyrannical.

Q: What do you think of the state investing money into a metro system versus other infrastructures like the buses and the MMTS?

A:  I think the horse has already bolted. We have the metro. We learn how to live with it. In 2005, before the metro was even seriously on the cards and contracts were quite some distance away, BRTS was proposed and MMTS was denied investments. I met with the officials at that time which was part of my research along the Musi River and I realized that it was all being put together very carefully, the ground was being cleared. The alternate projects were being discredited. And it was done very systematically. So at that time, I alerted a number of people but it didn’t strike anyone as a political issue at that point. A few years later when contracts were being given, DPR’s (Detailed Project Reports) were drawn, investments were planned - that was when people started objecting. By that time it was over. The logic of a lot of things in India is that: we have done this now you know we can’t roll back. So you give a contract and you can’t roll back. So the question is no longer about is this a good thing - there are a number of risks in it, there are consequences but we are already on the way to getting used to them and forgetting the point at which there was an option to say no. it's quite simple in some parts.

Q: Do you think local electoral politics played into the metro coming about at all?

A: Yes and no. What happens in these things is that most of the urban infrastructure projects are about the needs of the contractors - it’s the needs of the capital right? There is money. There is European standard gauge rail which has to be dumped somewhere. There is money to be made and so you are looking for some place or the other which just happened to be Hyderabad at one time. They thought this would go on for a while as the entire country is available for a metro, but that didn’t happen because at some point of time they realised this just does not making any sense so they rolled back now. No new metro projects are being considered in the country. So what do you do? You still have contractors who have to get contracts, who still have steel that has to be sold, and still have cement that has to be sold. So you build flyovers, you build elevated BRTs . So that’s how the structure works. Now given that kind of logic which is driven by capital, what happens is that people negotiate with it to try and figure out what they can get out of it. There is no way a particular neighborhood can stand up and say we don’t want you coming here because even cities themselves do not have that kind of power in India. We are creatures of the state government. The state/government can completely withhold elections to municipal corporations for a long time, they’re not supposed to in the constitution, but they can come up with all kinds of political reasons. The urban development secretary can veto what a municipal corporation thinks. Cities in india do not have any agency. So if cities don’t have any agency then there is no way a neighbourhood can have an agency and say that they want this or don’t want that. Therefore what happens is that you put up some resistance you go to the court or do something else and find another way of engaging and then you negotiate. You know I can delay your investment by 5 days which means that you are going to lose so much money. I can’t stop you but I can do this to you so you better negotiate. That is one part of the dynamics and that happens with all the politicians. The other thing that is important to keep in mind is that municipal corporators actually don’t have any agency. Within the hierarchy, it is the MP’s, below them the MLA’s and then below them the corporators. That’s how it works because municipal corporators are all members of different political parties and in the hierarchy they are the smallest of the fish. So institutionally the municipal corporation has no agency. It’s a creature of the state government. and politically corporators are those lowest in the hierarchy within any given party so they really don’t have any ability to do anything except create some obstacles, hurdles, delays.

Q: Is there any will to do that though - in Hyderabad? Did the city or the municipal corporation try to resist it?

A: The current MD of the metro rail, NVS Reddy, was additional commissioner of transportation in the municipal corporation at the time when BRT was being considered - at the time when MMTS was asking for new investments. Reddy was the man who was instrumental in saying no.

Q: This is a PPP model. L&T is going to be running the project and they are getting land from the government for it. What profit does the government or the state government gain from the metro project?

A:  I don't think anyone makes any profit on this. L&T is not going to make any profit from the corporation of the metro.

Q: But they are building shopping malls - commercial space on the land they are given?

A: Extra change. They’re just lining their pockets a little bit. The amount of money that has gone into the building of the metro - the delays, and therefore the financial burdens, are humongous. That’s all being paid by us through secondary channels. The government pays the bills. The government is not going to get anything out of it and the people are not going to get anything out of it.  

Q: So then what’s the incentive to build the metro in the first place?

A: The incentive to build this is of two kinds. One is that metro for a lot of cities is an image builder. So if you have a metro, you’re a world class city. The second incentive is that infrastructures of this kind involve a lot of contracts - involve a lot of other kinds of favours that have nothing to do with the actual technology and actual project itself. So there's a lot of trading that happens in that. You do this - I’ll do that for you. Quid pro quo. There's quite a lot of that. But the bigger thing is that you have one mall...next to that there will be another mall and next to that there will be another mall. And there are people who want those things. The time for saying that the metro is going to be a burden for the city it's bringing in a lot of risk - that time is gone. What's going to happen now, once the other lines are also completed is that quite a few people will actually like the metro. The first people to like the metro will be people who like it just for the novelty - who like it because it has air conditioned coaches. Who like it for the fact that it gives you amazing views of the city because it is elevated. There will be some people who will be getting into it because it cuts travel time and other options have been marginalised. If you look at the map that you have, the metro has actually come up on the roads that the Road Transport Corporation is making the maximum money. Now how are you going to get people to board the metro. You’re not going to get them off of cars and into the metro. You’re going to move them out of buses into the metro. This is not a new public transit system. It’s a public transit system that’s going to feed on the entrails of an existing public transit system which is functional. So that's one of the things that is going to happen. So who benefits from this? This is a bit of a smoke and mirrors operation and this is a bit of a mystery. You don't take something like 10 years to build a railway line in the middle of a city and still be able to make profits. You’ve already lost it. Why are you going on? Where are the books? What kind of auditing is going on? That's all a mystery. So we don’t know. My own guess is that there are a lot of contracts that the government pays for. Its being paid for from the exchequer. Its public money. We will count some of it as part of the government's investment in it. You’ll count some of it in some other way. But basically we’re paying for it. So it's not an independent money making operation. It cannot be. Metros have never done that anywhere in the world. How can you have an exception in Hyderabad? There was a promise of an exception at one point which was the first contractor for the metro - Maytas. But Maytas story was different. They were going to do this like the city boosters did in the US which is that I have a street car and my street car can go up to some area where i am sitting on a lot of land there. And I’m going to build a new town there. No agency is going to make my money from that. And those people are going to travel to the city using this. I'm not going to make money from this - I’m going to make money from the new townships i'm going to build. Whether or not that would have worked, we don't know. What we do know is that they had the land. They had the land and so they said we don’t even want the government to give us any money. We’ll do this by ourselves. Their problem was that they didn’t have liquid cash. They had land. They didn’t have money. Satyam had money. And they were trying to build the two together. And it collapsed.

Q: Now that it’s getting built, how is daily life affected and what is the public’s attitude towards the project as it stands now?

A: It’s hard to tell. I don’t think that public life has been affected a whole lot in terms of ridership. I know Harsha (a previous member of the HUL team) was always excited about anything new happening in the city. He’s constantly climbing up hills, elevated views, looking for all kinds of views… He’s never disappointed by anything in the city. He’s very excited by the metro. He said I’ve never seen the city from that particular vantage point. Zooming through buildings on both sides from that high means that i get a very different view. And then there are people who take picnics in the metro. It's nice, cool. It’s like street kids go and sit in cinema theatres. Not because they are necessarily enjoying the cinema but its cool. In the summer, the air conditioning is nice. There's a lot of people who go and sit in ATM’s because they are air conditioned. It’s nice. So there’s that kind of thing. A lot of novelty riding. There is definitely some population that is using the metro to get to work. It’s not that it is not there. But i don't think it is anything significant at this point in time to make any claims. The construction of the metro has created a lot of obstructions. Construction of the metro has resulted in land and existing infrastructure in several locations being completely dislocated. The construction of the metro and the metro stations has created traffic hazards. Some of it because of the design of the landings. Some of it because of its just an obstruction.

Q: There have been times where I’ve seen a pillar right in the middle of the road.

A: Actually there’s been a terrible car accident in which one guy died.

Q: From what you were saying earlier, you weren't aware of where the people who were displaced by the metro might have been relocated?

A: So there should be a study in CESS on metro related relocations. It was done by Arun Patnaik who is now a professor in the University of Hyderabad. He actually did interviews with people who were going to be relocated. The only study I know of that was looking at relocations because of the metro. I think it was an IDS funded study. I’m not sure. But there were a number of studies on different sectors within a short period of time largely done by political science people. So Arun Patnaik is the man you should ask. You might be able to get some data from that.

Q: Great. More generally and more in line with my own work, do you know of any examples of the metro being resisted in different forms or adapted locally?

A: The only resistance was in Sultan Bazar and then Ameerpet. Both of them basically because of Ramachandraiah. He was the man that was going around bringing people together and they sailed with him for as long as they thought it would be useful. And Ramachandraiah’s other form of resistance was buried into the court.

Q: At a policy level how has it been possible to create this kind of infrastructure? What urban policy exists for this to be allowed?

A: There’s not a single policy. It’s a number of different policies made at different times which changed the culture of regulation. And its that culture of regulation that is crafted in the last 20 years which makes this possible. So one of the things that began to happen in the mid 90’s was an enormous concentration of power in the hands of the chief minister. That’s true for most metro cities now. Except that in Bombay, they MMRDA chief is of the same rank as the chief secretary which is pretty high level rank. And MMRDA has its own money. And it holds on to it very tightly. They can give loans to municipalities. Powerful organisation. But even they have been tempted to do signature infrastructure projects. So during my time I want to see the ceiling road to be built… during my time i want that BKC to be built. That kind of thing. In Hyderabad, HUDA and HMDA were never very powerful. They never had money. HUDA made money between 95 and 2004 through land sales. And then they lost everything after 2005 for two reasons. One is the shifting of the HUDA office from its main office which is where the US Consulate now is. When the US Consulate moved in, they said they want a place and the government said ok and kicked out the urban planning authority. And that was a bad time. But people downplayed that. They committed to the construction of the outer ring road which basically ate up all their money. They shouldn't have agreed to it. But the chief minister said you do this and they said ok. So the chief ministers office is where all the decisions are taken on all matters  including big infrastructure decisions in the city. And the only form of resistance that is possible is to go to the court and create delays. Then they sometimes back off because it’s getting delayed, there’s too many distractions... we’ll deal with this later. But they come back in some form.

In terms of overall urban discourse, 1996 was the time when the first India Infrastructure Report was published and that India Infrastructure Report focuses a lot on urban infrastructure for ensuring high growth rates and that was also the time it began to break away from the earlier structure within which all these things had to get planning commission allocations, that broke off so it was possible for people to go to the market for money. That was then again reinforced in the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. Municipal corporations were constantly pushed to raise their own revenues and aso look to the market for capital funds, they never succeeded getting any money from the market sometimes they attempted to get bank loans but that also didn’t work very well, in hyderabad 2014 municipal corporation tried to mortgage lands to get about 600 crores and no bank was willing to take the lands and the old heritage buildings, they tried to mortgage Moazzam Jahi Market.

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[thomasreedtn]

How to Thrive in a Less Than Ideal Location

Today’s topic arises so many times in coaching sessions that I thought I’d address it here, since it seems more common than not for people to feel misplaced, isolated or otherwise “stuck” in a location other than their heart’s desire. Having lived in 43 homes throughout my life — including many of the most beautiful, stunning spots in the US — and currently living well in a way less than ideal area, I can share both personal and professional tips for creating your best life wherever you are. This is not a “settle for less” post, but rather a list of ways to ensure you receive the most benefit, growth and satisfaction from any given location until you either realize you do love where you live, or you manage to leverage yourself into something much more compatible and preferred.

Create a Sacred Space

The first, easiest and most important step you need to do is to reclaim your environment by creating a sacred space. Sacred means “made or declared holy” and includes the idea of “set apart.” Even if you live in a hovel with Messy McMess, find a corner, mantle, bathroom, nightstand, chair, closet, or room that you can clean, clear, decorate and dedicate to you. Size doesn’t matter. Even a corner of a bookshelf, consciously cleaned and intentionally claimed begins the sympathetic magic process of exerting more of your own energy over an incompatible location.

Once you choose a spot, you’ll attract opportunities to charm and enhance other areas. Instead of feeling oppressed by your environment, your field of influence grows and transmutes your surroundings. “As Within, So Without” very often begins with one tiny external shift.

Above, you can see an Element Altar, hidden in plain view, right in the center of our home. This little spot has featured different objects over the years, but I created it from Day One in order to honor the Elements — Earth, Air, Fire, and Water — in our home, celebrating and respecting Nature front and center in a region of the country that defiantly does not.

I’m an artist, so I know the power of color and symbols to shape space (and reality). Our home is filled with painted portal doors, crystals, plants, handcrafted furniture and loads of books, which I find both grounding and uplifting. Orgonite also radically heals, grounds and changes the energy of a sick, depressed or EMF filled location. I’m fortunate that David and I have similar tastes, and he indulges my penchant for feng shui. I’ve lived with people who did not appreciate such things, though, and that situation makes it even more important to claim some small spot as your very own sacred space.

If you really have no room for an altar or sitting room and no money for crystals and orgonite, then say a prayer, go outside and look for some kind of talisman to trigger your imagination’s flight to a secret, sacred space. It might be a twig that symbolically connects you to the roots and branches of a tree — or to the Faery Realm. It might be a rock you keep in your pocket, which transports you as a literal Touchstone to an alternate reality. If you have relics from a journey to somewhere you dearly love, you can also use these pieces as tactile objects that open sacred space within your memory and imagination.

Whatever you find, receive it with gratitude. Even a few moments in sacred space can begin to recharge you and provide ideas for creating even more sacredness in your home. In my case, that little Element Altar has expanded throughout most of our house, across two abundantly beautiful and productive yards, and into a second house next door that eventually presented itself for a writing office, classroom, gathering space and guesthouse. Everyone who enters that house feels the power of color and a womb-like nurturing and peace, and this “public” house has also had the effect of making our own home much more private.

Many people around town know our yards, because they stand out so much from their surroundings. Others have great difficulty finding the yards and houses, because the vibration of our sacred space has now diverged so much from our surroundings that we exist in an alternate Universe. No exaggeration. This shift happened by desire, design and action, which in turn fueled greater desire, visions and creation.

Put Down Roots to Open Pathways

It sounds counterintuitive to put down roots somewhere you do not wish to stay; however, we live in a vibrational Universe. If you wish to align with somewhere that does feel like home, then metaphorical or literal roots anchor you to the vibration of feeling grounded and rooted.

This yard used to be the most depressing, uninviting mess of forlorn stumps, invasive species, bald “lawn,” and discarded junk. Again, no exaggeration. The neatly lined pathways utilized a pile of busted up concrete from the apartment next door, and they now house perennial flowers, shrubs and edibles, creating curves and swirls in an otherwise angular region.

If your location fails to reflect your inner being, then accept the challenge to express yourself in bigger, deeper ways. Make friends with locals, especially if you want to leave. You don’t need a lot of friends in your area, but become friendlier with at least a token one or two people so that you honor the vibrations of hospitality and harmony. I’ve encountered some of the most amazing people hidden away in the least likely spots on the planet. Deprivation can enhance appreciation, just like a meal with nutrients you need tastes unbelievably delicious.

Another term for medicinal weeds like dandelion, plantain, dock, comfrey and thistles is “pioneer species.” In permaculture, we recognize how their deep taproots heal disturbed, compacted, unhealthy land. Living in an inhospitable location forces you to shrivel up and die, or to grow long, strong roots. (I recommend the latter.) When you can’t find soul nourishment on the surface, your deep taproot extends far beyond your comfort zone, resulting in extreme depth, strength and resilience. Most people who live somewhere they wish they could leave try to avoid taking root, but forging your way into the Underworld helps you develop skills and power you never knew you needed. Once reclaimed, those skills and powers open pathways to worlds you never knew existed.

If You Don’t Like the View, Then Change Your Perspective

You need to “adjust your attitude.” Easier said than done, right? Yeah, but here’s the key, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” Cover as many signs of ugliness as you possibly can. Below, you can see the morning glories and decorative trellises that extend our inside outward, providing even stronger shifts between sacred and profane. Lucky jade and a collection of gorgeous, air purifying indoor plants line the window sill and act as a further privacy shield and room divider with indoor blooms and attractive natural lines.

You can use this principle to shift ANYTHING. If you don’t like the sounds, then play music you love — in earbuds if you can’t play it out loud. If you don’t like smells, then break out the HEPA filters and essential oils. If you can’t stand your old couch but can’t afford a new one, check out Freecycle.org or throw a colorful blanket or slipcover over it. If your local restaurants don’t cater to your own dietary needs and preferences, then take this opportunity to become the most amazing cook.

By shifting the focus and energy from deprivation to abundant preference, you reassert yourself as a vibrational match for those preferences. Having and experiencing more joy and compatibility open doors to having and experiencing even more joy and compatibility. Don’t get stuck on the idea that these are only “surface changes.” We create as we observe. If you want something, then it really helps to bring at least a token of that something into your daily experience.

Find Your Why

We live in a vibrational Universe, but also in a world of contrasts. Sometimes creative, loving, and high vibe people get “strategically placed” in areas that need huge energetic help. People who carry the vibration of beautiful, amenities-rich, resort-like places often arrive like “seed bombs” in areas of extreme deprivation. When a population has experienced generational poverty of money, spirit and/or imagination, unspecified longings for something more often magnetize cultural creatives to that location. These people feel mysteriously led to live in these locations, or external forces seem to trap them there. Many clients in this situation ask me — in all seriousness — if they’re cursed or doomed to live somewhere they despise.

Recognizing a greater purpose and balance to your situation allows for faster embracing of it, which decreases resistance to moving along to something better. It seems easy to rail against contrast; however, that disharmony only makes you more of a match for a disharmonious location. Remembering the beauty within you and offering it from a place of service lifts your environment into your own vibration, rather than dragging your vibration into the pain or poverty of your environment.

Before leaving beautiful Sonoma County, California, I had six months of dreams explicitly telling me to “move to Northern Indiana with my true love.” Those dreams haunted me enough to get divorced and move halfway across the country, but not enough to jump into flyover territory. I dodged the dreams for three years by living on the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago and then in lovely Madison, Wisconsin.

But Fate caught up with me in the form of love, when housemate turned partner (and now husband) David cautiously announced he might “need to move to Indiana to help [his] aging parents.” Given my list of previous locations, he expected me to say no, but those dreams had prepared me with a sense of purpose. Without having set foot in Goshen, I agreed to move there: “That’s fine. I knew I’d end up there somehow. You don’t have six months of recurring dreams like that for no reason.” On the surface, it appeared I needed to support David as he supported his parents, but upon moving here, it also became clear this plot of land and really the entire area needed a giant infusion of faery magic.

We came here for service, and we did not expect the vast returns we have received. We’ve nearly completed our mission here, and no, we haven’t always liked it. But we both remain aware and grateful for the massive shedding and growth we’ve experienced in Goshen. Dozens of posts could not fully describe the layers of benefits, enhancements and deep capacity for appreciation we’ve developed in this crucible. The pressure and shredding of old beliefs and self conceptions (11:11 as I type this) have alchemized into things we could not previously imagine. We’ve each earned and learned volumes of knowledge we would not have even known to research. We have honed awareness of what we do and do not want, and we continue to explore and clarify new and forgotten aspects of ourselves as we shift our energies towards our intended new life together.

If Earth Feels Like the Wrong Location …

Given the challenges we face as a nation, culture and planet, I know that many people feel that Earth Herself is “the wrong location.” If you find yourself longing for a vastly different world or experience, all these same tips apply. We live in a multi-dimensional world of incredible variety and opportunity. Watch for unexpected openings. This portal within a portal — sunlight through a lemon tree whose blossoms synchronously participated in a phone session — appeared for just a few moments, as a client and I discussed Sufism, swirling dances and the incredible quantum entanglement of our reality:

It was a quiet yet stunning illustration of that very connection we were then discussing. A lemon blossom fell off the tree and exploded in fragrant midair just as I suggested my client could pull apart the building blocks of a health issue and recreate them as something new by using skills she had learned as a Sufi. Right after I mentioned this moment as a portal and snapped a photo, the light changed, and that particular portal disappeared. Someone who walked into that room at any other moment would not have seen or felt the portal, and I know I’m not doing it justice here.

My point is: portals exist. Touchstones, vibrational shifts, sympathetic magic, true Love and real Light shine through in the strangest moments. When you feel stuck, lighten up. Give the Universe a chance to light YOU up. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite montages from two who “got” it:

  from Thomas Reed https://laurabruno.wordpress.com/2017/01/19/how-to-thrive-in-a-less-than-ideal-location/