Caldwell on class & space

Jim Westrich westrich at miser.umass.edu
Thu Aug 29 12:22:27 PDT 2002


I have not spent much time on the North Shore before this summer but I have been there around 10 times this summer (mostly Beverly which isn't all Beverly Farms). Isn't Caldwell just choosing sides between Bobos (newer global "Cassis Bakery" money) and older (homegrown, den-loving, "Crackers Pub") money. The majority of the people are neither in most of the towns, no?

The Gloucester Horribles parade was distinctly local (and enjoyable) even if alot of the folks had to drive in.

I wish the lower income groups got such hair-splitting and constant armchair sociological analysis. People might even casually think of poor people as somewhat normal then.

I did get a kick out of Caldwell's take on Massachusetts' liberal bias.

Apparently education has nothing to do with it.

Jim

Carl Remick wrote:


>> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>>
>> New York Press - August 28-September 3, 2002
>>
>> Hill of Beans
>> Christopher Caldwell
>>
>> Sea Change
>>
>> This is not to say the Bobos haven't effected a permanent social
>> change. You cannot spend all of August on Boston's North Shore, where
>> I grew up, without being alarmed at the way much of it has been
>> wrested from its-i.e., my-local culture, and now constitutes one of
>> those little duchies of international wealth.
>
>
> Very depressing. I grew up on the North Shore, too -- having been
> born in Salem and reared in Swampscott. Distressing to learn that:
>
>> In 20, maybe even 10, years, this place will have absolutely nothing
>> to do with New England, except in a geographical sense.
>
-- "To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits,

To report the behaviour of the sea monster,

Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry, Observe disease in signatures." (T.S.Eliot)



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