Bookshelf:

Not Quite So Optimistic

So I filtered through the 100-odd house, townhouse and condo listings I received yesterday and drew up a list of places to drive by. Not really to my surprise, most of the listings in two cities, neither of which is where I really want to live (though I admit that I might end up pleasantly surprised if I decide to move there, but they wouldn't be my first choice). But I had about 12 places in the two cities I am interested in living in (putting aside a few other cities which I'd love to live in but will not be able to afford), which seemed like a decent number. So after work I took a couple of hours and drove around to check out the neighborhoods.

Well, that was a pretty depressing experience. Okay, maybe not "depressing" so much as "sobering".

Much like looking for a new apartment a year or two ago, the places listed tend to be at the edges of the areas I'd like to live, and often were in neighborhoods which turn me off, either because they seem unsafe, or because they seem a little "gross" (a condo complex nestled among a street of apartment buildings; or in at the edge of a strip-mall district).

A couple of places seemed like decent locations, but the buildings themselves looked questionable (they either looked old and not in good repair, or were of an unusually repellant design).

All wasn't quite lost, however: I did see a couple of townhouses which did seem worth checking out. One of them seemed like it was in quite a nice neighborhood, right between a neighborhood of townhouse complexes and a neighborhood of individual houses. And another was a smallish-looking house which (coincidentally) happens to be in the same neighborhood where a former boss of mine lives.

So I think I'll go check out those. The next step, I guess...

I'm feeling decidedly nervous about the whole process, today. I was feeling this way even before I went out, a sort of "What am I getting myself into?" feeling. I felt the same when last I looked for apartments. I think at its core it's that "I don't know what I'm doing and I fear looking like an idiot" feeling I sometimes get, especially in projects like this which are actually important.

My current worry is how many places I'm "supposed" to look at. Sure, maybe I'll fall in love with one of the first places I see, but isn't it smarter for me to see several other places to get a feel for what kinds of places are available? But on the other hand, is it hypocritical of me to look at places that I'm pretty sure I'm not going to buy - if only because I want to look at other places before I make any offers, and odds are those first places will go before then? I worry about wasting my agent's time in this way, or whether this is just a natural part of the shopping process. Basically, I don't know, and so I worry.

Yes, yes, of course I'll bounce this off my agent. That's what he's there for, in part. These are just the fears that came up tonight, while driving around. I'm sure I'll have even more unanticipated questions later.

It's an adventure. It's strange. My hope is that I can look at places for a few weeks and that in that time some other places in better locations will pop up. Maybe they won't be suitable for other reasons and I'll end up getting a place in an area I now see as a borderline area for what I think I "really want" and I'll be perfectly happy there. We'll see. So far, none of this has really been as hard as I'd expected, so maybe a couple of months from now I'll look back and wonder, "What was I worried about?"

The September 2001 Analog features an editorial entitled "Temporal Provincialism", in which editor Stanley Schmidt argues that people tend to see the era they live in as the best of all eras, at least in some important ways. Among other things, he talks about rewriting stories to "update" them for contemporary times, and says:

The incident points up a real problem, long familiar to literature teachers: how do you make people see that even "old" and "out of date" art can still be enjoyable and worth reading?

The essay made me think about my own tastes in art.

As is fairly obvious to any reader of my journal, I tend to prefer old movies (pre-1970) to newer movies, in general. It seems like there were so many really good films made back then compared to today, with better acting, better scripts, funnier lines, and so forth. Sure, some of them seem dated, but often charmingly so. And given enough time, many of them become timeless, their anachronisms a part of their texture. I think this is what people call "period pieces".

I remember having arguments back when I was in APA Centauri about "new" things vs. "more of the same" things. One fellow in particular often lambasted certain artistic creations for being insufficiently original, being basically derivative. I, on the other hand, when I heard something I liked, wanted to hear more material like it, derivative or not. Eventually, I realized that what I really wanted was to hear "variations on the theme", which explored the depths of a concept, although people less interested in the concept might find further explorations of it derivative. (I'm not immune to this; having heard a little punk, or rap, or classical, I find further listenings of those styles of music to be tedious, for the most part.)

On the other hand, I admit that there are few things more magical than hearing music which is (to me) new and brilliant and utterly different for the first time. Or even the second time.

My attitudes towards these issues shift over time. In the 1980s, I listened to pop music of the era, but mostly read science fiction from the 50s and 60s (and a little from the 70s). Once I got to college, I realized that I basically thought 80s pop and rock was lame (I still do, for the most part), and I mostly listened to rock from the 60s and 70s. And since leaving school, I've found I have little time for pre-1970s science fiction, and most of what I read lately has been published in the last ten years.

What's my point? Only that I think Schmidt's editorial just scratches the surface of how people perceive art in the context of when it was created. Fiction is perhaps more "fixed" in time than, say, music, or even the graphic arts, but that hasn't stopped people from reading Sherlock Holmes. On the other hand, I think earlier fiction has to cross a larger cultural barrier for modern readers to understand it, and that's more effort than a lot of people want to put it.

And why should we expect them to? At its core, art is entertainment. Read what you want, listen to what you enjoy, see movies you like. Don't feel obligated to "broaden your horizons" unless you feel it will help you enjoy art forms more. But also don't underestimate the ability of exposure to new forms of art to do just that.

It's all a big balancing game: We've only got so much time, and we want to spend it wisely. But you know, worrying too much about it isn't going to make it any more fun.

Unless you enjoy worrying about it. Which I sometimes do.

Strange, isn't it?