Big City Virtue and Vice

In the past two weeks I managed to get away to two big cities. (Just a year ago I would have certainly doubted their "bigness," but today they seem plenty big and urban. Everything is relative.) One trip was business (a conference on the East Coast), the other -- pleasure: CAG took me to a neighboring city which, and not the town we reside in now, should be called Moscow of the Midwest: its size, its politics, its feel are a lot closer to Moscow, at least as I had experienced it growing up (politics-wise it's pretty screwy there now, so let's not get into that).

It was so good to let my metropolitan self out of hibernation. She and I took public transportation from and to the airport, walked sidewalks so packed with people we sometimes had to use our elbows to get through, and ate a pretty decent dinner (not pizza!) around midnight. And when CAG joined us on the second trip, we all saw some good contemporary art in a beautiful and funky museum, breakfasted at a nineteenth-floor restaurant, "listened to the music of the traffic in the city and lingered on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty." I also got my fill of diversity: on my conference trip in addition to people of different ages, colors, and shapes, I ran into a small but vocal bunch of Ron Paul supporters protesting the Fed in front of a Revolutionary War landmark and a few blocks away two African-American men trying to convince passersby that Barack Obama was not quite the change and hope we need (I think they must have been with the Black Panthers).

What the two cities also had in common was their liberal -- some would call it lax -- smoking regulations. I can't remember when was the last time I had a cigarette after my meal or with my drink in an eating/drinking establishment on American soil. Here, pretty much everyone in the bars (and we went to several) was puffing nonstop. So much so that it made my throat itch, eyes tear up, and clothes stink. I did have a cigarette or two with my cocktail, with my beer, and with my other beer, but I was glad to get a chestful of fresh air when we at long last left the last bar. I am a little scared to imagine myself after I finally quit: I no doubt will become one of those intolerable intolerants who are ready to kill anyone lighting up within a mile of them.

I already intensely dislike those who drive drunk; and we saw plenty of them on our bar-hopping expedition. Our state is notorious for its drinking culture, repeat DUI offenders, and lenient regulations and punishments. I haven't paid much attention to it here, in MofM, probably because I don't go out too often or because patrons of bars around here live within walking distance or are too young or too poor to own cars. But the trip to the State's Big City was for me exhibit A in the long-standing case of "the real America" v "wicked and sinful cesspool of the metropolis." I am still staunchly with the defendant -- I think the virtue offsets the vice by a factor of ten at the very least -- but I am beginning to see why puritans so often despise and fear the city. But let me tell you, it's a lot scarier if you're an outsider; when you're on the inside, it's nicer, brighter, and warmer even if a bit grimy with fumes of liquor and cigarettes.