As much as I love to complain about "things just aren't what they used to be," there is a certain je ne sais quoi about a neighborhood that hasn't been fashionable for seventy years. (Oh, dear God, stop me now: I just uttered the most cliche of all French phrase cliches...but then cliche itself is cliche... maybe I'd better start just posting in German.)
Je ne sais quoi means, O non-Francophones, "I don't know what." It's become a cliche because it's so very applicable. It has to be, as it's completely ambiguous. The phrase is a delightful way to describe why you like something. The spider lights on North Avenue, which everybody for three states in any direction hated, and I alone loved for their hideous quirkiness? Well, they had that je ne sais quoi. See, it doesn't work if you say it in English, or German. The German language doesn't really even offer a comparable phrase. Germans don't need to make such distinctions; you either like it or you don't and there's no cultural impetus to excuse yourself. We feel the need to excuse our occasional goofiness, but we have to borrow a French phrase to make it sound acceptable.
The je ne sais quoi of my current neighborhood--which I was raised to call "midtown" and now, a la Madame Eglantine, hights itself "Old Goucher" or "Lower Charles Village," was that it went out of fashion right around the second World War and never came back. Nothing changed or was hideously updated because nobody would spend money on a house or a neighborhood that was no longer "der allerletzte" (Aha! see! German phrase--that one means "the very latest thing.") And so, the drowsy old place maintained a good bit of the ambience...dare I say, again, the je ne sais quoi of an earlier, homelier and more friendly era.
[NB: If you got the Madame Eglantine reference, you just passed my senior English class with flying colors. Take a ride on the Reading, pass Go and collect $200. If you didn't--well, you may sit in the hall.]
I regret to inform the general populace that the je ne sais quoi has been lessened, somewhat, as of today. (Does this mean that je sais quoi?) I had known for some time that the city intended to repave the alley, which very grandly hights itself Hargrove Street, that runs behind my house. The city, in its inimitable (thank God) fashion, has farted around about this for a couple of years. I wonder, does the bureaucratic nightmare of Wien get these things accomplished more readily? Probably not.
I received a little notecard yesterday that informed me, very politely, that I mustn't park in the alley or in my garage because the alley would soon be resurfaced. I didn't believe it. Luckily, I drove the car to school today, because when I came home the alley had been torn up from 22nd to 23rd. The ancient brick pavement that I knew and loved/loathed was quickly gone, and the dirt beneath Hargrove street was exposed for the first time since 1880.
Another cliche of old buildings is the idea that "those walls could talk." What would those bricks say, I wonder? They'd surely remember the era when this block was der Allerletzte. They'd remember a time when persons of color were not allowed to own St. Paul street property and were relegated to alley houses. They would remember four wars, peace, a few eras of plush decadence, and a couple of eras of neglect.
I think that I will enjoy the new Hargrove street. I will now be able to drive into my garage without scraping the Buick's undercarriage into oblivion. I will also be able to jog through the alley (yes, I'm getting all healthy) without tripping every ten steps.
I will not, however, be able to look out of the back windows and see the warm red bricks that had seen one hundred and thirty summers. There will be no more random weeds and wildflowers poking up between the bricks along the sides of the alley. One more block of the old, tired and soporific, but happy and welcoming Baltimore is now gone in the name of efficiency.
Perhaps I should still welcome the change. If the ancient bricks could talk, they'd most likely do what every good Baltimorean does, and they'd gossip. Those damned bricks knew WAY too much about me.
Je ne sais quoi means, O non-Francophones, "I don't know what." It's become a cliche because it's so very applicable. It has to be, as it's completely ambiguous. The phrase is a delightful way to describe why you like something. The spider lights on North Avenue, which everybody for three states in any direction hated, and I alone loved for their hideous quirkiness? Well, they had that je ne sais quoi. See, it doesn't work if you say it in English, or German. The German language doesn't really even offer a comparable phrase. Germans don't need to make such distinctions; you either like it or you don't and there's no cultural impetus to excuse yourself. We feel the need to excuse our occasional goofiness, but we have to borrow a French phrase to make it sound acceptable.
The je ne sais quoi of my current neighborhood--which I was raised to call "midtown" and now, a la Madame Eglantine, hights itself "Old Goucher" or "Lower Charles Village," was that it went out of fashion right around the second World War and never came back. Nothing changed or was hideously updated because nobody would spend money on a house or a neighborhood that was no longer "der allerletzte" (Aha! see! German phrase--that one means "the very latest thing.") And so, the drowsy old place maintained a good bit of the ambience...dare I say, again, the je ne sais quoi of an earlier, homelier and more friendly era.
[NB: If you got the Madame Eglantine reference, you just passed my senior English class with flying colors. Take a ride on the Reading, pass Go and collect $200. If you didn't--well, you may sit in the hall.]
I regret to inform the general populace that the je ne sais quoi has been lessened, somewhat, as of today. (Does this mean that je sais quoi?) I had known for some time that the city intended to repave the alley, which very grandly hights itself Hargrove Street, that runs behind my house. The city, in its inimitable (thank God) fashion, has farted around about this for a couple of years. I wonder, does the bureaucratic nightmare of Wien get these things accomplished more readily? Probably not.
I received a little notecard yesterday that informed me, very politely, that I mustn't park in the alley or in my garage because the alley would soon be resurfaced. I didn't believe it. Luckily, I drove the car to school today, because when I came home the alley had been torn up from 22nd to 23rd. The ancient brick pavement that I knew and loved/loathed was quickly gone, and the dirt beneath Hargrove street was exposed for the first time since 1880.
Another cliche of old buildings is the idea that "those walls could talk." What would those bricks say, I wonder? They'd surely remember the era when this block was der Allerletzte. They'd remember a time when persons of color were not allowed to own St. Paul street property and were relegated to alley houses. They would remember four wars, peace, a few eras of plush decadence, and a couple of eras of neglect.
I think that I will enjoy the new Hargrove street. I will now be able to drive into my garage without scraping the Buick's undercarriage into oblivion. I will also be able to jog through the alley (yes, I'm getting all healthy) without tripping every ten steps.
I will not, however, be able to look out of the back windows and see the warm red bricks that had seen one hundred and thirty summers. There will be no more random weeds and wildflowers poking up between the bricks along the sides of the alley. One more block of the old, tired and soporific, but happy and welcoming Baltimore is now gone in the name of efficiency.
Perhaps I should still welcome the change. If the ancient bricks could talk, they'd most likely do what every good Baltimorean does, and they'd gossip. Those damned bricks knew WAY too much about me.
posted by Daniel | 2:05 AM
3 Comments:
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I wonder how long it will take Dominion Power to fulfill a half-hearted promise to remove a tree (threatening power lines, pole) from my back yard? Not years, I hope.
(For those who need an answer sheet for Mr. Gibbs's test: click here).
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