[stylist] Romance and Appeal of faraway Places

[Jacobson, Shawn D]

As a "landlocked Midwesterner", I always found the inter-mountain West intriguing.  Darn! For a while I found the Ozarks exotic till I went down there.

I've since seen a fair share of that part of the country but not as much of the West coast.  I've been to Seattle a couple of days with my wife.  We did the Space Needle and a tour up through the San Juan islands.  I've not been to San Francisco (but hope to go one of these days).

It's all beautiful country.

Shawn

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chelsea Cook via stylist
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2015 12:59 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Cc: Chelsea Cook
Subject: [stylist] Romance and Appeal of faraway Places

Hi All,

The recent discussion surrounding bill's "Reed college" poem has caused me to share something I've been thinking about for awhile. Maybe this is a writers' thing, or a youthful thing, or a sense of adventure thing. I'm not sure, but here it goes:

What causes the romance and appeal of different places for people? Bridgit mentioned Portland, and I'm vicariously living through my friends in Seattle and San Francisco until I can get out there myself. For me, the magnetism of the West Coast has nothing to do with fame and fortune, as it has for almost all other Americans in past and present, but everything to do with technology and innovation and late-night geeky conversations that can take interesting intellectual turns. In short, the environment sounds wonderful to me, but I'm probably being way too romantic and way less realistic. The phrase of Bill's poem, "Scholar's haven" resonated with me, but I'm sure in a different way than it was originally intended.

So all you people with way more West coast experience than I do, prove me wrong. but before you do, here is a little something I wrote for a fiction class exercise that I think captures my feelings pretty well:

Our aim was this: California.  Me, an East Coast person all my days; you, a landlocked Midwesterner.  The rough, sparkling Pacific would be ours to respect and slightly tame.  The beaches for weekends, shorts and short-sleeves all year round.

Or would it be this? The beach parties on Friday nights, living in the Valley of the semiconductor the rest of the time? Why not? Everyone knows the best schools are down there, and the mountains not far away.  Why not buy one of those grand, poolside houses with nothing but enough electrical outlets to solar-power all our gadgetry?  The smile comes now as we build and code the future together.

So why not jump on a jet right now? After all, everyone knows good things come out of the Silicon.  They are like us.  Not the movie-star glamour, but the other end, where circuits make the work easier, harder, but way more rewarding and worth it.  Hey LA, we're going right past you.  All the way to the planets beyond.  Just you and me: A perfect team.  They won't know what hit them, and isn't that just the way we like it?

Chelsea
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