However, I did notice on the way back a big sign I've seen a million times. Because there are two types of pictures that I've discovered that I'm drawn to, so far, on Instagram, I deemed this one not Instagram worthy. I'll explain in a moment.
This is a sign in front of these huge, bland, depressing buildings right next to and across from where I live.
Instagram has the potential to create a nation of aesthetes, with each user posting a picture aesthetically pleasing, as if everyone has taken an amateur photography class. The pictures are comforting, with the right colors and filters, the right angles and proportions to whatever is being shown. The other type of picture is of something arresting, a clear snapshot of what might appear to be ugly, meant to magnify something actually quite beautiful, unless it is already beautiful. Or else it's just selfies and people showing off what they've been doing or their new shoes. I'm not excluding myself, by the way.
But this sign is upsetting to me. It makes me feel queasy and sad and desolate. First of all, the font. The font, I believe, is Old English Gothic Type, or something close to that, a font which I love and which reminds me of the New York Times, or invitations from the Royal Family. But I would wager that the owners of the Catherine Courts have no meaningful ties to Great Britain, and that less than one percent of it's tenants do either. The style of the buildings have no relation to the English or their architecture either. The buildings are brick laid, square, looming and humongous, with tiny windows out of which fluorescent lights might as well sizzle and pop. Also, the fact that these courts need a phone number written so large that passers-by, either by car or by foot, can call in order to rent, suggests that the turnover of such a place is high, because who would want to actually settle in a place like that? Who? Who is the question. Who lives there?
Dan did inform me on one of our walks last week that Catherine Courts was once a rehousing building for people left over from the projects (yes, that would be the projects in Chicago, also known as Cabrini Green). But that was a long time ago he said.
The courts in Catherine Courts include one smallish fairy-tale courtyard (not kidding, this almost saves it), a tennis court, a pool, and an area to grill in the summer. They also have gravel parking lots full of really nice cars, which is a little questionable.
Places like this, which are scattered all over the United States of America, make me feel like a lost child, with nothing to grasp onto, and confused.
My only hope is that within those apartments are women, men, children, and young adults, and pets! Yes pets, that have every opportunity to take Instagram worthy photos within the walls of their home.
While the soon-to-be Prince Albert in Daisy Goodwin's "Victoria" believed that the National Museum in England would create a nation of aesthetes for being admission-free and open to the public, so too do I hope that citizens of the U.S. become aesthetes as they walk freely outdoors or wherever, and perhaps open their eyes, and furthermore, their minds to some of the uglier parts of the "landscape". Seeing might do something, perhaps something much more thoughtful than just going away.
- F
