6 ms·

Uninteresting Places

59 points by luu 6y ago

aosaigh 6y ago
This feels more like a "I don't like David Sedaris" article than a "Uninteresting Places" article.
- throwanem 6y ago
  David Sedaris is, in the article as everywhere else, a metonym.
- zel_cole 6y ago
  Hi, author here. Thanks for reading! Glad to see the article getting interest here. I do in fact like and respect Sedaris and have read several of his books. Commenter throwanem put it well when they wrote that Sedaris is a metonym. What Sedaris said at the talk gave me a certain feeling, and I wanted to explore that. I think it's also a testament to his skill as a speaker that he was interacting with the audience so much, and his interaction left an impression on me.
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    Sedaris has been on the 'making old NPR listeners laugh via speaking gigs' track for a looooong time now. I saw him in Berkeley a while back; go spend a day in town and make jokes about it seems to be a bit of an easily-transportable schtick. The bit I remember from Berkeley was a visit to a kind of stationary store that was somehow appointment-only in like 2015-ish, and got a mix of admiration (HOW?!) and ribbing (REALLY, BERKELEY?!). That kind of mix of nostalgia and disdain is the essence of Sedaris, i think... A cloying love for the past with a solid recognition and disdain for the terrible parts of it. Mid-century modernism accompanied with a side of unrelenting homophobia. The familiar atmosphere of home, suffused with the cigarette smoke that will eventually, slowly, painfully kill your mother. Like most comedy, there's a question of punching up vs punching down. Punching up is funny: sticking it to the homophobes is great. But punching down is mean and contemptible... So it all comes down to whether you, in the audience, see Sedaris as a survivor/escapee of suburbia, or as some New York literati come to talk about how much your mall sucks.
    - zel_cole 6y ago
      Great points -- I especially like your note about how that transportable schtick can play completely differently depending on the location (and how much value you see in the mall). My city has a lot of problems, but the mall isn't one of them. If he'd picked on the creepy luxury student housing going up all over and pushing people out of their neighborhoods, my perspective wouldn't be the same. And I think what you say about Sedaris and suburbia is part of what makes him a perfect "villain" for the pettier parts of the essay. I'd like to give a more thoughtful response to match yours, but it's late here. You've given me something to think about, so thanks!
    - defen 6y ago
      > Like most comedy, there's a question of punching up vs punching down. "Punching up" vs "punching down" is this weird trope that materialized in the past couple years as a way to argue "making fun of MY preferred groups is not allowed." But there are many successful professional comedians who don't agree with it, and "punching down" on the rubes is in fact a time honored genre of comedy...
  - aosaigh 6y ago
    Thanks for the reply. I'm sure as a writer it's frustrating to get glib replies so apologies. I read your article late last night so didn't give it the time it deserved. I re-read it this morning and it gave me a lot to think about. I think the mall is such a uniquely American phenomenon. As you write about, it's been the community center for so many normal people in the past and those times are changing. In the homogeneous country I'm from, that place used to be the church, now it's probably the pub. In the US, while there are many churches, they don't seem to be the place where people meet across communities - that was the mall. What we have in common is that whether it's the US, or where I'm from, these communities are dividing and moving online and it's worrying. Having the liberal elite come in an sneer doesn't help, in fact it's a symptom of the issue. The liberal elite (which I guess I'm a part of) are the ones least affected by this fraction and division and the ones most easily able to pay their way out. Thanks for writing.
    - zel_cole 6y ago
      Well - glib repliers are still readers, so I can't complain :). I agree with what you say and sympathize with that struggle to maintain public spaces. I imagine COVID threatened the pubs' position as well. The cultural/economic elite are, like you say, cushioned somewhat from this. For example, a membership to "The Wing" in NYC or other expensive social clubs provides that physical space based in a shared identity. In my town, an area that was once a thriving arts district with inexpensive warehouse spaces for galleries, co-ops, etc. has been replaced with numerous luxury hotels and housing/businesses that cater to well-off students. I'm left wondering how we can create popular alternatives that provide the basis for social cohesion. Re: the mall, if people can't at least have a place to bump into each other in line or sit at the food court together, I worry we'll continue along a bad path. I work in parks and recreation so I gravitate to public parks as a solution. They're places where it's normal to strike up a conversation with a stranger, there's no pressure to spend money and so on. There's been a conflict here over a restaurant and apartment/business complex being built into our main downtown park, drawing criticism that the park is effectively being privatized. Obviously I'm not a social scientist, these are things I'm exploring from my perspective while watching a city change over the years. But COVID especially has me thinking about how we will rebuild public life and avoid an existence where we are connected primarily by social media and understanding life through the superficial aesthetic/media categorizations it fosters.
hardlianotion 6y ago
I'm a little shocked, actually, that the writer dislikes David Sedaris.
- fartcannon 6y ago
  Interesting, I like malls and dislike David Sedaris. I dont think Ive ever felt so connected to an author before. Different strokes, I suppose.
  - zel_cole 6y ago
    Glad I'm not alone! Thanks for reading. Like I've commented elsewhere in this thread, I by no means hate David Sedaris. I think he of all people would appreciate a nobody taking potshots at a famous writer, and hopefully value my criticism. That criticism is genuine but ultimately lighthearted and an avenue to discuss other feelings.
- throwanem 6y ago
  What's to like? He's Garrison Keillor by way of a podcast.
  - hardlianotion 6y ago
    Keillor fine by me also.
- zel_cole 6y ago
  Hi, author here. Thanks for reading! Glad to see the article getting interest here. I do in fact like and respect Sedaris and have read several of his books. Another commenter put it well when they wrote that Sedaris is a metonym. What Sedaris said at the talk gave me a certain feeling, and I wanted to explore that. I think it's also a testament to his skill as a speaker that he was interacting with the audience so much, and his interaction left an impression on me.
  - hardlianotion 6y ago
Animats 6y ago
This is a nostalgia thing. What he wants is this.[1] [1] https://youtu.be/VUMTshUflTg https://youtu.be/VUMTshUflTg
- dr-detroit 6y ago
  My interpretation was that the author like most people is just about done being disrespected by smug elites.
- zel_cole 6y ago
  Hi, thanks for reading. You're right, but the mall golden age was before my time. What I like about the mall I wrote about is that it doesn't feel dead, it still has some of the essence captured in Fast Times or this video, which is one of my favorites: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7zfJwQIsg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7zfJwQIsg
  - TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
    I grew up in the 80s and went to the mall many friday and saturday nights to be with friends and, later, to flirt with girls. A typical exciting night went like this: parents dropped us off and picked us up (too young to drive). Sometimes I'd carpool with friends, sometimes we would just meet there. We might catch a movie (two screens were typical, maybe 3, so they could fit a theatre attached to a mall unlike today's 24-screen monsters). Then we would hit the mall video arcade -- some malls even had two arcades! -- then the ice cream shop or Orange Julius ... this was before food courts... then browsing or shopping at KB Toys toy stores, Spencer Gifts, and Encore or Walden Books (especially the Dungeons & Dragons section in the book stores). But the primary reason for going was to socialize. We would pass other groups of kids walking up and down the mall like us, looking for something do but really just enjoying being together but never admitting that to each other. That wouldn't be cool. Sometimes we knew those other groups of kids, sometimes not, and on rare occasions a fight might break out or at least a chase through the mall. I didnt go into the department stores really, unless they had a toy section or maybe a sports section, but i think the girls went into them for makeup, etc. Claire's didnt exist yet and neither did Victoria's Secret or Target. When it was time to go, we'd call the parents on pay phones if we hadn't prearranged a pickup time, then wait outside if it was summer. I remember seeing E.T. in theatres in this manner in the summer of 1982. And later, Rocky III. Simple memories of fun childhood times when we were learning independence.
Apocryphon 6y ago
I wonder how many weird internet musical micro-genres will be birthed by the economic and social waste laid by COVID-19. Mallsoft was just a weird vaporware offshoot paean to mall culture in the '80s and '90s; now it's a requiem to the malls of today. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/mallwave-mallsoft https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/mallwave-mallsoft
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  What the...? I never heard of mallsoft before. I watched some of thoss videos (well, listened). I cant believe that's a thing. I'm laughing. Am i supposed to laugh or is this considered art?
  - msla 6y ago
    > Am i supposed to laugh or is this considered art? I don't know... does she have a hot ass? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.
    - msla 6y ago
      That's right: Europeans consider Dada "problematic" these days. It's too disrespectful. I apologize.
  - thinkingemote 6y ago
    Mallsoft popped into my head when reading this too. Basically mallsoft is a sub genre of vaporwave which is Ambient / electronic music with a focus on evoking and creating nostalgia. mallsoft is a sub genre because it focuses on the nostalgia of an empty shopping mall. Vaporwave etc is absolutely fascinating. It's also dead now.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      It's just expired because it was a big internet niche fad in like 2012. Subsequent micro-genres have appeared since, and also had their turns. Perhaps we'll soon see new ones based on '00s nostalgia.
andykx 6y ago
So many formative moments in my life happened in my local mall. I live in the exurbs of NYC and the mall was the only sensible, safe meeting place for my friends and I. Notably, it was a place where we could hang out without parents around. It’s hard to defend the existence of malls. I think they’re a symptom of larger problems concerning community design. I also think that they encourage excessive commercialism. Still, none of that changes what the mall means to me.
zgotsch 6y ago
For those who left the article wondering what Sedaris’s beach house is named, it is the “Sea Section”.
matthewh806 6y ago
Interesting article, I don't really know if this is what Sedaris is getting at, but recently I came across the term "non-place": Non-place or nonplace is a neologism coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé to refer to anthropological spaces of transience where the human beings remain anonymous and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/archaeologiesofplace/7994.html https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/course... From what I've read online the inclusion of shopping malls is a bit contentious because for many friends they served as a central meeting & hangout place. And as a result of that kind of transcend their primary purpose. I can certainly see why people hold a strong nostalgic (possibly even melancholic?) attachment to malls in particular.
paulmooreparks 6y ago
To the author: Thanks for this. I grew up in Tallahassee (actually, Havana, but even fewer people know where Havana is than know where Tallahassee is). I spent way too many hours of my childhood in Tallahassee Mall, Governor's Square Mall (I remember when it opened), and the long-dead Northwood Mall. Now I live in Singapore, another place with heat, humidity, rain, mosquitoes, and reptiles eager to ruin your day. What it has that Tallahassee doesn't: literally dozens of malls. :)
- zel_cole 6y ago
  Thanks for reading and sharing your experience! I go to a gym that's in Northwood Mall, and there are a couple other businesses survive. I should've written about that one too, wish I could've seen it back in the day. The City just bought Northwood and they're turning it into a big police station.

59 points by luu 6y ago

aosaigh 6y ago

This feels more like a "I don't like David Sedaris" article than a "Uninteresting Places" article.

throwanem 6y ago
David Sedaris is, in the article as everywhere else, a metonym.
zel_cole 6y ago
Hi, author here. Thanks for reading! Glad to see the article getting interest here. I do in fact like and respect Sedaris and have read several of his books. Commenter throwanem put it well when they wrote that Sedaris is a metonym. What Sedaris said at the talk gave me a certain feeling, and I wanted to explore that. I think it's also a testament to his skill as a speaker that he was interacting with the audience so much, and his interaction left an impression on me.
- sdenton4 6y ago
  Sedaris has been on the 'making old NPR listeners laugh via speaking gigs' track for a looooong time now. I saw him in Berkeley a while back; go spend a day in town and make jokes about it seems to be a bit of an easily-transportable schtick. The bit I remember from Berkeley was a visit to a kind of stationary store that was somehow appointment-only in like 2015-ish, and got a mix of admiration (HOW?!) and ribbing (REALLY, BERKELEY?!). That kind of mix of nostalgia and disdain is the essence of Sedaris, i think... A cloying love for the past with a solid recognition and disdain for the terrible parts of it. Mid-century modernism accompanied with a side of unrelenting homophobia. The familiar atmosphere of home, suffused with the cigarette smoke that will eventually, slowly, painfully kill your mother. Like most comedy, there's a question of punching up vs punching down. Punching up is funny: sticking it to the homophobes is great. But punching down is mean and contemptible... So it all comes down to whether you, in the audience, see Sedaris as a survivor/escapee of suburbia, or as some New York literati come to talk about how much your mall sucks.
  - zel_cole 6y ago
    Great points -- I especially like your note about how that transportable schtick can play completely differently depending on the location (and how much value you see in the mall). My city has a lot of problems, but the mall isn't one of them. If he'd picked on the creepy luxury student housing going up all over and pushing people out of their neighborhoods, my perspective wouldn't be the same. And I think what you say about Sedaris and suburbia is part of what makes him a perfect "villain" for the pettier parts of the essay. I'd like to give a more thoughtful response to match yours, but it's late here. You've given me something to think about, so thanks!
  - defen 6y ago
    > Like most comedy, there's a question of punching up vs punching down. "Punching up" vs "punching down" is this weird trope that materialized in the past couple years as a way to argue "making fun of MY preferred groups is not allowed." But there are many successful professional comedians who don't agree with it, and "punching down" on the rubes is in fact a time honored genre of comedy...
- aosaigh 6y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I'm sure as a writer it's frustrating to get glib replies so apologies. I read your article late last night so didn't give it the time it deserved. I re-read it this morning and it gave me a lot to think about. I think the mall is such a uniquely American phenomenon. As you write about, it's been the community center for so many normal people in the past and those times are changing. In the homogeneous country I'm from, that place used to be the church, now it's probably the pub. In the US, while there are many churches, they don't seem to be the place where people meet across communities - that was the mall. What we have in common is that whether it's the US, or where I'm from, these communities are dividing and moving online and it's worrying. Having the liberal elite come in an sneer doesn't help, in fact it's a symptom of the issue. The liberal elite (which I guess I'm a part of) are the ones least affected by this fraction and division and the ones most easily able to pay their way out. Thanks for writing.
  - zel_cole 6y ago
    Well - glib repliers are still readers, so I can't complain :). I agree with what you say and sympathize with that struggle to maintain public spaces. I imagine COVID threatened the pubs' position as well. The cultural/economic elite are, like you say, cushioned somewhat from this. For example, a membership to "The Wing" in NYC or other expensive social clubs provides that physical space based in a shared identity. In my town, an area that was once a thriving arts district with inexpensive warehouse spaces for galleries, co-ops, etc. has been replaced with numerous luxury hotels and housing/businesses that cater to well-off students. I'm left wondering how we can create popular alternatives that provide the basis for social cohesion. Re: the mall, if people can't at least have a place to bump into each other in line or sit at the food court together, I worry we'll continue along a bad path. I work in parks and recreation so I gravitate to public parks as a solution. They're places where it's normal to strike up a conversation with a stranger, there's no pressure to spend money and so on. There's been a conflict here over a restaurant and apartment/business complex being built into our main downtown park, drawing criticism that the park is effectively being privatized. Obviously I'm not a social scientist, these are things I'm exploring from my perspective while watching a city change over the years. But COVID especially has me thinking about how we will rebuild public life and avoid an existence where we are connected primarily by social media and understanding life through the superficial aesthetic/media categorizations it fosters.

hardlianotion 6y ago

I'm a little shocked, actually, that the writer dislikes David Sedaris.

fartcannon 6y ago
Interesting, I like malls and dislike David Sedaris. I dont think Ive ever felt so connected to an author before. Different strokes, I suppose.
- zel_cole 6y ago
  Glad I'm not alone! Thanks for reading. Like I've commented elsewhere in this thread, I by no means hate David Sedaris. I think he of all people would appreciate a nobody taking potshots at a famous writer, and hopefully value my criticism. That criticism is genuine but ultimately lighthearted and an avenue to discuss other feelings.
throwanem 6y ago
What's to like? He's Garrison Keillor by way of a podcast.
- hardlianotion 6y ago
  Keillor fine by me also.
zel_cole 6y ago
Hi, author here. Thanks for reading! Glad to see the article getting interest here. I do in fact like and respect Sedaris and have read several of his books. Another commenter put it well when they wrote that Sedaris is a metonym. What Sedaris said at the talk gave me a certain feeling, and I wanted to explore that. I think it's also a testament to his skill as a speaker that he was interacting with the audience so much, and his interaction left an impression on me.
- hardlianotion 6y ago

Animats 6y ago

This is a nostalgia thing. What he wants is this.[1] [1] https://youtu.be/VUMTshUflTg https://youtu.be/VUMTshUflTg

dr-detroit 6y ago
My interpretation was that the author like most people is just about done being disrespected by smug elites.
zel_cole 6y ago
Hi, thanks for reading. You're right, but the mall golden age was before my time. What I like about the mall I wrote about is that it doesn't feel dead, it still has some of the essence captured in Fast Times or this video, which is one of my favorites: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7zfJwQIsg https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7zfJwQIsg
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
  I grew up in the 80s and went to the mall many friday and saturday nights to be with friends and, later, to flirt with girls. A typical exciting night went like this: parents dropped us off and picked us up (too young to drive). Sometimes I'd carpool with friends, sometimes we would just meet there. We might catch a movie (two screens were typical, maybe 3, so they could fit a theatre attached to a mall unlike today's 24-screen monsters). Then we would hit the mall video arcade -- some malls even had two arcades! -- then the ice cream shop or Orange Julius ... this was before food courts... then browsing or shopping at KB Toys toy stores, Spencer Gifts, and Encore or Walden Books (especially the Dungeons & Dragons section in the book stores). But the primary reason for going was to socialize. We would pass other groups of kids walking up and down the mall like us, looking for something do but really just enjoying being together but never admitting that to each other. That wouldn't be cool. Sometimes we knew those other groups of kids, sometimes not, and on rare occasions a fight might break out or at least a chase through the mall. I didnt go into the department stores really, unless they had a toy section or maybe a sports section, but i think the girls went into them for makeup, etc. Claire's didnt exist yet and neither did Victoria's Secret or Target. When it was time to go, we'd call the parents on pay phones if we hadn't prearranged a pickup time, then wait outside if it was summer. I remember seeing E.T. in theatres in this manner in the summer of 1982. And later, Rocky III. Simple memories of fun childhood times when we were learning independence.

Apocryphon 6y ago

I wonder how many weird internet musical micro-genres will be birthed by the economic and social waste laid by COVID-19. Mallsoft was just a weird vaporware offshoot paean to mall culture in the '80s and '90s; now it's a requiem to the malls of today. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/mallwave-mallsoft https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/mallwave-mallsoft

TedDoesntTalk 6y ago
What the...? I never heard of mallsoft before. I watched some of thoss videos (well, listened). I cant believe that's a thing. I'm laughing. Am i supposed to laugh or is this considered art?
- msla 6y ago
  > Am i supposed to laugh or is this considered art? I don't know... does she have a hot ass? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.H.O.O.Q.
  - msla 6y ago
    That's right: Europeans consider Dada "problematic" these days. It's too disrespectful. I apologize.
- thinkingemote 6y ago
  Mallsoft popped into my head when reading this too. Basically mallsoft is a sub genre of vaporwave which is Ambient / electronic music with a focus on evoking and creating nostalgia. mallsoft is a sub genre because it focuses on the nostalgia of an empty shopping mall. Vaporwave etc is absolutely fascinating. It's also dead now.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    It's just expired because it was a big internet niche fad in like 2012. Subsequent micro-genres have appeared since, and also had their turns. Perhaps we'll soon see new ones based on '00s nostalgia.

andykx 6y ago

So many formative moments in my life happened in my local mall. I live in the exurbs of NYC and the mall was the only sensible, safe meeting place for my friends and I. Notably, it was a place where we could hang out without parents around. It’s hard to defend the existence of malls. I think they’re a symptom of larger problems concerning community design. I also think that they encourage excessive commercialism. Still, none of that changes what the mall means to me.

zgotsch 6y ago

For those who left the article wondering what Sedaris’s beach house is named, it is the “Sea Section”.

matthewh806 6y ago

Interesting article, I don't really know if this is what Sedaris is getting at, but recently I came across the term "non-place": Non-place or nonplace is a neologism coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé to refer to anthropological spaces of transience where the human beings remain anonymous and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/archaeologiesofplace/7994.html https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/course... From what I've read online the inclusion of shopping malls is a bit contentious because for many friends they served as a central meeting & hangout place. And as a result of that kind of transcend their primary purpose. I can certainly see why people hold a strong nostalgic (possibly even melancholic?) attachment to malls in particular.

paulmooreparks 6y ago

To the author: Thanks for this. I grew up in Tallahassee (actually, Havana, but even fewer people know where Havana is than know where Tallahassee is). I spent way too many hours of my childhood in Tallahassee Mall, Governor's Square Mall (I remember when it opened), and the long-dead Northwood Mall. Now I live in Singapore, another place with heat, humidity, rain, mosquitoes, and reptiles eager to ruin your day. What it has that Tallahassee doesn't: literally dozens of malls. :)

zel_cole 6y ago
Thanks for reading and sharing your experience! I go to a gym that's in Northwood Mall, and there are a couple other businesses survive. I should've written about that one too, wish I could've seen it back in the day. The City just bought Northwood and they're turning it into a big police station.