Here in Geoduck Junction
Tom Robbins’ Bumbershoot’s Golden Umbrella Award Acceptance Speech :
In Seattle, I soon found that my radical ideas and aesthetic explorations—ideas and explorations that in Richmond, Virginia, might have gotten me stoned to death with hush puppies—were not only accepted but occasionally applauded. In retrospect, that shouldn’t be so astonishing, for the most fleeting overview of neurogeography reveals that for four or five thousand years, there has been a pattern of migratory movement of consciousness from east to west. The smartest people, the strongest, bravest, most adventurous, creative, open-minded, and advanced have pressed ever westward: starting from India and China, moving to Alexandria, Constantinople, and the Middle East; on to Athens, Rome, Paris, London; crossing the Atlantic, the New England of Thoreau and the Transcendentalists, New York of course; then Chicago, which earlier in this century was a hot box of intellectual and artistic ferment; and, now, the West Coast, where LA, San Francisco, and Seattle represent the end of terrestrial migration.
There are lots of more interesting bits, but they all rely on internal context. Read the whole thing.
And his new book, Villa Incognito is scheduled to be on sale at the end of April.
I've heard that "civilization moves westward" argument before. It's a nice concept, and no doubt flattering to the West Coasters, but I think it has about as much real substance as the Continental Drip Theory (the observation that many of the Earth's landmasses end in tapering, south-pointing peninsulas, leading to the conclusion that the continents dribbled down from the North Pole like wet mud).
And if it's true, who says that it has to stop at the western edge of North America? The Atlantic was no barrier, nor will the Pacific be. Look for Hawaii, then New Zealand, Australia, Japan and ultimately China again to be the cultural and intellectual hotspots of the post-American era.
Posted by Jimcat on March 3 2003 05:30