Imagine that you’re in an elevator when the power goes out. The systems that made it possible for you to easily travel between floors without even being aware of them are suddenly very obvious by their absence. You’re trapped – all by things you never even bothered to notice were all around you all the time. All you can hope is that these systems are re-started before you starve to death. Sound familiar? It’s how James Burke opened up his landmark BBC series Connections in 1978. This series challenged us all to look at the way our world was constructed a bit differently, a bit less at the contributions of one person and more at the connections that made it all possible.
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Category Archives: Urban Life
Life in da big city, and in Saint Paul as well.
Oakland Cemetery
The scraggly oak trees form a tall ceiling that shades the entire drive. It’s not that a view of the sun and sky would be unpleasant on this warm day of early spring, but it’s nice to have it blocked all the same. The appropriate view of the eternal isn’t blue and bright, but sheltered close to the ground. The rows of marble and granite dazzled by bright flowers that give it a sense of redemption, but the 5 MPH speed limit and gentle wave from each passerby that gives it grace.
This is Oakland Cemetery, Saint Paul’s municipal cemetery, founded in 1853.
Coffee
I know I’m haunting the coffee shop a little bit too much when the perky staff turns to me once every counter has been left slightly damp by a casually passed cloth. “So what do you do?” comes easily, because in our world people are defined by their job. “I’m a writer,” I tell them, casually letting it fall around what I really am as a person. “Oh,” comes the response, as if to say, “Duh!” Dunn Brothers Coffee on West Seventh is one of those places where people who need a step back from their life sit in the middle of it all – a good place for writers.
Transit Planning
We’re strangers who know very little about each other, but we greet each other much like friends. What passes between us is a familiarity gained from a few moments every day on the 74 bus in Saint Paul. Yeah, I know that guy, howyadoin’? That is ultimately the best description of the key characteristic of any good urban transit system – dependability. It is the best possible description of it because it is on terms that are in the hearts of the people who ride it. But what else does a transit system need, in these terms?
Trust
Like any good trust-building exercise, it started when a moment of tension took a sharp left turn into the unexpected. I was down to visit with Jonas, an Amish carpenter, about how my associates and I were going to sell his craftsmanship on the internet. More than a meeting of cultures, centuries were colliding. The moment of truth came when he went to ask his apprentice sons about a few details. Rather than turn away for privacy, Jonas simply slipped into his native language, Plattdietsch. I caught it immediately.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 