Farmer Sue 1, Me 0

In my continuing quest to eat pungent foods unadorned, I bought a quart of Farmer Sue's pickled hot peppers last Saturday at the Burlington, Vt., farmers' market. Consider me defeated. These peppers are the spiciest food I've had in a very long time and I can't remember approaching snacks with such trepidation. I instituted a policy of only eating one at a time, and only with dinner, because I fear angina if I were to eat one plain. Thankfully Sue warned me about what the scotch bonnet peppers look like. Apparently, they're the most intense and I'm not sure I'll even try to swallow more than a tiny bite of them.

According to the brochure she gave me, Sue and her family love hot peppers and grow many varieties on their farm in Bakersfield (where they also grow many other vegetables and leafy greens, raise hogs and chickens, sell the latter's eggs, and sow grain; and you can even "like" her on Facebook). They must be connoisseurs because my quart has peppers I've never seen before. Respect is due to her for the peppers. They're worth every dollar. I'm lucky that she happened to be filling a booth in Burlington, rather than taking her usual Saturday post in Shelburne.

Finally, I think Vermont farmers' markets are markedly better than those in Boston because they have live music and lunch served by farms and local restaurants. Instead of simply shopping for groceries, you can spend the morning there, hang out and graze at stands as you become hungry. It probably also helps that Vermont has many more quaint town commons than Boston does.

Paging Richard Florida

News flash: Brooklyn and Manhattan are cool. Or so UBS' 20- and 30-something traders think, which is one reason why the Swiss bank may return its American headquarters to New York from Stamford, Conn. -- the bank finds it difficult to hire new staff because few want to commute there. The other reason is UBS realizes it wants to be closer to its clients, most of whom have remained in Manhattan even after the bank left the city for the outer suburbs about 15 years ago.

This story is an excellent explanation for why cities will always matter. Cities are cooler than any other type of place, so people will always want to be there, at least during some point in their lives; and even in the early 21st century, the importance of face-to-face professional interaction can't be replicated via technology, and businesses will plant themselves where they can take advantage of proximity. In both scenarios, agglomeration wins.

Smiling widest at this news is probably Richard Florida, the pop urban theorist, whose arguments about the "creative class" explain why UBS will likely return to New York. Florida writes that in present day, metro economies are driven by creative, intelligent people, defined quite broadly to include most types of intellectually challenging work, such as technology, medical science and law, in addition to creative arts. These people want to live in exciting, tolerant places, so if cities want to have growing economies, they need to focus on creating these types of environments. Commodity traders in their early 30s no longer care so much about having five-bedroom houses in Fairfield County, Florida would likely argue; they'd rather be somewhere like Williamsburg where they can be around intriguing people after work and go to a cool bar (or something. Also, if bankers think Williamsburg is cool, it's probably no longer cool.) Consequently, cities can change their economic policies. They no longer should lavish tax breaks on companies, as New York's mayoral administrations eagerly do whenever a large employer threatens to leave, because tax breaks don't decide where companies locate; creative people do.

Then again, promises of urbanism's sustained renaissance are largely anecdotal. This is probably why the Times has written so much in the past 10 days about UBS' possible return: It's about as big and as promising as an anecdote as you can have. In reality, metro population growth remains strongest in the suburbs and is generally small in cities proper. The greatest growth actually happens in inner-ring suburbs, once home to the postwar middle class and now attracting all different types of immigrants. Houses there are smaller and more affordable and they usually have some amount of public transit for people to reach downtowns. Florida's work mostly focuses on the well-educated and the well-paid. I wonder what he'd have to say about semi-forgotten inner suburbs like these that are having mild rebirths of their own, thanks to ethnic groups that have moved in, bought real estate and rented downtown storefronts. What can these cities do to keep their reinvention moving forward?

Farewell, the Burgundy Room

Today's Dispatch briefly mentions that the Burgundy Room, a downtown Columbus restaurant, is closed for renovations and its phone line is disconnected, indicating that the closure may be permanent. A quick search of customer-review websites suggests the same. For the eight years I've come to Columbus, the Burgundy Room has been one of favorite places to visit, so this is certainly disappointing news. Any restaurant that opened in 2003 as a reasonably priced wine bar serving small-plates-style dinners (the description "tapas" seems inappropriate because the menu was eclectic American, not Spanish) in a cool but unassuming setting -- in Columbus, Ohio, no less! -- deserves respect.

One of my friends and I debate whether something cool is inherently cooler in a second-tier market like Columbus (or Kansas City, Pittsburgh, etc) than it would be in New York (or Boston, D.C., etc) because it's found in an out-of-the-way locale. I say, Yes, because it creates varied urban beachheads that aren't going to swallow a whole place through gentrification -- create your own scene. He says, No, because you're still among the same people you'd find in Boston, not mingling with the people who gave the city its original identity. He's probably right, but I still always liked the Burgundy Room very much.

And In This Corner...

Occasionally in its halcyon days, the WWF would pair two of its top stars in a tag team, even if they had little or nothing to do with each other, such as Randy "Macho Man" Savage, who unfortunately died recently, and the Ultimate Warrior. The writers typically did this to start a new storyline or paper over the lack of one -- and boost fans' interest. The greatest concern was whether these wrestlers could gel as a team. (Yes, even in professional wrestling, chemistry matters.)

Indie rock had a relatively similar plot development this week, as TV on the Radio and Broken Social Scene announced they're briefly touring together later this summer, and then the National and Yo La Tengo followed. None of these bands have much to do with the other. They're not label mates or friends and they don't have similar sounds. They also don't have much to gain from being with the other because their identities are well established, their fan bases generally overlap already, and their popularity has hit the point that they can do as they please. No one is hitching his van (or in this case, bus, considering their statures) to the other's.

TV on the Radio and Broken Social Scene are more sensical together because they're both "gateway indie-rock bands," if that makes sense. The other pairing is more puzzling because Yo La Tengo is at the point in its career when it should promote itself as it pleases and not have to open for anyone, even if the National sell multiples more in albums and tickets. I doubt Matador is requiring that they do this. Maybe the National deserve some good karma payback for having to headline a 2005 tour with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah just as the latter's debut album exploded. My friend saw that show at the Middle East and said everyone left before the National played, even though they had a very good record at the time. Ironically enough, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah imploded from the hype and an adequately received sophomore record, and is now returning from a three-year hiatus, while the National have since skyrocketed in popularity. (Career arcs can be surprising.)

Nonetheless, I'm excited about these shows and might even go to both even though they're within a week of each other. For all of its merits, Boston has never caught the trend of hosting summer indie-rock shows or festivals, even if every other major city and even some obscure far-flung places now do this. These two concerts may be as close as it gets. They're even outdoors, albeit at a lonely venue on the city's windswept edge. Also, what's so bad about allowing indie rock bands to play venues they wouldn't otherwise be able to fill and to have the chance to expand their fan bases?

Above is a video of Yo La Tengo performing "Sugarcubes," perhaps my favorite song of theirs, even if it might not be my favorite on that record.

On Being Ambivalent About The 21st Century

Bill Keller's occasional column in the Times' magazine is great because it reveals his anxieties about living in the 21st century. His latest, about Twitter specifically and social media more generally, reveals the conundrum in which he finds himself. Keller realizes the Times needs social media so it can reinvent itself and remain relevant because these are now the dominant means of content distribution, thus providing their value. But the nature by which information is consumed via them inherently compromises the Times' quality because their inherently ephemeral character undercut the rigor and sternness that define the paper.

Keller writes, "My inner worrywart wonders whether the new technologies overtaking us may be eroding characteristics that are essentially human: our ability to reflect, our pursuit of meaning, genuine empathy, a sense of community connected by something deeper than snark or political affinity." Gawker, not surprisingly, responded with a snarky critique of the column specifically and Keller more generally. It probably realized the irony of this, but of course that didn't stop it. I, however, happen to agree. The iPhone makes me lonely. Grooming my Facebook account makes me wonder why I do it. I don't enjoy staring at a screen all the time because it's an isolating experience, not a shared one. The Internet is marvelously complex for the simultaneous profundity and superficiality of content, the former always battling the latter. One victor, as Keller suggests, appears to be disingenuousness.

This is also what Jonathan Franzen mined in his recent op-ed column, where he deconstructued the Facebook phenomenon of "liking" something. He wrote this Facebook feature has transformed "the verb 'to like' from a state of mind to an action that you perform with your computer mouse, from a feeling to an assertion of consumer choice." Merely liking something, he goes on, is narcissistic and isolating because it's meant to protect yourself from true emotion; it allows you to show a brief, manicured glimpse of your personality without committing it. Loving something or someone, however, is much more complicated because it's messy and flawed but ultimately redeeming for its complexity. (Oddly enough, this essay is an excerpt from his speech at Kenyon College's commencement. The material is rather dark for the occasion, but then, I remember his speech at my graduation wasn't very uplifting either. There was a line about becoming comfortable with the person you see in the mirror because you're not going anywhere.)

Too often the 21st century is about tidy packages or ones that go terribly awry; a desire to divulge that in the end, doesn't reveal much (though I'm certainly guilty of this with this blog); simple spoonfuls instead of complex ones; and a desire to connect that often proves fleeting. Perhaps I'm projecting my own opinions, but I think two of my favorite professional writers, Keller and Franzen, share this too. Keller also deserves credit for saying yesterday, when he announced his departure as the Times' executive editor, that he's not going to write a book detailing his years at the helm. Not everything needs to be shared. Sometimes that makes it more meaningful.

Update: More on this subject from Franzen, in his most recent piece in the New Yorker, about "Robinson Crusoe," the Pacific Island where apparently the novel was set, and David Foster Wallace: "The blackberry on Robinson Crusoe Island was like the conquering novel, yes, but it seemed to me no less like the Internet, that BlackBerry-borne invasive, which, instead of mapping the self onto a narrative, maps the self onto the world. Instead of the news, my news. Instead of a single football game, the splintering of 15 different football games into personalized fantasy-league statistics. Instead of "The Godfather," "My Cat's Funny Trick." The individual run amok, everyman a Charlie Sheen. With "Robinson Crusoe," the self had become island; and now, it seemed, the island was becoming the world."

Welcome Back, Winnipeg

Rarely is a sports team's relocation an easy process, but the Atlanta Thrashers' imminent move to Winnipeg, announced yesterday, makes lots of sense. From about 1989 to 2002, the four major sports leagues were infatuated with expansion, opening franchises in unexpected locations and increasing their sizes to about 32 teams each. The phenomenon dovetailed nicely with the urban development trend of using fantastically subsidized stadiums or arenas as the anchor of new urban entertainment or mixed-use districts. The leagues reached new metro markets and cities had new redevelopments, though they usually didn't succeed as dramatically as hoped.

The NHL was burned more scaldingly than anyone else by this movement. Either through expansion or relocation, it ended up with teams in Anaheim, Dallas, Nashville, Phoenix, Tampa, suburban Miami, Columbus, Raleigh and Atlanta. Using a simple litmus test of whether it's cold enough to play hockey in these places, only Columbus passes. A few of the teams have caught on with local fans well enough, but the owners in Nashville, Columbus, Phoenix and Atlanta have all suggested a move was close at some point in time. Atlanta is the first to go through with it, selling to a Canadian ownership group that will move the team to Winnipeg, which lost its franchise -- the Jets -- to Phoenix in 1996. Perfectly enough, the Phoenix team appears on the verge of moving to Quebec, which lost its team to Denver in 1995.

Those Southern U.S. cities sure look appealing on paper -- growing metro markets with middle-class families moving into new subdivisions, expanding businesses and disposable income. But in the same way that urban planners and developers overlook the economic and cultural value of engrained neighborhoods for the allure of sweeping transformations, the NHL wrongly left Canada, where the love of hockey is forever instilled, for the potential to remake its brand in the Sun Belt. Even if metro Winnipeg's population is only about one-seventh the size of metro Atlanta's, the former will almost always draw more fans to its teams' games because hockey is a passionate part of local identity; in Atlanta, it's not and might never be. The small but loyal often has value that the large but apathetic simply can't match. This can be easy to overlook while analyzing market demographics in league offices in New York.

Atlanta's mayor, Kasim Reed, also deserves credit for not subsidizing the Thrashers' operation with city money, as Glendale, Ariz., a Phoenix suburb, is doing to keep the Coyotes in the city temporarily. Despite the $25 million bailout, the team is still expected to leave, and the money can't be spent on the true building blocks that make a place worthwhile -- schools, parks, housing, etc. Reed realizes, as many mayors haven't, that sports don't make the city and Atlanta doesn't need a hockey franchise to be a first-class one. Good for him.

While this happens, it seems appropriate that the Stanley Cup matchup, beginning tonight, is the Boston Bruins versus the Vancouver Canucks. The first is one of the NHL's original six franchises, in a place that's always loved hockey, and the second is Canadian, in a place that's always loved hockey (even if it's more similar to Seattle than to Toronto). Sometimes, staying true to your core identity makes sense; the NHL has learned this the hard way. And, boy, was the Jets team on EA's NHL '96 a good one!