Reservation

When I was in Paris I had the distinct sense a lot of the time that Paris only got to stay looking the way it did because it found a way to make that economically viable. That is tourism. Tourism at its worst is disnification. At its best it is preservation.

There is a root of an idea in that, but that isn't for today. Today is another thing I saw in Paris that ran counter to the above truism about the modern world. Shakespeare and Company is an establishment in Paris. And when George finally passes, sad as it will be, it will be run by his lovely daughter Sylvia. They're a bookstore and what they do is put up a whole host of writers. There are stipulations and rules of the house. But there is also the fact that they put up writers. And feed them tea.

The thing that is not making itself economically viable is the holing away and cordoning off of the outside. Here is where the title comes in. Think Indian Reservation. Think set off and stubbornly held onto. In a grand sense I'm advocating artist colonies of the same ilk.

In a realistic-ish sense, what I'm actually suggesting for today is to think about what you could offer. There is worldwide couch surfer network out there that allows people to find a place to sleep while they are living their lives. Imagine you live in a lovely local like San Francisco, Portland, Paris...and some young wild eyed artist type is just waiting to soak that all up and transform it into the art of the future. You lend a couch, you aid in the becoming beautiful of the world.

Maybe. Maybe the even littler point, as we creep our way into diminishing returns, as this longish post winds to a close, is that you should think about the support that you can lend (or can have lent you?) to those friends of your with ambitions that make the economic a little less viable. What's it worth to you?