On spamming my own blog

Seriously, I couldn't help it... I ordered this shirt within moments of getting the reprint notification. Yay for conspicuous consumption! Now back to your regularly scheduled blogging...

Putting our mouth where our money is

So regardless of what the Commercial Appeal says, apparently the top of Memphis' agenda is street paving and a boat dock. One of these two things I don't have a problem with.

Actually, it's not fair to say that I have a problem with the idea of improving the landing (despite my vitriolic first response for those of you who saw it). I have a problem with *this* plan to improve the landing. I could spend a good 1500 words going into detail but there's not a hell of a lot of point now and besides, it's already been said better.

There are those who say that our expenditures are a clear indication of our priorities. If the City Council represents the will of the people (which is how it works in theory), where was the big public outcry in support of the Beale Street Landing? People around here seem pretty worried about crime, but the council only gave the police force additional funds equal to less than half of this years allotment for the Landing. Does this mean that 120% more Memphians are worried about a commercial boat dock than are worried about crime? Something tells me the answer is no.

If we want to take this as a spin on "we want to work on something positive rather than just throwing money after a negative" we can take a look at another potentially large capital improvement that was on the city council's agenda: the Wolf River Greenway. Despite its broad and vocal public support from a wide cross section of the population, its funding was cut to less than half of what was proposed (which incidentally is 4% of what the boat dock is getting). Again, where is the overwhelming public support for the Beale Street Landing Project? Proportionally this means that somewhere there must have been a public rally with enough people to fill the FedEx Forum, all cheering at the idea of this modernist travesty of a commercial boat dock getting tacked onto downtown.

Wait, you mean that didn't happen? Well then why all the public money?

Oh right. This is Memphis. What developers want, developers get. The rest of us can beg for scraps.

Random Notes on a Monday

• It's been a long time since Amber and I had a good solid argument about a piece of art, but the show at DLG on Friday made up for that. The crux of it came down the nature of objectification versus the rhetoric of technique. If you saw the show, you probably know exactly the painting we were discussing. Tangentially, I think it was a nice little visual joke to hang the boob next to the boobs... or maybe it's just me.

• Even more tangentially, I'm not sure how I lived in Memphis this long and never knew the name Wayne Edge (apparently he's been here forever) but I was rather smitten with the thingness of his work. It will go on my list of things to acquire when I win the lottery/get a grownup job.

• Somebody cut down all the trees on the street next to my office. I'm not the worlds biggest fan of Bradford pears, but Sweet Christ did they really have to remove the last vestiges of shade in this neighborhood. They made a nice break from the heat walking back up the street for lunch. Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to learn to cherish my now unimpeded view of the 5 acres of empty !@#$ing asphalt...

• Also, Chris Peck on the Wolf River Greenway and Mediaverse-Memphis responds (about half way down the post).

UPDATE: I'd been wondering what was with all the Greenway news in the last few days, well apparently tomorrow's the vote...

With the promise of more to come...

Not the same project that I was writing about before, but tangentially related:

This certainly seems like a bit of good news.