Made in Suburbia

Baltimore is one of a kind. It’s strange loveliness gets to me. The charm of the falling apart brick that weaves with the new billboards, wires, graffiti, stained glass, intricate designs arching the tops of boarded up windows, the dirt on the streets , the one way streets that have something new to tell you every time. The out of the ordinary. This city has so much flavor in its unpredictability I don’t think I have ever encountered something of a kind. 

I was born in a city. I grew up in the city. When I turned 16 we moved from the city Chisinau, therefore from Moldova, to a suburb under L.A. therefore to United States. The pristine quietness and safety of the suburbs always seemed threatening to me. The fake green lawn, the fake smile on the neighbor’s faces. What annoyed me more was the physical attachment to the realm of a delineated space: your house, a backyard, or a car. No room for curious walks that could lead you on for hours through places you’ve seen, but not really. Just the nearby perfect park with a perfect alley designed for a “perfect” walk. In the quietness of the suburbs, where no strange faces pass by, barely ever would you see a human. The perfect grass, the perfect alleys were more disquieting then the slums of the dangerous cities. I guess it was something about this cleanness and straightness that did not leave room for errors—the most intrinsic and inevitable to being a human. I did not belong. 

In one sense, Baltimore is an echo of a once booming industrial city. In fact it used to be the second most populated city after Philadelphia according to the 1860s Census. However, anyone who lived or visited Baltimore will find the last statement ironic, because the city is not booming in anyway, except in the number of abandoned houses. This plethora of falling apart buildings is the aftermath of the urbanization process stimulated by the FHA loans after World War II. But what the population that flooded the suburban areas did not realize, is that they were submitting themselves to a lifetime of a designed experience, designed not by them but for them. The predesigned environment, which is what suburbs are, yields a certain kind of behavior. The idea was inspired by one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, B.F. Skinner. Skinner writes in Beyond Freedom and Dignity “The intentional design of a culture and the control of human behavior it implies are essential if the human species is to continue to develop.” With this in mind, the government provided its citizens with cookie-cutter-perfect homes positioned in a perfect grid structure. In this case, as Skinner mentions citizens are no longer citizens but “products” of a designed environment. 

At the 2010 Whitney Biennial I was perplexed by the photographs of James Casebere Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #1 and Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #2  mainly because these works evoked a feeling of a fabricated reality to which one needs to conform. The artist created the work by photographing mock ups that resembled a part of NYC suburbia. These pieces triggered my memories about instances from my High School years. The time when the designed environment I was part of, forced me to be a certain kind of individual. The perfectness of each inch of grass behind my window; the big flat screen TV that our neighbors bragged about; the toaster, the microwave, the washer and dryer that completed the task efficiently and fast, all told the story of my imperfections, unpopularity and low efficiency. All of these were material goods that I could acquire if I became useful in the society, i.e. become a material good myself. It was even drilled down our brains in school. My efficiency was measured by my G.P.A and class rank. In fact, class rank had a much bigger significance then one’s personality. In some cases, students hated each other based on class rank. Just the fact that a numeric value attributed to a person plays such a big role in the path of his or her future seemed somewhat disturbing to me. It seemed like in the government’s understanding humanity was reduced down to an arithmetic formula. 

For a lot of people living in Baltimore, it gets frustrating when it comes to shopping, especially if they are from a suburban area where shopping centers are everywhere. In Baltimore there are almost no malls. Baltimore is almost the opposite of an engineered environment because it fails to do two key things: produce consumers and working robots. The reasons for this are numerous, but number one is crime. The government can’t seem to control the high rates of crime in this city. On top of that, half of the city is a ghost of history composed of old abandoned private shops and boarded up 18th century buildings--not a very inviting atmosphere for consumers. But, amidst all this Baltimore produces artists, musicians and writers who seem to add a lot of flavor to the culture of this city. None of the previously described aspects of the Charm City convey the idea that happiness can be bought which is the primary force behind the Capitalist America. 

Out of order and out of the ordinary, Baltimore city presents a model of an environment that has been designed in the past and now lives through its deterioration. This might be the reason behind such an aversion towards the city coming from those who previously grew up in designed environments, i.e. a suburbias. As John Locke states, our “ideas, [are] not innate, but acquired” from the environment thus our mind is just a blank canvas ready to be imprinted upon. So the government builds these perfect neighborhoods for people to be born into and later embrace, without questioning, as the ultimate or proper reality. For generations to come memories will be bound to the perfect house with the perfect lawn in a perfect neighborhood. They will strive in high school to be perfect and to get the job that would get them a perfect hose with the perfect lawn in the perfect neighborhood. This resulting in a continuous cycle that generates perfect consumers and perfect producers. These suburbia kids will be the product of their environment, fulfilling the government’s master plan like robots on a nine to five job.  But under the automaton masks hide a human beings with all of their flaws. What happens to these human beings when they are trying to fit the system, in stead of having the system fit them?

In the quiet of the suburbia, there lived a little boy. Every Christmas he got new video games, every birthday mom would take him shopping for what he wanted, every Easter he would trod along his mom and dad to drop off an apple pie at the neighbors house. So went each year, every celebration was perfect but predictable. Then daddy got a big plasma screen TV. If he would come home from work, which hardly ever happened, he would watch TV. He never talked. His mom was busy cooking the perfect apple pie and decorating the house according to each seasonal issue of the Martha Stewart Magazine. She seemed the happiest when her friends came over and marveled at the arrangement she made in the house. The boy grew up in his room playing video games. Everything was perfect.

When it was time to go to school, the boy got on the yellow bus and he never noticed much of the surrounding areas. At lunch he never talked to other children because he was socially awkward. He would always find a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apple sauce, a can of coke and a stick of cheese in his lunch bag. But what irritated him the most was the everyday lunch note mom would put in the bag. Most of the time he felt that if she really meant it she could tell him instead of writing silly notes. Other then that, everything was perfect.

One day his parents promised to get him the wii if he got good grades at school. So the boy tried very hard and at the end of the semester he had straight A’s. He got what he wanted. Since then he knew that he could get whatever he wanted if he tried very hard. He found some friends that played video games too. They played video games together after school. Mostly he invited his friends to his house so he could brag about his newest stuff.  Everything was perfect. 

One time he came home and saw his mom and dad fighting. He did not realize they always fought because he was always in his room. So this time to avoid what was happening he ran up to his room. The same day dad got killed in a car accident. The boy realized that he knew nothing about him, except that he was a good businessman. He felt it was his duty to continue his dad’s path. Mom hired a supervising nanny and left with her friends to relax on the beaches of the Caribbean. The boy was irritated that his mom had to hire a nanny because he old enough to take care of himself. He was 17 and about to graduate High School. Everything was less perfect, but each one found a way to create a more perfect situation. 

A couple years later the boy was working as the executive director at a business compony. With each promotion he knew that he would get less time for himself and more money. Money was extremely important to him, especially because he needed the newest interactive TV in his house. He lived separate from his mom, who at this point had too many dogs and got into knitting. He hardly visited her. He still played video games. He loved playing. It was perfect. 

He did not like visiting home because it made him sick to the stomach. It reminded him of some kind of thing he overlooked in the perfectness of it all. It seemed like the worst was watching his mom knitting and feeding her dogs. May be because it was a routine. May be because he thought it was annoying that she replaced him with 10 dogs. But what he never realized, was that this anxiety was coming from within himself. From not knowing, who he really was and where he really belonged.  

For ten years he worked and played video games. A major depression hit the country and he lost his job. So he played video games all the time now. He was old and alone. One morning the suburban boy committed a perfect suicide. He lost himself to the perfectness of his suburban house, on a quiet suburban street with a perfect lawn.

Bibliography:

B.F. Skinner. Beyond Freedom and Dignity. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company 2002

Locke, John. “No Innate Speculative Principles.” An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. New York: Barnes and Noble 2004

i

The Magnificent I. Notice, the letter “I” always masking its insignificance behind the upper case status in the dominion of the English language. The French would frown upon the self-allowed arrogance of the Americans and British to call themselves “I” instead of “i”. Similar to the frown Rimbaud expressed through his brilliant poetry towards the Frenchmen, i frown upon the “I”. So to protest against the self-indulgent, colonialist, egotistical, imperialistic, consumerist culture of the English, my reference to myself will no longer include “I” but instead it will always be i. Another reason for why my entity does not deserve the privileges of the upper case letter, is the flawed nature of the i. So let me tell you the story of i in hell. 

On a warm October night a certain couple was making love. In spring they got married and in June they gave life to another i. Then the family went off on an island to celebrate the couple’s honey moon. It seems like they were happy.If nothing else, so it seemed to be according to the black and white photographs with the dates scribbled on the backs of each and the few calculations i made. 

i is in class. The fifth grade religion text book starts with the story of Adam and Eve. i realized that she is in big trouble because Eve has managed to sin in advance so now i together with each existing i, who are Eve’s children, have to bear the punishment. i was afraid, hoping that the punishment wasn’t too bad. But, later the class learned about hell. From then on, i couldn’t fall asleep at night thinking of how dark it must be in hell. i was a coward. In fact i was such a coward that she did not move from the assigned desk. She sat at the desk all throughout the school day, ignoring her needs to take a walk, eat or go to the bathroom. i was unmovable.

i knew she was going to hell and i knew she was already punished so she had to be quiet. Father was the fulfillment of the punishment. He would come home drunk and beat mom. He was possessed by God’s power of revenge. i was afraid of father and didn’t do anything when he attacked mom. i was afraid of God. i sat in the corner and cried. When father was through he left home . Mom set on the floor and cried. her face resembled the bruised apple that Eve didn’t pick. I thought what king of bad apple did mom eat?

One time when dad wasn’t through yet, but mom was crying to hard for people to keep quiet, our neighbor got involved “what are you doing, beating up a woman like that ?” she is my wife, I do what I want with what’s mine.”

And he was right. Later on, when we decided no father was better then that, while the rest  of the family raged over the issue of image and a divorce being a shame to a name, mom filed for depriving father of paternal rights. At this point i had enough hatred brooding inside that she could testify against the whole country of Moldova. During the outburst of hatred towards father i caught memories of how he took i on his lap and drew horses and bunnies and clowns for her. May be, dad really loved i. But that’s how he owned i. He was the puzzle in i’s brain. He owned mom as well. How? because all the testimonies brought against him didn’t do anything in a country with laws demeaning towards women-- a patriarchal society. The thought of everything made i sick to the stomach so when the time was for testifying i shook, sobbed and spoke incoherently.

After everything was over i would sit alone and think. i hated Adam and Eve. Adam had no character. Oh well, Eve was dumb. Poor Eve, why did she bite that apple? As for God, God was right, and he tested i at that moment to see the limits of i’s love.

So i decided she needed to go to church. She read the Bible, went to ceremonies every Sunday and tried with all her might to forgive. But, alas. i returned to the subject of hatred daily. “i hate” was the most common expression that came out of i’s mouth. However, more then anything i hated i.

To escape the “trying to be the dutiful Christian” and the negative forces within, that took over way to often, i dedicated most of the time to studying. Soon enough she was one of the strongest students in her class, but that scared her. i thought that becoming a successful student was an indicator that she resembled father. He was a great student too. On top of everything, i was always angry just like him. i realized that Adam and Eve were not that different. Hatred and love were not far apart.

It seemed as though those were unholy thoughts so like a prey she prayed to God. i was miserable. i wanted to understand how can there be so much good and evil in the same creation. Soon God heard i’s prayers because he sent her to America. Things in America were so good that the thought of how bad they were back home made i cry. She waited for the day when something bad would happen because it just did not seem real. i’s mom was finally happily married to another man, which did not seem real either. i expected him to screw up because she knew that demons turn into angels and angels turn into demons.

But one day she found the answer to all of her questions. Adam and Eve were apes! So now, since nothing is supposed to have a reason, nothing is supposed to make sense. The spirit of American I’s comes from--believe in oneself--there is no sin--there is responsibility. That seemed like a breath of fresh air, but not for long.

In the next year i fell in love with whom i thought she could be herself. Because of i’s past and her lack of social skills, i did not believe in friendship and did not trust men. But this boy brought to light what i could not see without him. She saw in his loving eyes that she could be loved and that there were men i could trust. i looked up to him as though he was God in her world; the sign of hope. The longing was unbearable when he was gone. Every time he would leave, i felt abandoned. Thoughts of her father followed i like a shadow. She knew she had no reason to worry because he loved her. But, she did. Doubt would cross i’s mind at times and doubt would scream when he did not call for long. i’s mind would chew itself trying to process the idea that he was not thinking about her. i felt abandoned, yet again. The next day things were back to normal because he showed  up. And so he would come and go and sorrow would come and go. i lived like that for two years. 

Later i understood i’s eyes saw only the scene i wanted to see. He was just a boy and he did no see through i’s eyes. He just wanted to love someone and have fun. i’s eyes pictured him as the liberator, but he did not see the magnitude of the role cast upon him by the crossing of i’s and his lives. It was all in her head. Angels transformed into demons in her own head. The questions i raised were the same as when she tried to comprehend her father’s nature and why he did those things to the family.

A certain i decided to listen to the snake and she bit the apple. She did it because i was not afraid of things anymore, she wanted to pass the boundaries of herself. And i did. i was not afraid to see. She understood that good and evil are merged and that haven and hell are one. She understood that God is within her. But when she understood that, she became herself again. A new self this time, so her eyes closed again. The problem after becoming the new self is the closed eyes--she is set within boundaries again. So to reach out beyond she has to change again. To open her eyes--to see--i has to change.This will never be over, i will never stop changing in search of seeing. She will shed i(s) like the snake sheds skins as long as she is alive. i will never know herself like the demon did not know he was an angel and the angel did not know he was a demon.

Dream 6

The darkness fills my pupils. I don't know where I am running but I know who I am running from. I drag my sister so she does not fall behind as we run. We climb a tall cupboard. It seems that the place metamorhosizes into an apartment. Recognizable space--grandfather's from father's side, i.e. the Roznovans. He stares at us from down there, with a piercing almoust hypnotic look filled with force. He waits for a second and then says "come down girls. Daddy won't hurt you. I'm just trying to cure you."

"no"

"listen, I'm just gonna inject this very quickly. It won't hurt!"

I look and I realize that the shot is just air. I know what that means.

I can't take it anymore. I know that he is old and he won't keep up. I decide to challenge him. I jump and run as fast as I can. I see everything is slow. I run.

He tries.

Chase.

Me.

Him.

Run outside. Trick him. Close the door. Lock it fast. Faster before he stops me. He is outside. I am inside.

After a while curiosity takes over. Why did it quiet down? Is he still there? What did he leave behind: his smell, a note, a shoe print, the still. And I decide to open the door and see. We see what we did not expect: he melted. The only thing left was a pile of cloth.

Suddenly, we receive a hundred calls at the same time. We choose not to answer. We listen to the voicemail. The calls were from european countries calling us so we could settle dad's dept or take his belongings etc.

A murder. I did it. No we did it. Me and him. No more separate. A one.

Dream 5

Beams of bright colored lights move swiftly through bodies. They take in and take out. The stuffy air sticks to the skin. The stream of consciousness is dulled by the everyday same. I came to get it out. The dance-- I knew, it would revers the charms, and instead of what I set out to be, I would be the human: the sweat, the language of the muscles, the smudged make up, the mess, the truth. The truth of the body. 

I melt into the rhythms. The brain hypnotized. The beat pulsating. The laser scanning. Lazer playing.

A tight grip around my waste. I feel the closeness that takes me. I smell bodies. A craze and I shake my head. I’m still dancing, but I feel like I’m about to be close to burning. It seems like I’m going to get to know you. I feel like I have to run again. Away, away, away, into my own space. 

My own space is dark and warm. It seems like mold could easily take roots in a place like this. But what else?


 I’m walking through a house I have never been in before. There  are so many floors, so suburban with that beige carpet I can’t stand. I notice some masses  in the distance. I get closer and I realize these are dismembered bodies at my feet. Flies crawl on the open flesh. I run. When I find myself close to the exit I enter another room. The final room seems to be a long and narrow conference room. There is no way to just slip out of the room. How? Im trapped. The door is a couple of steps away across the table, but in front of the door, at the head of the table sits my dad. He seems to be occupied with the meeting. 

My head hurts. He is the head of the table. How? Im trying to understand the secret of his head. I realize he knows the secret to life. That is why he has all these people listening to him. I can’t bear it anymore so I speak. “I know there are bodies upstairs. You are using them to replace your old body parts, so your time never runs out.” He smiles and continues on talking to the rest of the group that seems to be hypnotized. I scream: “NO. YOU LISTEN TO ME!” The men in suits at the table turn towards me. My father steps up to me and pulls me aside. He tells me to drink something. I refuse. He forces it down my throat. I choke. I grow. I deform. I’m not like everyone. Everyone sees me as another. Everyone does not believe my words anymore. Any more is a constant pain. Any more is too much. He tells me at the end “silly! you’ll always be a part of me. I have your liver.” 

The pain. 

Dream 4

I had a dream where I was a part of the fields and the fields where a part of me. I rose above the fields and I went.

A girl was leading me on. Her little body was sinking in the green of the tall grass. The top of the field was covered with thin golden glare as though the girl shed her hair everywhere she stepped.

I wanted to get to know her better. I wanted to become friends so I started a conversation. “Do you know how the sunset happens?” She said “No.” “It is quiet simple. You see when the moon spins all the way around” I took her finger to follow the movement of the moon “and it touches the sun, that’s when it sets.” And the sun started to step down from the celestial mass and gave more glows to the horizontal streaks of grass that met my eye.

Dream 3

Drunk and happy we run out of the elevator we race. Halloween, a masquerade! Everyone is wearing concealing attire—flashy and esoteric, escaping the reality, who they really are, embracing who they won’t to be.

black.

I have a fight with my boyfriend.

black.

Deep breath.

black.

The middle ages.
It’s a church ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s the evening ceremony and during those we praise the devil. I hide in the crowd to not be noticed. The only reason I am there is because my husband is being persecuted. The priestess is wearing a long red robe with sparkling jewels. Her crimson hair is waving down her shoulders in sumptuous curls. I look in her direction and her fiery eyes return my gaze. She was looking at the white cardinal that was next to me, however, not at me. My heart stopped and jumped as though recharged when she laughed with an evil savor. She proclaimed into the crowd “Welcome, Cardinal!” and my mind cant think of nothing else but the power of her flesh-piercing fangs and the height of the marble columns. The cardinal is quiet. He came for me, and no other reason. He lowers his marble face to whisper something into my year. I look at him, at his majestic posture as well as his crystal white complexion. He trick is a sculpture that came to life.

When I wake up his whisper “Cross over to the good side!” still echoes in my mind.