Hi! This week has been both good and bad and as a result I think this post will be a little jumbled.
The theme this week is: Make an infomercial for your ethnicity/hometown/home state
It would be funny to film an actual fake infomercial and maybe someday in the future I will. I'm talking about my hometown. But I guess, let me introduce it a little more infomercial-ly?
Has this ever happened to you? You need to purchase a new car, but where can you go? Sure, you could drive up to the dealership on the highway, but that's just one place. And you're a shrewd, world-wise, educated shopper - you need more options than that! If only there were a whole mile-long stretch of car dealerships, bankrolled by a much-maligned local billionaire, just minutes from your home where you could peruse every car brand known to man. Lexus, Ferrari, Volvo, Honda, Maserati (not Tesla, though, you gotta drive to Dedham for that one). What a dream that would be!
Or maybe this has happened to you: you're hunkered in for the night to watch a movie with the family, and you want to order a delicious pizza pie. But again, there's simply not enough options! Or maybe there are enough options in your neighborhood, but it's all good pizza! If only there were 31 pizza shops all within 2 miles of one another, none of which has actually good pizza (except the one on Broadway, downtown)!
Or how about this: You're sitting at home, reminiscing about high school. You think about that one extracurricular you loved so much. Maybe it was a sport, an academic club, a performing arts activity. If it hadn't been for the friends you'd made there, the experiences you had, the hurdles (literal or figurative) you overcame, you surely would not be the same person you are today. And yet, something is missing, something that you just couldn't get enough of in high school. Perhaps it is the persistent anxiety that your program, and indeed all extracurriculars, arts, and a chunk of the math department are going to be cut every single year because your taxes are the lowest in the county [don't fact check me idk if that's true] so the school budget is constantly running a deficit year after year and there is no real job security for your school's teachers. Now that would truly be character-building.
Believe me, we've all been there. Well, what if I told you there was another way?
Yes, I'm talking about Norwood! The city of love, the city of angels, the city that never once accidentally flooded the streets with human waste (that was Westwood)!
Glowing reviews of Norwood include:
"Norwood is where all the heroin addicts go to die <3"
- a horrific, real thing my (Medfield resident) supervisor at my part-time job once said to me
"Norwood always feels like 3:52 on a drizzly March afternoon in 1993"
- anonymous Reddit user
"Norwood is bougie"
- Laura R. from Smithsonian
"Norwood has too many nail salons - at least some of them have to be drug fronts"
- my high school English teacher
As you can see, Norwood is truly a dynamic town -- It has something for everyone! Monster-themed glow-in-the-dark minigolf, candlepin bowling, an ice cream shop distressingly named "Daddy's Dairy" mere feet away from the old location of one "Vape Daddy's," a wifi-router store smack in the middle of town that closed a few years ago because it actually was a drug front being run by two children (I think they were like 15 but still), the historic home of F. Holland Day, 2 Catholic churches, a Catholic K-8 school, the birthplace of the eccentric writer Joe Gould who claimed to write a complete oral history of everything anyone had ever said to him in the early 20th century, and a local legend named Martini Man whose entire claim to fame is just drinking a martini everyday on his front lawn and walking his cat on a leash.
Book the getaway of a lifetime now~
Anyway, in all honesty, I'm quite fond of my hometown. Sure, it's a decrepit, post-industrial suburb with not much to do and a perennially underfunded public school system, but, you know, it's very American I think. And it's home. I have a lot I could say about my town but I think I'll hold off because if I get the ball rolling I'm not really sure when or where it will land.
Like it or leave it (and after college, I certainly hope to do the latter), it's the place that made me who I am, so I gotta give it some credit for that. Plus the glow-in-the-dark minigolf is actually pretty fun.
Norwood, I’m glad to have a face to the name. I think I didn’t have long enough to get to know the person though.... hope to come back some day! Lol I thought the review section was quite clever. A nice melange or opinions from all over It does sound oh so Americana, and it’s cool that all the while you can take a trip to Boston if you so please :) She seems small town but as they say in French elle a du caractère I like the art by k*ra, always nice to have an artist rendering of where you’ve lived
this is so well done! like the peeps said Norwood does seem to be a true American suburb. especially because it has stuff like glow in the dark mini golf and martini man. but now come to think of it I guess cities also have odd features like that as well like this is really random but I remember in Copenhagen there was flute man who, like martini man, did exactly what his name entailed. but maybe in cities things like that are more normalized? idk I guess the main difference between cities and suburbs is the layout but I should leave it there because my landscape studies is showing.
Kira's painting is so good! that's some talent right there
Yeah, like what you and Aboni said: my perception of Norwood is that is truly the epitome of an American suburb. If exchange students had to come to America to study a semester, they should go to Norwood (though it’s a little more urban than most other suburbs imo because of the public transportation offered around town). Nonetheless, it’s a lovely town filled with fun local activities and family vibes. Also martini man sounds like a legend, I hope to be half as cool as him when I’m older! (Side-note: that pic that k*ra drew is really good!)
Omg I wanna see martini man lol, but yeah I would agree with you that Norwood seems to be very American. I would even argue one of the most American place I have been too (after spending like 2.5 days there lol). The literal definition of suburbia one might say lol. But I find it cool the sense of community Norwood seems to have. Like you have a literal facebook page for your town that people actually participate in and town politics that people (and not just old people) are actively a part of. I would comment on the diversity of the town but I think that that’s what makes it truly American lol (I recently come to the realization…