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 Author | Topic: Local color (Read 6,037 times) |
casimira
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|  | Local color
« Thread Started on Jun 12, 2009, 3:03pm » | ![[Quote]](http://images.proboards.com/buttons/quote.gif "[Quote]") |
Local color;
"the interest or flavor of a locality imparted by the customs and sights peculiar to it"
We often hear the term used sometimes in defense of some perceived flaw in our local culture,
"oh, it adds to the local color".
Culturally,cities in particular, seem to be at some risk of losing their local color. Traditions run very deep here in New Orleans yet little by little if one looks closely,evidence of this in some pockets is being eroded.
How's the local color in and around where you are?
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kerouac2
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #1 on Jun 12, 2009, 5:07pm » | |
A lot of the local color in Paris is fake now (tourist oriented). But every now and then you will come across an old accordeonist in a subway corridor, or see a scene in the street that Robert Doisneau could have photographed.
![[image]](http://images.allposters.com/images/nim/pl015.jpg "[image]")
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #2 on Jun 12, 2009, 6:08pm » | |
![[image]](http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2010/finalwebsite/background/cityhistory/images/fullJazzFuneral.jpg "[image]")
A common sight in New Orleans in any given neighborhood on any given day, A Jazz funeral marching down the street.
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #3 on Jun 12, 2009, 6:56pm » | |
The patting out of tortillas was once such a part of the fabric of Mexico that there is even a famous riddle in Nahautl (language of the Aztecs) using the image: What is it that goes along the foothills of the mountains, patting out tortillas with its hands? (answer: a butterfly)
Women making tortillas by hand were once found even in downtown Mexico City in every restaurant.
Now, most tortillas are pressed out.
![[image]](http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu/exhibitions/tzin/images/colneg2.jpg "[image]") ![[image]](http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6862/imgp228529291822935074.jpg "[image]")
Look at this video to hear what once was a defining sound of Mexico. (This is in the region where Don Cuevas lives.)
http://www.lonelyplanet.tv/Clip.aspx?key=EFDDD679198D61D9
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #4 on Aug 7, 2009, 3:12pm » | |
A "local color" thing here that's part of the fabric of everyday life ~~ the sounds that all the services and vendors make as they pass in the street.
You can tell each brand of bottled gas by the recorded announcement or the way the guy yells "Gas!". Many gas trucks have a jingling chain with rings on it that drags behind the truck, and you learn to discern your brand's jingle. The drinking water trucks might have recorded music, or the guy might just holler "Agua!" out his window. The boys on motorbikes selling tortillas (who usually go too fast to catch them) beep their horns as they drive. The guy in the truck has a kid in the back loudly bellowing "tortilla" in his kid voice. There are frequently men with hand trucks hauling bed frames or concrete washbasins, and they sing out their products. Oh yeah -- the garbage truck: it has a bell and ones ears become attuned to hearing it even far off, the better to be ready when it arrives. There is also a truck that buys old metal, and it seems to pass every day with its amplified announcement list examples of what it buys (defunct appliances, etc.).
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rikita
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #5 on Aug 25, 2009, 6:13am » | |
when i lived in bucharest one thing that i liked were the people collecting old iron, who usually went through the city with a horsecart, and were shouting something i couldn't understand... first times i heard it, i thought someone is shouting a loud prayer or something, because it was a kind of chant, and it took me a while to realize what it is...
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kerouac2
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #6 on Sept 9, 2009, 9:19am » | |
Many people have a fantasy vision of French village life based on movies, generally showing a very lively and appealing village in the south of France.
Anybody who lives in France knows that in most of the country, you can drive through village after village and wonder if they have all been abandoned, because you won't see a living soul.
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hwinpp
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #7 on Sept 10, 2009, 4:38am » | |
I could survive without ever leaving my house.
Everything is mobile here, from trash collection to food, including, breads, vegetables, meats, fish, sweets, cooked dishes, coconuts, fruit, drinks. It's slightly more expensive than at the market but perfectly ok if you're a lazy person sometimes.
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #8 on Sept 12, 2009, 2:39pm » | |
I hate to keep saying this, but that is yet another way that Cambodia sounds like Mexico. The only drawback to where I'm now living is that there are fewer mobile vendors, probably due to the terrible road and relatively sparse population up here.
The ones that get me are vendors with very heavy stuff. It's common to see men and boys with handtrucks bearing a wooden bed frame, a chest of drawers, and maybe a chair or two. The other day, which was very hot and sunny, this poor man was toiling up the hill in front of my house carrying a wide set of shelves. It was one of those staggered things made out of pressboard covered with a plasticized material, so had to be heavier than the same thing made of wood.
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #9 on Sept 30, 2009, 10:51am » | |
![[image]](http://lh6.ggpht.com/_9PPxoV4fFEU/SsIuWZvePAI/AAAAAAAAAJ4/x1vz2uMqKt8/s720/P8280123.JPG "[image]")
This fellow steps out the door each morning and plays a piece on his horn before heading off the school. One of my friends with WWOZ (local listener supported radio) is doing a piece on him. He attends the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts,a public school supporting the Arts.
No,he's not playing "Reveille".
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lola
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #10 on Sept 30, 2009, 3:59pm » | |
Beautiful, casimira.
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kerouac2
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #11 on Sept 30, 2009, 5:11pm » | |
There is not enough music in the street. Bravo to him!
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #12 on Oct 12, 2009, 10:56am » | |
![[image]](http://lh4.ggpht.com/_9PPxoV4fFEU/SsIt9U9csJI/AAAAAAAAAHA/0dQ4uV_FLLI/s720/P8260079.JPG "[image]")
Meet "Bittles with the Vittles", a third generation street food vendor cooking up a storm .
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patricklondon
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #13 on Oct 12, 2009, 1:37pm » | |
An old London tradition with a new lease of life now there are so many people "gentrifying" the old East End:
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kerouac2
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #14 on Oct 13, 2009, 2:01pm » | |
Typical scene in 18th arrondissement of Paris
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lagatta
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #15 on Oct 13, 2009, 2:18pm » | |
Oh yeah, the kebab song. Hope he made a bundle from his 15 minutes of fame.
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #16 on Dec 3, 2009, 5:33pm » | |
Just bouncing this thread to the top. It's fun to realize what elements of daily life are special to a given place.
The guy in the truck who buys metal just went by, that's what reminded me. He travels this neighborhood -- which is somewhat isolated -- at least once a day, as though the residents will slap their foreheads, suddenly remember that yes, they do have an old stove or automobile battery they'd like to sell him.
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #17 on Dec 3, 2009, 5:45pm » | |
I have been trying to catch "The Pie Lady",Miss Alice,a 92 year old woman in my neighborhood who walks around with a walker due to arthritis and sells freshly baked mini sweet potato pies and pralines,sometimes pound cake. I must go check on her at home. Could be the cool weather keeping her in.Sometimes she sends out "Son of Pie Lady" to sell for her.
Addendum: I just phoned Miss Alice. She told me she was just thinking about me yesterday. She answers the phone,"Praise the Lord"and then asks me for a ride to the casino!  .Informed me she made 94 on 10/15 and is just fine,"just the knees". Wants lemons so will bring her by a bag today!
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lola
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #18 on Dec 3, 2009, 7:25pm » | |
Miss Alice! Long may she bake.
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lagatta
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #19 on Dec 4, 2009, 2:47am » | |
I'm imagining Sonny, who must be at least 70... glad to hear Alice is ok.
Here, nobody would call a woman over 35 or so "Miss" (Mlle, I mean) even if she doesn't have progeny. It seems very strange.
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #20 on Dec 4, 2009, 4:20am » | |
It's a term of affectionate respect, LaGatta. Also, it's not really pronounced Missssss. It's more Miz and run right into the proper name. -- Mizzalice.
Wonderful word portrait, Casimira -- worth of Eudora Welty!
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #21 on Dec 4, 2009, 4:34am » | |
That's exactly how it would be pronounced B. Thanks.
I have met" Son of "and he is not near 70 or at least doesn't look it.
Miss Alice has this set up,it's like a rack that fits inside her walker where she places a plastic tub with a lid on it that's filled with her goodies. She will walk from her house all the way up to Carrollton Avenue which is almost ten blocks each way.Generally though,someone will offer her a ride but sometimes she refuses it. She will not however,turn down a ride to the casino.
I must get a photo of her. Y'all would just fall right in love with her.She always asks after my mother and my dog.
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #22 on Dec 27, 2009, 2:50pm » | |
Am so excited. Have a date for later this morning with my dear friend Miss Alice (AKA"Pie Lady, after she returns from church. ( I just know she has lemon pound cake for me as she mentioned "goodies" )
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kerouac2
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #23 on Dec 27, 2009, 4:06pm » | |
I almost caught a photo of the 'Christmas tree lady' the other day, but I think she has eyes in the back of her head and thwarted me. (She is an old Indochinese woman dressed like a Christmas tree, and/or any Mexican holiday that Bixa could show us a picture of.)
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bixaorellana
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #24 on Jan 1, 2010, 4:38pm » | |
Okay ~~ enough of the tantalizing. Casimira, did you meet with MizAlice & did you get pictures? Kerouac, it's time to go into stalk mode! Would your door gypsies allow you to photograph them? Maybe you could snap bunches of pictures of the front of your building, people walking dogs, etc., then simply ask permission.
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #25 on Jan 1, 2010, 4:47pm » | |
I am on it,soon.Miss Alice insists on being gussied up for photograph as any proper Southern lady would. So,Sunday I am going over before she goes to church. (I have a photo I took of her but, she made me promise to not show anyone,and of course,I have to honor her wishes).
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spindrift
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #26 on Jan 2, 2010, 10:14am » | |
We have two such characters in Winchester.
One is a little old lady who pushes her belongings (in black plastic bags) in an old wheelbarrow.
Then there's a superior tramp and his dogs. For many years he lived in a large canvas structure by the side of a river in the watermeadows. He did no harm to anyone but when he stood, as an independent candidate, in the General Elections the council expelled him and razed the site. Several times a week I see him playing his accordion (very badly) in the High Street with his dogs lying on a blanket at his feet. I tend to give him money. He doesn't speak to people much. I heard that he wouldn't tell anyone where he now lives in case the council pay him a visit.
Oh yes, and there's a young man who's blind and sometimes stands in the street with a cap at his feet. He whistles exceedingly well.
And there's the unknown person who scatters a white flour-like substance on the pavements close to buildings...and I wonder whether this is to keep the evil eye at a distance. Does anyone know about this? Very seldom the 'flour' is coloured....
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BigIain
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #27 on Jan 2, 2010, 11:49am » | |
Casimira, what is the food on the very left of the hotplate in the pic of Bittles's pic? Looks enticing.
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Paddle faster, I hear banjos!
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lola
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #28 on Jan 2, 2010, 2:33pm » | |
Spindrift, the Pueblo Indians in northern New Mexico will go to the hospital to scatter cornmeal (sometimes blue corn) around the beds of an ill relative, and chant a healing ceremony.
Alternately, could it be boric acid to discourage ants?
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casimira
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| | Re: Local color
« Reply #29 on Jan 2, 2010, 4:02pm » | |
Jan 2, 2010, 11:49am, BigIain wrote:| Casimira, what is the food on the very left of the hotplate in the pic of Bittles's pic? Looks enticing. |
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Iain,those are chicken,drumsticks and thighs. Now though,I'm wondering WTF is on the far right? 
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