Sometimes English just doesn’t say it.
There is a sign on the ground at the inner harbor of
Baltimore set near a small though impressive installation of seagrass that
reads “Seahorse and Seagrass” which then goes on to explain: Seagrasses are vital to the health of the
Chesapeake Bay. Vast beds of aquatic vegetation provide oxygen and improve
water quality. Steps away from this mini-paean to environmental issues and the
workings of aquatic nature is posted yet another sign of a more simple sort:
Crab Cakes
Ice Cream
Cold Beer
Raw Bar
Steamed Shrimp
And not far from that sign is an outdoor restaurant display
“thing” (for it can only be described as such) featuring a kind of gigantic,
sidewalk diorama of the strangest misshapen little guy vaguely resembling ET in
a straw hat and sunglasses attired in the weirdest Hawaiian shirt next to the tackiest
fake palm I’ve ever had the pleasure of running into. It makes the sizable pink
flamingo sitting atop the Café Hon (as in honey)
in the hipster Hampden section seem like high art.
But the waterfront magic prevails just the same. There are
places to sit and gaze and music in the air- electronic though it be- even at the
ungodly hour of eight in the morning though the quiet of the harbor at that
hour somehow makes it seem serene. There are cafes and a giant aquarium and
joggers and World War II ships sitting in dock for eternity, and homeless souls
sleeping like babies on the clean, metal benches for tourists and well-dressed
professionals on their way to work and profusely tattooed guys with shmatah
bandanas adorning their heads on their way to the job. And all around is a profusion
of flora lushly and generously planted at almost every turn in various dazzling
arrangements: begonias, impatiens, pansies, cedar and grape vying for the
spotlight with lavender, black-eyed Susan, the most resplendent, sunniest
lilies ever to be seen and foxtail grass as well. And some people still smoke
like everywhere else in the world as the fit-as-fiddle joggers fly past them
with their accelerated heart rates, and the cigarettes are probably not of the
“e” variety.
But oh the triangles reminiscent of great sails are everywhere.
Tall, green, glass edifices shaped liked sails. An outdoor concert space with an
entire sail-evocative roof suggesting a conglomeration of horizontal billowing
canvass, little bowed bridges for footpaths by which to cross the water, reflective
sides of buildings like mirrors in the form of triangles. Terra cotta and moss
colored rectangles of stone comprising the walkways reminiscent of something
historic, and though only simulacra they still manage to work. The great, hulking
Barnes and Noble that dominates the entire scene however is totally real and housed
in the old early twentieth century Pratt Street power plant at Pier Four, the
chimney and bolts still in place and running up through the middle of the
entrance lobby, creating a humongous time warp of fascination; the exterior of
the imposing structure authentic too, with terra cotta trim and steel frame
construction, the entire façade covered in worn 1900 red brick with a huge
guitar sitting atop this gigantic collage and touching the sky to remind you of
the present. If this doesn’t get you to browse for a book, what will?
Along with the crime, the poverty, the drug scene at the
other end of town in places that will freak you out if you get lost and find
yourself driving through by accident, there are neighborhoods that will slay
you with charm. Like many iconic American towns, there lives in weird
co-existence the good child alongside the evil twin, and the Baltimore of the
“The Wire,” a violent, scary trash heap of archetypal inner city woes and dangers
made even more violent and scary by the sensationalism of the TV series itself is
also the Baltimore of self-styled “Charm City,” where when they call you “hun”
they don’t mean the marauding mobs of the failing Roman Empire but rather
something quite the opposite, like “sweetie.” I must admit the place has an
ineffable, eccentric factor of cuteness that blends the funky and dinky, the
creative and the louche. Did I mention the ubiquitous hanging fuschia? The zillions
of antique stores? The small, slightly tatty coffee shops that smell like
perfect, finely brewed beans not the bitter corporate swill sold in Starbucks, with
homemade, indescribable, totally high-fat muffins not shrink wrapped but done sloppily
by hand? The perennial Christmas lights in shops that specialize exclusively in
nostalgic junk? The slightly Mayberry feel of a fictional 1960’s TV show? It is
after all the south. There are grits in those diners, make no mistake, and
breakfast repasts named “Dixie Corn Cakes.” And these eateries sometimes are
called by girls’ names that have the word “Miss” in front of them.
Aaaah, small town Amerika.
Love it or leave it, myth or reality, it definitely has its ineffable
moments of kitschy charmante.
