I agree and hope I'm not fooled. My geography teacher used to talk about
'rurban' areas (Renfrewshire and Surrey are good examples). This is aside from
the point, as a Peter Riley poem states somewhere, the countryside is often just
a factory with large keep out signs (sorry, that's definitely a misquotation).
Hopper's rural paintings (goodname Hopper! - you can see the bings and conveyor
belts straight away) get that feeling of industrialisation, but your point about
the places between rural and urban, about being nowhere in particular, I find
fascinating, suburbia that is a little embarrassed about itself because it's dry
and 'featureless' like hotel hydroponics, and falls foul of both traditionalists
'Gentle Bombs fall on Slough' and highart modernists (all caveats accepted) who
suggest that if Kent is the Garden of England, Surrey is the Patio (was it Iain
Sinclair who said that?). RP
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: bucolics
Author: John Kinsella <[log in to unmask]> at Internet
Date: 29/07/97 11:37
Yes, interesting point. I've noticed this here. I've assumed it to be
the result of urban "spread" - or more to the point, the difficulty
of creating demarcation lines between the urban and rural in England
especially (not so much Scotland or Wales or Ireland...?) Thing is
though, people tell me that despite the "urbanisation" of rural
spaces here the "rural" still well and truly remains a state of mind.
Don't be fooled by the excess houses in the photograph, when there's
a blacksmith's shop or a tractor etc etc then it's "rural"! Don't
know. In Australia the demarcations - both physically and
nostalgically - are more defined. Though a "rural" photograph usually
includes elements of "industrial" (and consequently urban???)
intrusion in the form of tractors, metal silos, steel fence posts
and so on. And an old wagon wheel. And a decaying stone house.
Sorry for digressing, yet again. Oh, I'd like to see some of those
pieces for consideration re Salt some time.
Best
JK
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