Over a Pepsi light

[Mike McCarty]

On a recent trip to the Northeast, my daughter and I visited Rockport, MA. A quintessential, artsy village on the picturesque sea coast. Narrow pedestrian streets lined with art galleries, loaded with fine and almost fine original art. Some with artists in the windows painting away. And there in the midst of all this splendor was a just arrived, brand new, Kinkade gallery. Looking much like all that surrounded it. And in its "sameness" with the surroundings, there is the suggestion of legitimacy. There is the subtle suggestion that: we are here like they, we are all the same. Later in the trip we visited Newport RI, almost the identical circumstance.

When the chance arose I would ask a local what they thought of their new neighbor. It was more the look on their face than what they actually said. At the time it just seemed like an interesting dynamic that would surely play itself out over the millennia. I am more annoyed now having stared it straight in the eye over my fake Pepsi.

I'm even starting to annoy myself with this rant. Maybe I'll go back on the decaf.