[For this
year’s installment in my annual anti-favorites series, I wanted to complicate
things a bit, considering places from across my life with which I have
love/hate relationships. I’d love to hear your own complex (or simple!)
anti-favorites, whether places or anything else, for the crowd-sourced weekend
airing of grievances!]
I said
most of what I’d want to say about why (during the 22 years I’ve lived and
worked in Massachusetts since coming up here to finish my PhD dissertation
long-distance and staying for my job at Fitchburg State) I’ve come to both hate
and love Salem in
this post on how the city remembers the Witch Trials. Here I’ll just add
this: while I think some of that strange balance is unique or at least specific
to Salem, I think a great deal of it also reflects the worst and best of America
as a whole, and certainly of our collective memories. So, as I put it in this Shepherd
book recommendation list, I love and am frustrated by Salem very much like I
love and am frustrated by the US of A.
Crowd-sourced
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. So one
more time: what do you think? Anti-favorites you’d share?
