Connor Coyne

This week I’ve noticed that it’s cold and the weather has been changing rapidly. That’s not particularly “good.” This is January. In a more typical year, I would have long since noticed that it was cold, and the weather would not be changing much… at least not until I was surprised by a January thaw a week or two from now. The fact that it was “cold” would have long since have ceased being noticed.

This has already been one of the mildest (if not the mildest) winter I’ve experienced. There was scarcely any snow until Thanksgiving, and temperatures have been lingering in the upper 30s and 40s ever since. Today is only the fifth or sixth “cold” day of the winter, and in this case, “cold” isn’t a breath-puffing eye-watering 0 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit, but a nightly low in the mid-teens.

Global warming deniers get to trot out their placards every time it snows in January… I wonder if I should put up a sign every time the snow melts. If this weather keeps up, it would be visible pretty much year round.

Benjamin Franklin’s 306th birthday was yesterday, January 17th.

I’m not an expert on the subject, but, as Walter Isaacson’s essay “What Would Ben Do?” notes, “[Franklin] has been vilified in romantic periods.” The question is how do we separate the spirit and content of romanticism from the momentary tropes of the/any “romantic period.” It its roots, perhaps there is something to this vilification: Franklin was a famed Enlightenment thinker, he tended toward the secular side of the religious spectrum, and he favored egalitarianism and social mobility. The romanticism of the late 1700s and early 1800s, by contrast, typically expressed a sensual engagement to faith, the elevation of emotion, and the nostalgic adoration of antiquity and nature. This oversimplifies, but these are clear points of tension.

Any -ism changes over time, and a lot of that pious yearning and neo-medieval ideations have been easily replaced by everything from Masonic symbolism to trance music. What has remained essential to romantic descendants around the world is the ascendancy of emotion; the idea that the ultimate truths — the most valid and permanent truths — are not those which can be attained by “reason” but which are derived from intuition and feeling. If you consider this superficially, as opposed to Franklin’s empirical and pragmatic approach to science, politics, even daily habits, then yes, there is indeed an opposition.

The problem with such a verdict, even from a historical point-of-view (that doesn’t consider the evolution of romantic tropes) is that it presumes the binary opposition of romanticism to empiricism, of the Romantics to the Enlightenment. Things are seldom that cut-and-dried. Many members of the Enlightenment later embraced romantic concepts, and it was a largely Enlightenment vocabulary that allowed thinkers, writers, and theorists like Immanuel Kant, Victor Hugo, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to explore key romantic dilemmas. At its most direct and essential, the relationship could be summarized as follows: the human mind and its powers of reason are our most valuable tool to develop an understanding of the universe, but such an approach almost inevitably reveals the insufficiency of the human mind to understand everything. Self-styled “romantics” then took the further step of allowing emotion and intuition to occupy this mysterious, enigmatic place that is impervious to reason. Romanticism might be seen not as a refutation of reason, but as ancillary to it.

Which brings me back to Benjamin Franklin. Allowing that we believe in the contemporary relevance of both romanticism and of Franklin, there is just as much room for their cohabitation today as there was in the 18th century. If a utilitarian, pragmatic outlook — if useful day-to-day strategies — enables us to accomplish the most and the best of what our abilities allow, then we are not diminishing our presence in the world, but enhancing it. If such an approach is opposed to intuition, to the appreciation of the sublime, etc. etc., then yes, it is “unromantic.” But Franklin doesn’t strike one as being emotionally sterile or spiritually uninformed. He clearly embraced the validity of a wide variety of viewpoints, in philosophy, religion, and so forth… doing so is consummately “pragmatic.” If a pragmatic orientation to the world embraces romantic concepts — if it is a strategic orientation to actual problems as opposed to the dogmatic refutation of ideals — then it can be actively romantic. More, if such an orientation allows the accomplishment of great deeds — deeds which require the activation of emotional and intuitive resources — say, participation in the establishment of a new form of government — then it is actively romantic.

Things I’ve noticed:

• Practically the whole block is disposing of their Christmas Trees this week.  We might hang on to ours a while longer, as it is still feeling wet and the Christmas season isn’t over until a week from Sunday.
• This is the first week where temperatures have really dipped into the teens… so far this has been a relatively weak winter.  Even today, it’s getting above freezing and is supposed to get warmer as the week goes on.  Snowfall has been frequent, if minimal.
• On the other hand, it’s been less cloudy than I expected.  Lot’s of sunshine during the day, which is nice given the long nights.
• Mary and I saw a sparrow chirping happily from the rungs of a shopping cart under the awning at Meijers.

Every year or so, I’ve compiled a list of “places I’d like to live before I die.” It isn’t a particularly realistic bucket list… if you have to know a place in order to have lived there, I’ve lived in both Flint and Chicago for more than a decade, and I still make unexpected discoveries about both of these places. Each list got longer than the last, and yet they never seemed to change much otherwise.

Last year I decided to try a different strategy: since the list is idealized to begin with, I might as well make it “ideal” (and in that sense, finish it “for good”). Then instead of rewriting the list in the future, I could learn more about the locations on it. So I really dug in, reading a bit about every country, and locations within each country, and at last the list started to change, as my misconceptions and the popular attention each selection had been given melted away. It’s been very educational. I built the list up to a total of 575 entries, and then ruthlessly slashed it down to 100.

Here are the rules I’ve followed in my final selection:
1. “Living” in a place requires enough time to settle into a routine and to make some cultural discoveries hidden or obscured during shorter visits. I felt like I was apporoaching, if not achieving, this goal, when I spent 1 month in Iasi, Romania in 2001. I’ve settled on the more-or-less arbitrary duration of 3 months.
2. The list is subjective… it isn’t meant to be objective. Therefore, the list prefers my own country (the U.S.A.) in some instances, while also being biased towards places where friends have lived, of which I already have some knowledge and experience, or which have simply excited my curiosity for a long time.
3. Every place I have already lived is automatically included on the list.
4. Safety is not an issue. In real life, if I was going to live in Baghdad or the McMurdo Station, my safety and sanity would be pressing concerns. Since this is an idealized list, I’m not worrying about them here.
4. Ditto expense. Money is not an issue.
5. Ditto language. Communication is perhaps an issue, but it is one to be embraced.
6. I did make invoke one pragmatic consideration… in some countries, I prefer cities or capitals that are centrally located with access to numerous points of interest. So, for example, Medan, Indonesia is not only chosen because it is an interesting city in its own right (it is) but also because it provides amenities and access to a larger area of Sumatra.
7. Since I’ve got 100 entries, all entries do not have to be all things. I’ve got room for urban entries and rural entries, developed entries and undeveloped entries, hot entries and cold entries, and Christian/Muslim/Jewish/Hindu/Buddist/Etc. entries. And so on. In other words, 100 choices allows me build a list of broad diversity, and I have tried to do so.

Here’s my bucket list of 100 Places to Live Before I Die:

PLACES I’VE ALREADY LIVED

1. FLINT, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.
2. FLUSHING, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.
3. FLUSHING TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.
4. CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A.
5. NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, U.S.A.

PLACES I’D LIKE TO LIVE

6. ADAMSTOWN, PITCAIRN ISLANDS
7. ANSE LA RAYE, SAINT LUCIA
8. ARUSHA, TANZANIA
9. ATHENS, GREECE
10. BAGHDAD, IRAQ
11. BALYCHY, KYRGYZSTAN
12. BEIJING, CHINA
13. BEIRUT, LEBANON
14. BERLIN, GERMANY
15. BUCHAREST, ROMANIA
16. BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
17. CAIRO, EGYPT
18. CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
19. CLUJ, ROMANIA
20. COLOMBO, SRI LANKA
21. CONSTANTA, ROMANIA
22. CUZCO, PERU
23. DENVER, COLORADO, U.S.A.
24. DETROIT, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.
25. DHAKA, BANGLADESH
26. DUBLIN, IRELAND
27. GUILIN, CHINA
28. HAVANA, CUBA
29. HILO, HAWAII, U.S.A.
30. HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM
31. HONG KONG, CHINA
32. IRKUTSK, RUSSIA
33. ISFARA, TAJIKISTAN
34. ISTANBUL, TURKEY
35. JACKSON, WYOMING, U.S.A.
36. JAKARTA, INDONESIA
37. JERUSALEM, ISRAEL
38. JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN
39. KOLKATA, INDIA
40. KOROR, PALAU
41. KYOTO, JAPAN
42. LAE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
43. LAGOS, NIGERIA
44. LAHORE, PAKISTAN
45. LA PAZ, BOLIVIA
46. LHASA, TIBET (CHINA)
47. LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA
48. LONDON, ENGLAND (U.K.)
49. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
50. LUANG PRABANG, LAOS
51. LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
52. MAHEBOURG, MAURITIUS
53. MANAUS, BRAZIL
54. MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN, U.S.A.
55. MARRAKECH, MOROCCO
56. MATAGALPA, NICARAGUA
57. MC MURDO STATION, ANTARCTICA
58. MEDAN, INDONESIA
59. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
60. MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, U.S.A.
61. MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
62. MIAMI, FLORIDA, U.S.A.
63. MONROVIA, LIBERIA
64. MONTPELLIER, FRANCE
65. MOPTI, MALI
66. MOSCOW, RUSSIA
67. MUMBAI, INDIA
68. NAMPULA, MOZAMBIQUE
69. NAPLES, ITALY
70. NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, U.S.A.
71. OSH, KYRGYZSTAN
72. PARIS, FRANCE
73. PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA
74. PLACENCIA, BELIZE
75. PORT ELIZABETH, SOUTH AFRICA
76. PORTO, PORTUGAL
77. REYKJAVIK, ICELAND
78. RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
79. ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
80. SAMARA, RUSSIA
81. SAMARKAND, UZBEKISTAN
82. SANA’A YEMEN
83. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A.
84. SAPANTA, ROMANIA
85. SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, U.S.A.
86. SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA
87. SHANGHAI, CHINA
88. SIENA, ITALY
89. SRINAGAR, INDIA
90. STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
91. SUVA, FIJI
92. TOKYO, JAPAN
93. VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
94. TIMBUNKE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA
95. VUKTYL, RUSSIA
96. WARSAW, POLAND
97. WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A.
98. YAKUTSK, RUSSIA
99. YELLOWKNIFE, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA
100. ZACATECAS, MEXICO

Why don’t you leave your own list as a comment? It doesn’t have to fit the length or criteria of mine… the idea is just to imagine where in the world is so fascinating that you would love an opportunity to inhabit and explore.

I wanted to post today, but I’m trying to crank out the new chapter of Shattering Glass and finish raking the leaves and mowing the lawn. So I decided to go for something simple. Here are some videos that had amused and delighted me in the last month or so.  I hope they amuse, delight, and possibly even inspire you, too. I’ll be back next week with something more sober and serious. Happy Thanksgiving!