visual culture

last night, as john and i dined recession-style on happy hour pizza and snacks at basta’s down the street from our apartment, he wondered aloud what this depression was going to look like. to most people who have taken an american history class at one point in their academic careers, the word ‘depression’ inspires black and white images of people waiting solemn-faced in soup lines snaking around city blocks, or men with mustaches and top hats swinging sledgehammers to the tune of some WPA-sponsored project in the middle of nowhere. we may be in the thick of this thing we’re calling a depression, but because we’re living it it’s nearly impossible to tell what images will be brought to mind for future generations when it’s talked about in terms of ‘history’. we left basta’s and headed down burnside towards the matador, our new default for cheap pints. west burnside between about fifteenth and twenty-first is reminiscent of the mall’s food court; mcdonald’s, panda express, and taco bell are all at your fingertips in a matter of blocks. as we passed said taco bell i paused to point out the small army of fixed-gear bikes that were locked up outside. fixes are the norm in Portland, but outside of taco bell? on burnside? strange. john gave the ten-plus shiny, gearless bikes a once-over and said, “so that’s what this depression looks like: hipsters on fixed gears at taco bell.” I can just imagine, years from now, flipping through my kids’ history textbook and stopping at the image described above. history in the making.