Quote:
Originally Posted by goat314
I love St. Louis, but it seems to be a very accurate description.
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it reminds me of a prosaic book i read about german social interaction with the various hard facades and sort of "trust circles." those on the inside were there for life, and those on the outside have an uphill battle - kind of the antithesis to the "new west" kind of american hyper-friendliness that can (at the extreme) dissolve into severe flakiness and lack of long term friendship over time - but also too far the other way. you kind of have swirled into that teutonic wall a southern warmness i've found with people of (obviously) southern roots, often black but often white, too.
tennessee williams, who was of course culturally very southern, clashed with this cold teutonic wall head on, of course, but also had some terrible family relationships in st. louis, i believe his family basically locked him in barnes hospital as an adult. it was also terribly hard to be a semi-openly gay man during mid-century i imagine...