The snooze world
Wow, I'm incredibly shocked that tickets for the Jamestown 400th-anniversary celebrations aren't selling. It's almost as if pinning the economic hopes of a region on a historical commemoration--glassblowing! talks! geneological research!--was a completely freaking stupid idea.
Here's the best part:
So far, about 37,000 of the available 90,000 single-day tickets have been purchased, the vast majority of them by Virginians, said Kevin Crossett, a spokesman for Jamestown 2007, the state organization coordinating the event.
When I lived in Richmond, the Jamestown anniversary was touted as impetus for all sorts of Springfield monorail-type projects. The one I got involved in was a proposed performing arts center that, despite the handicap of its organizers constantly lying about how much money they'd raised to built it, planned to use this anniversary as a sort of rebirth party for Richmond, with a gleaming arts center at the center of an event that would draw people from around the world. Seriously.
Well, that didn't really work out as planned, and I'm proud to have played a small part in that saga. I don't really have a lot of time to follow how things are going down there now, but I understand that the city's getting involved in reopening the Carpenter Center. I've got mixed feelings about that, not least because the phrase "Richmond government involvement" doesn't exactly engender feelings of confidence.
In a sick way, I think the smoking ruins of that plan are a good thing for the city--the hole in the middle of town (the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation's oh-so-poetic legacy) should remain there forever, a monument to the jackassery that created it as well as a reminder that history, while not an especially great draw, does have a few lessons to teach.
Image taken from Mountain City Elementary School, Mountain City, Tenn.
posted by Andrew Beaujon at 14:36
6 Comments:
Can you put a point on this for me? Do you think things went wrong because "Jamestown" doesn't have a marquee name associated with it? Because history is boring and we're all kind of ambivalent about white people arriving in North America and what became of it? Because anything publicly funded generally has three discernable phases: naivete, theft, and disappointment?
Or have I misunderstood you altogether?
I have no problem with the Jamestown celebrations. I think it was optimistic, to say the least, to expect them to be of enough interest to enough people to bring the sort of economic benefits that were promised.
Worse, Richmond (which is nowhere NEAR Jamestown) staked millions of public dollars on the idea of "compression"--that a far-away event would be so popular that the city would bask in its reflected glory.
It was a bad gamble. Jamestown, it turns out, isn't that interesting to people outside of Virginia, and not even enough Virginians. Hey, maybe I'll be wrong, and tons of people will buy tickets this weekend, and Richmond will somehow become their staging ground for tourism.
But I doubt it, and four years ago, more people should have doubted that very sanguine scenario.
Looks like the event was a little more successful that it looked like it was going to be. I do believe the whole area will see some increase in tourism during the summer months but nothing like the local governments have said.
It is neat to see increased interest in the Jamestown story. I think the whole "Rock the Godspeed" event that Richmond is holding shows how far the city has come. Combine one of your most popular privately produced events. Fridays at Sunset, with something the city is involved with. Should be interesting to see how the turnout is.
This is completely irrelevant to the blog topic. I read "Body Piercing ..." and enjoyed it, and wanted to send you an e-mail but ... no contact info? I'm sure you don't want to be inundated by fan mail, death threats, solicitations for herbal Viagra, etc. However, it would be nice to be able to send you an e-mail note.
Mike said "we're all kind of ambivalent about white people arriving..."
So, of what long-term importance is Jamestown as a transformational event in our nation’s history? What legacies has it left us? Why is Jamestown relevant for us in 2007?
By 1620, or within thirteen years of their landing, those settlers cultivated some of our most important and enduring legacies that never seem to part of what we teach students of its history.
While they generally are taught that Jamestowne was the site of the first elected representative legislature and self-rule, the free enterprise system became the form of our American economy; and, English was to be the established common language of the new American nation, we usually fail to include that it is where the settlers also created the common citizen’s right to ownership of private property (and its importance to us since and today); the principle of common law as the foundation of our legal system; civilian control of the military; and new freedoms from European traditions that had bound many generations to their ancestors’ trades, classes and economic conditions.
Another legacy was that of the experiences, losses and mistakes learned in establishing Jamestown that then served to give all succeeding English and British colonization efforts, at Plymouth and then around the world, more realistic direction, instructions and expectations that had better results. John Smith was the most vocal and articulate advocate for them.
However, the most important of their legacies was their determination to succeed – or the American “can do” spirit. With that determination, the descendants of those Jamestown pioneers also forged the unique element of our American culture: a persistent striving for the freedom to better ourselves with property, innovation and enterprise.
This is the legacy that has become our American Dream. Its first seeds were planted at Jamestown 400 years ago and today all Americans enjoy its fruits. This is why Jamestown is meaningful for each and every one of us and why we should forever remember it as the seminal incident that introduced the opportunities for the economic and political innovations and enterprise that have made our nation what it is.
Wow, Jim. That was a touching speech.
Now, myself, I've actually pitched for Jamestown and found that the "story" part of her history is much more brutal, selfish, stupid, and yes, much more interesting and magnetic because of it. Ads 1, 2, 3.
I link those for a similar reason that Andrew loses patience with Richmond's public and private movers and shakers: fluffy magical thinking seldom yields sustainable economic interest and gain and often is only after-the fact gloss for greed and inflated fees and billable hours. If I may be so bold, the fluff you offer is just that kind of after the fact prettification.
"Settlers" didn't create any common right at Jamestown. The VA company grudgingly loosened strictures on property and vote in the interest of cohesion and protecting their investment - they were faced with poor freeman, indentured and slave finding disgruntled common cause in getting the short end. Money and class mattered more than skin color, and it freaked the (outnumbered) bosses out.
Senior management was in London, local management were embarrasingly inept, malicious, covetous and suspicious of their fellow "settlers." Their shortsightedness was an odd mix of immediate greed dooming grandiose plans, short-circuited by lack of humility, self-awareness and sustainable economics.
In other words, they were very similar to most of today's development and political decisionmakers. And yeah, Andrew, I had this conversation/presentation with many of said deciders back in '03/'04 when the lame idea of Jamestown rubbing off on Richmond was floated. You can bet being "easy to love" means never having to say you're sorry.
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