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Show THE ZEPHYRAPR1L 1991 PAGE 10 chicken fry, there are a lot of local folk who want a place where they dont have afford Sonys, but not houses; when to pay more for their Sonys than the city folk. They can could working people ever afford to buy a house? the July cosmophobia by Michael Cohen There Is a man named Rasputin In Siberia; we read his words In the New York Review of Books. Ho says his top priority Is "to protect the national, cultural, and ethnic values of local people In every region, because without those values, human beings will not even protect their own environment He is frightened of the "cosmopolitan Russian, which Is to say the Jew, who killed Christ was deprived of land, "not tied to his own native land, who brought Jewish Ideology, the Ideology of world revolution. Rasputin Is very sincere, or so Peter Matthlessen claims. There Is a woman who makes ski clothes In Jackson Hole; we read her words In the Jackson Hole News and In Northern Lights. We are told that she came to Jackson for skiing, but her grandfather was the first doctor In town. She doesnt like the new "different kind of people. They are "cosmopolitan, and they "bring their way of life with them. She sincerely prefers the "common folk. There Is a local activist In New Mexico; we read her words In High Country News; now that we are beyond Manifest Destiny, "when there was plenty for the taking, she thinks the next step Is "to think of the land Itself both as ancestor and progeny -- - not sentimental, picture window nature, but a part of our life, essential as blood. There Is a rancher In Utah; we read his words In the Color Country Spectrum. He Is a multiple use advocate, ha believes In facts, not emotion, and doesn't like the "picture book strategy of the wilderness advocates. He knows who those people are, and they dont make any sense, "unless youre 25 to 35 years old and your parents are rich and youve got all day and night to hike through wilderness areas. Uke his political allies, he believes, lt Is time we voted for the people of Utah, not the Sierra Club. These "locals are uncomfortable. They are worried about the new people coming recovered from the Ideology of the recent past, westerners are still blaming their excesses on the huddled urban masses. One says, ... as more and more cities choke on their own waste, the attitude toward wild, open land has changed from 'Use It or lose It to 'Save It" but still unable to see the past clearly, or the Inevitable future for their regions, they are retrenching. They are worried that their own special places will cease to be the small communities they have been, and will become "playgrounds where the rich can get away from their soiled nests." Rich equals urban. Rich equals cosmopolitan. Rich equals different from the people who are already here. These people see themselves as Indigenous they did not get here first, but they got here before some other people -- - and they seem to prefer common people, people like themselves, to cosmopolitans. In fact, rednecks are beginning to look better to them than the new wave of developers, and In an Interesting way, they often find themselves offended not Just by the developers although these men are usually foreigners, Greek like an alleged Jerasslmos whose name Is too good to be true, or others, with other colorful names -- - but Crassas, by the people who will arrive to ensconce themselves In condos and malls. Its a new class struggle. It Is real, and frightening. It Is beginning to take an ugly turn. This Is New West Bad News. In. Barely multi-cultu- ral has Its comic side. We are confused about lycra. We know what It Is, like synchllla, but thinner, stretchy stuff made from petroleum. It doesn't come from those cottonflelds or the skin of our sheep. It belongs, we think, In chromed gyms like the one on the main street In Durango, worn by young muscle builders and aerobic teams. It's not the sort of thing Levi Strauss built, for working underground or building fence. Its shiny, makes people look near naked. It Is embarrassing, and too damned bright Uke our skin, It wont last In the sagebrush and mesqulte; anyway we wouldn't recognize ourselves In It We dont see those old people In Wlnnebagos wearing lycra, or the people who move Into thelr homes In time for the music festival each year. Those people who wear It look strange; and we know that they will never cheat the wind. One day, In secret, we squirm Into some lycra and we look strange. We look Just like them, and they look Just like us, because they are like us, Invaders. In a town like mine you dont recognize a tourist by his clothes. A tourist Is someone who hasnt lived here for three generations, and youre not really a local unless Brigham sent you. You're not really a local unless someone of your family followed John D. Lee down to Mountain Meadows and did his duty. As for the Indians, they dldnt leave ruins which could be turned Into national monuments; they live quietly down by Coal Creek. We call ourselves the Festival City, though we are not sure what we are celebrating. The money for our costumes comes from up north or back east, like the money theater. Culture In this country has always been a pork barrel for that new It gilt-edg- ed project To hear some people talk, It Is a For a while we fought about the new Wal-Mall small let the center of town run down did the then council, businessmen, city why blight; and zone up that land down the road near the new high school? And to hear tell down at art 4 The more sobering news Is not about costumes; It Is the response to what are called cosmopolitans. What Is a cosmopolitan (from Cosmoscosmology)? Cultivated, cultured, sophisticated, urbane, global, International, universal, foreign, refined, tolerant, Ideological, revolutionary, as opposed to provincial, regional, territorial, bucolic, homespun, uncouth, unrefined, Insular, Intolerant, narrow, prejudiced. rural, rustic, gauche, Are these the qualities we fear or embrace? Are we talking about clothes, or as In the case of the Siberian do we mean Ideology? (Some of us remember Spiro Agnews references to New York Intellectuals, by which he meant Cosmopolitan Jews. Every ethnic group remembers veiled ethnic slights to Itself.) ed, There Is a figure, known as the Cosmopolitan; a certain man with a book, dressed up like a Toucan, a stranger they say. Who claims to be a philanthropist; perhaps he Is a trickster. A Confidence Man. He refuses to recognize the dark side of the universe; professes a great love of humanity (served as a wine, or main dish), a connoisseur, a taster of races. We read his words In a book by Herman Melville. Melville's cosmopolitan turns out the light at the end, relegating Christianity to another of those barren planets where dead religions reside. Is this the man we are talking about? The man who sees development as his contribution, who says haven't had a day that I don't think the place Is better as a result of that growth, who might cheat, rob, swindle, defraud, betray us? We think the arrival of the Confidence Man brings doubt, Insecurity, apprehension, and bad checks. Maybe he Is like coyote, showing up from somewhere else after we killed of the big predators. Pretty soon there seem to be a lot of his brothers around, skulking near the highways. We hope he Is planning to prey on those weak old sheep that gave the country Reagan and then went shopping for their own share of Death Valley Days. Maybe It will cost us more to kill him off than the sheep he takes are worth. 1 But his Cosmopolitan Is not really a stranger; he has always been here. He works by his attractiveness, not repulsiveness; he works because he fits In. (He looks like Robert Redford or John Wayne.) His masquerade Is successful because we all wear masks. Is It his hypocrisy we fear? The problem of Confidence Man arose, historians tell us, when In the early 19th century young men left the family farm to seek work In the cities, where they were swindled. Now, when the city Is coming to the rural west, we wonder If the Confidence Man Is our own son come home to prey on us. Things seem like they are turning upside down. We act as If Europeans havent been speculating out here all along and right from ' |