Everyone loves talking about Connecticut, amidst the rest of the NYC suburbs. Is it because the state is a locus of endless anxiety? Are you drifting toward it (millennials having children), or away (retiring boomers)? Are you accepting its charms or rebelling against its homogeneity (is anywhere not homogenous now)? The suburbs are class conflict enacted: Previously, the wealthy moved out of the city to leafier pastures. Now, Manhattan is the province of the wealthy, like The Villages but designed for heirs and influencers instead of Parrothead retirees.
Connecticut, lacking much of an independent identity of its own, is a perfect blank canvas onto which to project these insecurities. The New York Times has even noticed that CT is rebranding, echoing OT’s previous newsletter, Connecticut is a trend. “I can’t think of a personality in Connecticut, at all,” one influencer told NYT. The state’s new marketing slogans are “Make It Here” — manufacturing, or personal economic success? — and “Find Your Vibe,” which might be more relevant if CT had a wider array of experiences to offer. On that note, here is our first dispatch of fragments on CT, an attempt toward a phenomenology.
Kyle Chayka:
An artsy couple, friends of friends in DC, decided they wanted to scope out a move to Litchfield County, CT. Over dinner, I cautioned them against it. You think you’ll be close to NYC and will pop in casually, but you really won’t. The couple loved woodsy Sherman, and put in an offer sight unseen on an unextravagant house. Of course, an inspection revealed that the house was a disaster and they had to pull out. I think they’re headed for Beacon, NY.
Another slogan for CT suggested by a local friend: “Everyone can be fancy in Connecticut.” (If your idea of fanciness is traipsing through the woods along a centuries-old stone wall.)
Local, digital-first media is thriving. For a true glimpse of the Connecticut id, I recommend following Dan Woog, the town scribe of Westport, CT, on his blog named for the zip code. All the drama goes down in the comments section. Then there’s @westportmoms on Instagram, an account that mingles relatable parenting memes with local event announcements and restaurant updates.
I laughed when I saw the Tacombi that recently opened in Westport. It’s a white, garage-ish building with Mexican street-style signage, totally divorced from its New England suburban highway context, but as placeless as any other big-box retailer. Tacombi is a scalable brand for authentic tacos: The company got a $27 million investment round from Danny Meyer and is expanding to multiple states. (The tacos are indeed pretty good.) So now you can have an authentic midtown Manhattan experience in Connecticut.
Nate Gallant:
Should there ever be an ongoing list of stores that were gentrified out of New Haven, the one that devastated me the most was Labyrinth, an independent bookstore that is now, last time I checked, a Bath and Body Works. The dank, old wooden shelves were replaced many years ago now by the bright onslaught of candles and soap. But I remember two distinct things about the space as a bookstore: first was that there never seemed to be anyone working there; second was a near constant feeling, not of surprise, but true and utter shock at the books I encountered. Philosophical tomes and social criticism I had never seen before or since. Poetry now long lost. I don't remember if there was even fiction. I was told the bookstore was an anarchist cooperative — it was firmly not. Whether my impressions were because of a lack of education, or the fact that I went most often near the end of its existence, or an element proper to the flows of the store itself, would be hard to say now. But I know I have almost never felt the same in any bookstore since (even its sister bookstore in Princeton).
What might be the poetics of Hartford? Is there, potentially, a site of poetic encounter, specific to the insurance capital of the United States, between Wallace Stevens and Ocean Vuong? Between high modernist in the extreme, largely apolitical Stevens, and our era's current, Barthesian elegist of, among other things, queer life in immigrant communities? I cannot say for sure yet. Does the answer lie somewhere along the strangely lauded skyline–possessing a bland centre like any other mid-size metro-area city, but perhaps with sharper, more curious edges…?
Enough with the New Haven pizza. It's fine. Instead, go to Lucibellos and get yourself the best cannoli you've ever had, along with perfectly sculpted, properly baked and jellied rainbow cookies, still packed in a giant white cardboard box and tied with a red and white string heaved down from an enormous spool on a pulley in the ceiling.
Expand your outlook: Maybe visit some of the more diverse, less gentrified, post-industrial towns -- Torrington, Bridgeport, Waterbury, New London, Norwich. Also, don't forget to pick up some vinyl at the Mystic Disc.
My fiancee lives out in Easton with some horses. It's difficult imagining that sleepy little place being "it," but I suppose anything is possible haha