American Air

After reading all of this week's reading, I found "American Air" most interesting. Langewiesche uses his experience in flight to interpret to the readers the arrangement of American Landscape and how it represents the Americans as well. In summary, Langewiesche talks about his view of the landscape from the air and how certain landscape can be identified by style depending on what part of the country it is at. What I found most interesting was how he perceives the grid system. "About this, the main feature of the United States landscape, it is curiously hard to find anything in books... it was drawn up on paper before the people came; so it was literally a blueprint for a future society. I think it is a diagram of the idea of the Social Contract; homestead by homestead, men would sit each in his own domain Free and Equal: each man's domain clearly divided from his neighbor's" The unique way the American Landscape is spread out is what makes it different from the rest of the world. The land individualizes each man to his own land but at the same time, the systematic way in which it is laid out shows unity and collaboration. Langewiesche talks about how ugly a town looks like but at the same time the beauty is possesses. He deems it ugly because of its similarity to every other town. It is all laid out in the same way that there is absolutely nothing beautiful or special about it. But when he is flying through a town during the night and seeing it all lit up, he can truly enjoy the beauty of it because he says "People went out into this vastness, built a home here and lit all those lights. A proud sight, just by being there." This interprets to how Americans just headed out, found a plot of land, started a town from which other towns were eventually born. It seems that what he sees is the beauty of finding something in absolute nothing and making use of it in such a way that it inspires future generation to do the same. He also pinpoints the fact that people's ideas and what they do reflect on the landscape itself. Just like the article, "The Aesthetics of Ascension in Norman Bel Geddes's Futurama" implies that the better the town/city/landscape looks, the more independent and evolved the humankind seems. I guess this is rather true compared to the changes in the twenty-first century. The better and well-put the city looks, it naturally seems that the people who live in these cities are well off.