Appreciation

Last week I attended the Humanities Symposium’s performance by the Decamera Singers and Players, “A Toast of the Town”. This group of extraordinarily talented people started off by performing selections from Leonard Bernstein’s “On The Town”, “Wonderful Town” and “West Side Story”. The next section of the performance was a performance of Lee Hoiby’s “I Have a Dream”. Finally, the performance ended with a musical piece, “Rhapsody in Blue”.
While I was sitting in the Chapel listening to these beautiful voices, I searched for ways in which this connected to the Year of the City and to Baltimore, but I could not. It was not until days later when I was thinking about the presentation that I realized that the presentation was not about Baltimore, but was simply about cities in general. The pieces presented by the performers highlighted New York City and Washington D.C. I think that in order to appreciate Baltimore we must also appreciate cities around the country and around the world. By learning about other cities such as New York or D.C or Boston or San Diego we can learn what qualities make up a city, and by looking at other places one could discover how to improve Baltimore or to get involved in the city.
This quality of discovering what makes up a city and what can improve a city was the basis for Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs did not visit one city, one state, one coast to determine what actions could be taken to create or change a city to make it more efficient, more effective, more connected. She visited cities all over the country to see what worked in certain cities and what wasn’t working in others. By examining other cities we can appreciate what makes Baltimore special and what makes Baltimore unique.
Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” presents the idea of appreciation. Maggie and Dee are sisters. Dee is very materialistic, the popular one in school, while Maggie is quiet and shy. Dee does not appreciate the value of traditions, of history, and of family. All she wants in the monetary value of the quilts, proven when she says’ “But They’re priceless” (pg 931), quilts that contain history and sentimental value, quilts that she would want to hang on her wall. Maggie on the other hand wants the quilts because she wants the memories and because she values her heritage. But when Dee puts up a fight for the quilts Maggie concedes saying, “She can have them, Mama…I can ‘member Grandma Dee without the quilts” (931). Here we see how Maggie appreciates her heritage and the memories of her ancestors, while Dee is only concerned with the material value of the antiques of her ancestors.
Ezra Pound’s poem, “In the Station of the Metro” is also a poem about appreciation and about observation. It is clear that in this simple poem that Pound is observing the people around her in the metro station. But it seems that she is observing the negative side of the city. But I think that she is doing the opposite of appreciating the city, but is instead through her observation she is depreciating the city by noting all of its negative and dark aspects.
Appreciation is an important part of life. In order to be grateful for the things we have we must first see what others have, or what others lack. The Decamera singers and players presented me with the ability and the chance to look at different aspects of other eastern shore cities, and sparked interest to go explore and discover not only what Baltimore has to offer but other cities across the country as well.