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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   2804 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 3, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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If you are in some city away from home, and you have a free afternoon and want some entertainment, what do you usually do? Due to certain circumstances, I have been traveling a bit lately, and sometimes I have some free time that I wanted to occupy by e.g. seeing some performances or listening to live music or something like that. So far what I did has been occasionally successful (seen a good play) and occasionally failed (couldn't find anything worthy). Complicating condition I don't want to see (or, consequently, help with my money) anything related to agenda-pushing or wokeness. Several times just opening the site for some local theaters was basically a huge turn-off because it was so full with woke jargon that I couldn't trust them enough to go for anything. Other cases, I am not sure how to evaluate e.g. local bands - there are a lot of them and I have no idea if any of them would interest me. I would like to improve my search quality if possible.
So, what would you do in such situation (beyond the obvious like google, reddit, etc. searches)?

Atlas Obscura has lists of "cool, hidden, and unusual" things to do in cities. Just google "Atlas Obscura [city name]" for the link.

Food tours are a good way of testing out the city's gastronomy while learning some history along the way.

There is also the excellent french yt channel Axolotl

Atlas Obscura

Very interesting site, of which somehow I never heard before. Thank you!

Food toors would be awesome, unfortunately I have some dietary restrictions that usually aren't a problem in a regular restaurant but frequently make me unable to enjoy things like food tours since I can't eat a lot of what they offer, or have to very annoyingly interrogate about what each thing is made of.

I walk around in the park and avoid people while scrolling on my phone

I love parks, and usually always spend some time walking if there's one nearby. On an occasion, though, I feel ready for more active entertainment.

I usually walk around the city center and check out local churches and museums, but I guess this won't work in the USA.

In Europe, it has been a very successful method indeed. However, as you noted, in the US not many cities have centers that work that way. Maybe some East-Coast ones like Boston would be, but most won't I'm afraid.

The US actually has a lot of local culture, and particularly if you’re willing to drive every two bit town declares itself the world capital of some stupid thing or other with an interestingly kitschy museum to match.

I had the "walking" part, not the "culture" part in mind.

I'd say most American cities east of the Mississippi have some sort of historic downtown area that's nice and walkable.

Honestly, I love those. They've got a lot more personality than the twenty-third generic Classical Art Museum.

Generic Classical Art Museum, in my book, is still way better than a generic Modern Art Museum, the latter is almost guaranteed to push a political agenda and have a lot of works whose only merit is that their creators check the necessary boxes. And, they usually have "modern art", which, despite listening for hours of lectures on how to properly understand it, still looks very much like garbage to me. I am not allergic to all modern art, just to about 80% of it, and it's mostly what consists the majority of the collection of a generic museum. But yes, excepting major cities and some special cases, a street walk would probably be more interesting than a generic art museum, even the classic one.

You can probably assess whether you'd like a band with 1-3 15 second clips of their music.

Start a blog reviewing the music and plays you like and offer better posts as freelancer content to the small remaining local outlets, get press access to events you could possibly be interested in and interview people?

Go to conventions for things that interest you and try to have friendly acquaintances within an hour of a given metro area, treat them to dinner and figure out the local situation from them?

I'm very quick to judge music based on, like, the first minute. I don't think that's unreasonable as a song's beginning sets the tone for pretty much the whole thing.

try to have friendly acquaintances within an hour of a given metro

That likely won't happen. I'm the introvert's introvert. I mean, I feel more exhausted after a 15-minute conversation with a stranger than I do after a good heavy lifting session. It's not that I can not make a dinner with a stranger, and be pleasant and funny and all around enjoyable person. I can, and I did. It's that for me it'd be the diametrical opposite of rest and relaxing. I'd have to recharge for like a week after that effort. To really enjoy somebody's company and relax, I have to know the person preferably for a couple of years, maybe more. But I feel perfectly fine in my own's company too, and in fact in most cases prefer it to the company of anybody, except maybe my wife and a select few other people.

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