I had some time to kill in late August so I took a plane to Ohio, rented a car, and drove aimlessly around the Midwest for a week. Here’s a journal of some of the stuff I found along the way. 

I rented a car at the Akron/Canton airport and started west. The rules were simple: I opted not to take the interstate whenever it wasn’t absolutely necessary, relying instead on two-lane blacktop and country roads. I figured the later, while time-consuming and downright impractical at times, would prove ripe for some photo-worthy relics. I think I made the right decision.

Lake Portage in Akron, Ohio. The lake is named after an old Indian portage path that connects the Cuyahoga River to Lake Erie the north, and eventually to the Ohio River in the south. The city of Akron was first settled by laborers (mostly Irish) around 1825 who worked on building the Ohio and Erie Canal feeder systems. Some decided to build their Victorian homes right on the lake, and I have to say that I can’t fault their aesthetic judgment, even if many of these structures appear more than a little foundationally-challenged in the advent of say, a flood.

I hadn’t been on the road two hours when I found this gem: a vacant office building painted camouflage. Because the building is empty, I can only guess as to what its owner was going for, like maybe it was at one time a guns-and-ammo store, or, if I can take a stab at some intended functionality here, like a harebrained scheme to hide from the impending communist threat. Note the ‘For Sale’ sign in the window.

Travel soundtrack: Though the car I rented only came equipped with the standard a.m./f.m. radio, I was delighted to discover it did offer a 1/8-inch auxiliary jack. I found a Radio Shack in Canton and bought a connector, thereby enabling the use of an iPod and saving me from the Sargasso of modern country music and televangelist revivals that was sure to plague the leitmotif of this trip. Music in heavy rotation: Poison Idea, the Thermals, Johnny Cash, the Mountain Goats, Frodus, Murder City Devils, the Magnetic Fields, and a few others I’m too ashamed to admit here (well, bellowing along to Danzig tunes whilst traveling down country back roads, I found, can produce some damn addictive sensations).

 A dying mall in Canton, Ohio. I’ve been fascinated with dying shopping malls for a long time. The country is full of them. The notion of creating a social culture around product consumption seems so intrinsically American, and the gross excesses of this past-time is mirrored perfectly in the modernists aesthetics of these monoliths. The birth of the American shopping mall and its rise to prominence in the 1970’s and 80’s signals the effects of a generation nurtured by sprawl, white-flight and automobile culture, of a need to create a synthetic sense of urbanism inside the suburban enclave, a sub-world of stores and eateries along interconnecting walkways though displaced and safely removed from traditional main-street centers of commerce. The death of these commercial centers signals an ideological shift in many ways, though albeit flimsy, of our desires in the last decade to return to urbanism. This has made itself apparent in new open-air shopping centers that hints at a faux-populism for today’s vanilla suburbanite, of a Mculture filled with ersatz Irish pubs, regionally suspect Asian grills and fast-food bistros. Very little has changed, just our ways to entice people to buy products they otherwise don’t need.

Interior of a dying mall in Logansport, Indiana. Notice all the businesses save its Sears anchor have since left.

City Hall, Lafayette, Indiana.

Indianapolis. 

The American ghost town. Mass evacuations of the earliest cities in history can usually be cited to events like war, disease or natural disasters. In pre-war America, ghost towns were typically a reaction to new and existing modes of transport, the creation of the American highways system or the displacement of area railways. Today’s ghost town speaks of something different, namely, of a loss of jobs. America’s dwindling power as a manufacturing superpower has had a remarkable effect in terriforming the landscape.

Royal Center, Indiana.

 Americus, Indiana.

I decided to drive up north to Chicago, where I met up with my buddy Swiz. As a peace-offering I bought a pint of Ole Grandad at a liquor store in Winamac, Indiana (only $5.50, thank you very much) and we killed it before going out for a night with sweet lady crunk, Chicago style.

Swiz.

Sheep.

Cows.

Swan.

There seems to be a popular theme in northern Indiana of erecting statues of giant anthropomorphic cows wearing bibs. I have no idea where this trend started or to what length the worship of these bovine deities extends, but let it be known that this practice has my unwavering approval.

A grain elevator in Thornhope, Indiana.

City Hall, Lima, Ohio.

Columbus, Ohio. Home away from home. Swung into C-town, met up with some old friends, and did a lot of drinking. In between blackouts I managed to do a guest-spot on a friend’s web radio show, and you can hear it here:

My favorite view. Summer 2007, taste the freedom.