Rye Bread Politics:
the logic of urban loyalty.

A slightly modified version of a 1998 essay from aquarium town, a zine I published back then

The staff at Cafe Qué Tal : they made you feel like a part of the neighborhood

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We loved our few blocks of city because of their familiarity; because we knew the menus of our restaurants by heart; because the folks at the cafe knew that I wanted a double-lowfat-latté every time I walked in. Conversely, it seemed like a fabulous adventure to go to another neighborhood, to places where no one knew us and anything could happen.

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(and, of course, things have changed since this was written)

I heard the line on a TV show about people in New York, which you can recognize if you want to. The setup: George's parents go to eat dinner at the house of George's fiancée's parents--the first time the two sets of parents have met. His parents are cranky white ethnics, while her parents are remote, wealthy and WASPy. Though his parents bring rye bread for the dinner, her parents don't ever put it out on the table. Offended at this slight to the rye bread, George's father steals the loaf back before leaving his hosts' home. During the car ride afterwards, George's parents justify this breach of etiquette to their mortified son, on the basis that his fiancée's parents' snub of their bread represented an even greater lack of taste and decency. George's mother further expresses her shock and indignation with the declaration, "People take busses for that rye bread!"

"People take busses for that rye bread!" Never mind that the fiancée's parents probably never eat rye bread; that unstated fact just adds fuel to the running joke. But it's not just that. This particular rye bread deserves special reverence and respect: people take busses from other neighborhoods to get it.

In other American cities--if you want to call them cities--people drive everywhere. I guess the joke in those places would be, "People drive across town for that rye bread" but somehow that lacks the same punch. I suspect that this joke gets big laughs only in San Francisco and New York, and maybe a few other American places with dense populations and at least semi-functional public transit.

There's something about living in a big city, and in a small neighborhood within such a city, that inspires strong loyalties and involvements in the drama of tiny things.

In other cities, one rye bread is more or less like another. In other American places, people acquire passions about one Mexican restaurant, maybe; but in San Francisco and New York, people carry indexes of dozens of these little affiliations in their heads. As I live here longer, I acquire more; one set gathers under the category "In the Neighborhood" each time I settle in to a place, while I might call the other set of loyalties "Things Worth Taking Busses For." I have no car.

Now that I'm living alone, I have to acquire a new set of loyalties. They're a little more far and few between in my new neighborhood, maybe because I'm alone and not nesting with S., but also because the main features of my new neighborhood are a large supermarket and a bunch of bars.

Still, some of the "Things Worth Taking Busses For" and "Things Worth Walking a Few Blocks For" of my old apartment are now my "In the Neighborhood" joys, like Zante Pizza and Indian Cuisine's Indian pizza, or Mitchell's macapuno ice cream.

In my old neighborhood, when I lived with S., I acquired a strong sense of place. Every shop and every building warranted examination and comment. The Bay Guardian described the coffeeshop across the street from that house, Cafe Qué Tal, as "The Best Reason to Wake Up in the Mission" and Cafe Qué Tal, probably more than any other place, was the center of our neighborhood.

There were two other contenders.

The laundromat next to the cafe had its own connected role for people who didn't want to buy expensive coffee--but many of those who laundered also bought lattés for the waiting times between wash cycles.

Especially if you spoke Spanish, you might have spent time across the streeet getting your hair cut by the drag queens, gay men and chatty girls of the Victor's staff. But haircutters gather communities unbound by geography, and Victor's did not live by the love of its neighbors alone. As a neighbor, you might have just admired Victor's ever-changing holiday displays, or waved at Victor as you walked by, or seen the not-entirely-happy-boy you used to know from somewhere else, living now as a cheerful girl hairstylist, buying coffee at Qué Tal on her break.

Rye bread politics, continued...