Buffalo Flavor

I forgot how ugly Buffalo is. Or, I didn't notice before, because it was my home. Towards the end of my time in Europe, I was looking forward to what I thought of as Buffalo's 'neutral look.' Not good or bad, just blank and grey. I was looking forward to this because being in Europe can be a little exhausting on the eyes. It is too attractive. Being an American in Europe for an extended period of time is like staring at someone with a perfectly symmetrical face: the beauty is overwhelming, and then boring. I needed something off center to focus my lens. A crooked nose, or a strip mall, a hairy mole, or a street in trash and dirty snow. 

Buffalo greeted me with rain and wind, and that weird smell that it is: wet diesel and fried food and smoke. The flat road seems to get flatter. You are hoping it's going to be one of those nights when the scent of Cheerios is blowing all over the city (Buffalo is home to a very aromatic General Mills factory), but it's not. There's just that heavy air that pulls you in. I started to feel a little nauseous. I was quiet, but feeling cranky inside, when I remembered about the food thing. How the eggs don't really taste like eggs. And I know some people who would disagree with me. About the food thing.

Buffalonians get notoriously defensive on behalf of their city, and with good reason: people are always telling them just how much "it sucks." I'm not here to say Buffalo is what it's not, and there are a lot of aspects of the culture I just can't get into. But there are some beautiful things happening in this city too. 

And on the other side of that link are people who will not be in the paper, and projects that will not be advertised. We have so many unsung heroes. It's not that other cities don't have a lot of grassroots energy, but the bleakness of the landscape in Buffalo makes our projects pop. I swear, you've never met people like these people.