Offerings at the Nashville Garden & Antique show, the tony annual fundraiser for Cheekwood.
Some inhabitants of the town I call home are “Bless their heart”-ing
Travel & Leisure magazine right now; Nashville was recently named on its list of
America's Snobbiest Cities (we're number 13!).
Hold your outrage for 10 seconds, and think about that, Nashville: a magazine named
Travel & Leisure thinks our city is snobby.
Now, I'll say it with you: what the fuck? Sans the f-bomb, that
translates to: exactly what parameters are the magazine's editors using
to make this determination?
In the annual
America’s Favorite Cities survey, we asked readers to rank 35 major
metropolitan areas for features such as trendy
food trucks or
good-looking locals.
To determine which city has the biggest nose in the air, we factored in some traditional staples of snobbery: a reputation for aloof and smarty-pants residents, along with high-end shopping and highbrow cultural offerings like classical music and theater.
But we also considered 21st-century definitions of elitism: tech-savviness, artisanal coffeehouses, and a conspicuous eco-consciousness (say, the kind of city where you get a dirty look for throwing your coffee cup in the wrong bin).
People have long been bemoaning the dumbing down of America.
The Closing of the American Mind
was written in 1987. You know things are going really downhill, though,
when someone names Nashville “Snobbytown USA,” partly because people
are standing in line at food trucks. Come check out Nolensville Road,
y'all, we stand outside there, too.
Good looking locals? Things must really have changed on Dickerson Pike since I last travelled that road.
Aloof? Okay, I'll cop to that, but I spent the first 30 years of my
life in NY and VT, and sometimes I still can't stop people from telling
me more about their personal lives within 5 minutes of an introduction
than they'll learn about me in 5 years.
Metro's public
schools critics would be delighted to have a talk about “smarty-pants”
residents. Travel & Leisure is actually right about that; I can't
count how many times I've overheard a conversation between a 5
th grader, trying to show off what they learned in school that day, only to be silenced by being told, “well aren't you
smart ...”
Yes, we have a Le Creuset store, and now, a Nordstrom's. But most of my
friends and I do our shopping at TJ Maxx & Goodwill. I do have one
acquaintance who has more than one pair of Imogen + Willie jeans and he
got them free, for modeling. Gee, maybe we do have good looking locals,
after all.
Classical music? Okay. We love our
Schermerhorn and our Symphony, even if they are having some financial
difficulty at the moment. When our city flooded, our Symphony moved its
show outdoors and played for free. What did yours do, T & L?
Yes, we have theatre. That's theatRE. Unless, dear
Travel & Leisure magazine,
property of American Express Publishing Corporation,
you're that afraid of showing your Gold Card roots. I'd like to move
on, so let's just say: “everything else is priceless,” and skip on to
why Nashville, specifically wound up on list.
“Long before the Grand Ole Opry came to town, Nashville was known as the
Athens of the South, with its well-heeled and distinctly un-hillbilly
crowd. Today, the foodie culture
sometimes attracts celebrities; at sushi bar Virago, in the Gulch, you
might see famous residents like Nicole Kidman or Sheryl Crow. Nashville
also extends the red carpet to compulsive email-checkers: it won the
survey for its excellent wireless coverage.”
Wow. Nashville has excellent wireless coverage. How terrible? And
seriously, is it so awful for a city to be called “home” by successful
artists? When did that become a bad thing? How many young people flee their hometowns because the best jobs going are behind a counter at Golden Corral?
Either “snobby” doesn't mean what these editors think it means, or
somehow, it lost its negative connotations. Aspiring to something better
is never going to be a bad thing, as long as you've got supporters who
want to go with you. It'd be a bit disturbing to think the editorial
staff at a magazine called “Travel & Leisure” didn't want
America's cities to have any kind of cultural enrichment opportunities
for the average Joes & Joans wouldn't it? Especially since the hotel
that keeps earning the top spot(s) on their annual “Best of” list goes
for $2k a night and offers rustic experiences that leave people
breathless:
“The leopard hunt was the
highlight of this safari for us. Even though we came back a little late
in the evening the excitement didn't stop there. The lions were coming
through the camp so we had to scamper to our tents very quickly. Lots of
hippos outside as well and the elephant in the backyard never even
bothered with us.”
Okay, so maybe it's true. With an editorial agenda like that, maybe
having a world class Symphony, with its own performance hall and cushy
seats, does leave blue blood splattered all over downtown Nashville.
I take it all back. Pass the Dom Ruinart, someone. And if there is
none, I'll take a Yazoo. The criteria didn't say anything about craft
brew.
