Re: <nettime> worlds without number

[ed phillips <artlore@sirius.com>]

Great letter by McKenzie as always, especially the discussions about the
rising Asian middle classes.

That mention of Brooklyn piqued my interest as well. The garment
industry has indeed been consolidating in Brooklyn in the last few
years, leaving lower Manhattan to the theme park-Soho development of the
Bowery.

Garment work is no decline, however, just an ongoing industry. A bit of
class-bias was evident in the "nasty denim dress" aspersion. For large
numbers of U.S. residents these rather inexpensive items of clothing are
useful and no decline, or sign of decline.

It might be more accurate to say that the contemporary U.S. is an
amalgam of different discrete domains and worlds, rapidly shifting,
mobile, connected at nodes of exchange. Terrible, deadly, but not in
decline. Not healthy, mind you, but deceptive. Decay is the outward,
deadly form, that public space takes on, whilst commerce takes place in
discrete, enclosed spaces. Urban asian americans are some of the
scrappiest "survivors" in this ever shifting landscape. Their aesthetic
is often "functional," "beat up old cars don't get stolen,"
"they get you in and out of Manhattan."

just adding a little more complexity.
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