Reflections on place-based art viewing

viewing art in the context

This is going to go a lot of places as my substack essays often do but I was recently listening to J.D. Vance’s millennial running playlist “Running #1” (he’s just like me) which features among many other amazing inclusions “San Francisco” by The Mowgli’s. This song, about the city 20 minutes (no traffic) from the city I was born in, is so painfully 2012 but also so associated with my early teenage years that tears welled up in my eyes as I listened to the band shout-sing Do you feel the love I feel the love c’mon c’mon let’s start it up let it pour out of your soul. The song is not good. I am embarrassed to even admit listening to it made me emotional but I recently spent the summer in San Francisco for the first time in six years and then I moved to Canada. It’s getting cold here, colder now in early October than it gets all year where I’m from. It’s “Canadian Thanksgiving” tomorrow, a holiday which I as an American don’t celebrate (I didn’t even know it existed until this week) so I will probably spend the day tomorrow holed up in my warm apartment writing this.