June 12, 2005

A friend from, ironically, Berlin, just told me about the existence of the McMansion. I have seen these abominations of space management in our neighborhood for years. Folks move into the neigborhood and buy up three old Cape Cod ranches, demolish them, and proceed to build a McMansion in its place, complete with on guard concrete lions flanking the driveway that stretchs approximately 12 feet to the front door.

Building a McMansion in our neighborhood, is equivalent to an undrafted Olympic sprinter going to an Old Ladies parchese club to compete against its members, and declaring himself the winner. If you want to impress me with that brand of gaudy affluence, then try, building one in Old Greenwich. Until you’ve pull that one off, let’s not talk about it.

Jorge-Luis Borges in his story The Aleph described an object so small yet so large in what one is able to see within. It was as if one were looking into a universe. I sometimes feel that way when I visit a quaint charming cottage with a bit of character and lots of pretty flowers in that small plot next to the front door. I think in many ways, we’ve lost touch with the charm of small things. In a frenzy to compete against the Joneses and win, people seem to be outdoing each other from burgers, to hummers, to houses, jawlines, eyes, collagen lips, bust sizes. Few are questioning what the actual aesthetic of the bigger is better mentality. When I worked with a small financial company, I visited the CEO’s McMansion out in Long Island. It was the opposite of the Borgesian Aleph:

It’s incredibly big. But there was nothing inside.