[D-G] Thoreau, etc.

[Cain, Prof. Jeffrey]

How's this?  Thoreau wrote, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life . . . "  but NONE of this is possible anymore, even if it were possible in Thoreau's own time (which is doubtful).  What is not decrepit in American scenery is the generica--it blooms sturdily outside every little community, even if the town itself is rotting away.  The big shopping malls are closing because it's too much work to park and then walk around inside them--it's easier just to expand all the generic chain stores and strip malls and make the entire landscape into a gigantic mall in which you can drive your car to the front of each store.

only the generica is alive, everything else is dead or dying . . .