Jesse's Highlights of the Year

As a way to celebrate our first year as a weblog, I've decided to look back upon a few of my favorite posts from the last twelve months. I hope you enjoy, especially for those you who missed them the first time around (which is probably most of you because some of these were written when we had 10-15 people coming a day).

Why Regionalism? (by Jesse) Published on December 18th, I believe that this piece did more to get our name out and start debate than any other (See my response to the other blogs: Regionalism in the Blogs). In this essay, I challenged the primacy of the "American" identity and called for the establishment of local identity and the concept of the 'region.'

The Mid-Hudson Valley: Biological and Cultural Estuary (by Natalie) This essay explored the boundaries of regions (in this case Upstate and Downstate) where two ways of life wash up against one another. She utilized the biological analogy of an estuary.

Visiting Eunice. (by Jesse) We have become somewhat known here at York Staters for our sometimes bizarre road trips throughout Upstate. This one has been mentioned to me by a few of the readers as one of their favorites. It details a frustrating search for a haunted mausoleum north of Unadilla and how a group of bored young men work to inject adventure and mystery into their lives. Features a poem by Joe Sullivan.

Buffalo and New Orleans, Sisters in Suffering (by Jesse) I have gotten a bit of flak for this piece, which I still quite proud of. It compares the one-day destruction of New Orleans to that of decade-long dismantling of Buffalo and how both can be viewed as a product of over-dependence on unresponsive, unrepresentative centralized bureaucracies (corporate and federal).

Tastes of the Region: Mary's Pizzeria (by Sean Kirst) This essay by guest columnist Sean Kirst (op-ed writer for the Syracuse Post Standard) is part of of our ongoing series on local foods (Tastes of the Region). In it Sean talks about returning home to the devastated post-steel town of Dunkirk, NY to find the pizza that he loved from his childhood.

I hope you enjoy these pieces and I look forward to any comments you might want to make.

-Posted by Jesse