Tuesday, July 19, 2022

Does Ovid Need a Metamorphosis?

Ovid Supermarket (photograph: Hallie Cohen)

There is an Ovid, NY and by the way a Romulus if you’re on the way to Rome (New York, that is) and naturally a Syracuse and Ithaca. They don’t advertise too many tours of the ruins of Rome, NY though like a lot of other depressed upstate areas, there are indeed ruins usually in the form of the kind of defunct 19th century factories Dreiser wrote about in An American Tragedy. Why is much of upstate NY named after the ancient world when there's no resemblance is a question that has never been adequately answered, apart from the fact that it came about during the Classical Naming Period of New York State history, 1789-1803? However, the first thing that’s likely to go through the head of the itinerant traveler is, does Ovid need a metamorphosis? The Ovid supermarket with its red awning presides over Main Street and at the corner is a pizzeria which also offers wings. The next block down even boasts a Chinese take-out place. So the short answer is why change anything when it's all there?

read "Diasporic Dining: The Roscoe Diner" by Francis Levy, HuffPost

and listen to "Bernadette"by The Four Tops


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