Agnes & Sally

The main advantage of small town life is the lack of heavy traffic (this is true also of Venice), automobile traffic, since the congestion caused by a plethora of gondolas and vaporetti mingling in the greenish waters wasting away the stones of the St. Marco gives one, more often than not, a reason to rejoice, a feeling of pleasure. There are other advantages as well: first, you're practically on a first-name basis with all your neighbors, you know everyone and everyone's children and the life stories of relatives you've never even met but heard about and seen in both wallet size snapshots and enclosed in cheap frames on living room end tables, larger than life. A small town is like a commune, at least on the surface, despite the sense one feels that once inside separate house the members of each particular family go their separate ways, even if it's only a matter of movement from room to room: kitchen to bedroom to television etc. The negative side of this advantage is the lack of privacy which comes from being part of the non-stop comings and goings of your neighbors. There's the sordid underside of every act which causes raised eyebrows, even among the most progressive or liberal minded in any community. If you're still young and go to sleep early, you might tiptoe downstairs in the middle of the night and hear your parents discussing the family down the street ("bootlegging? you mean they still do that?" "no, it's what he used to do - in Texas - how do you know he made all his money, how do you think they live?"), you might wake to the sound of a door slamming and rush downstairs to find your mother smashing her best dishes, one by one, against the kitchen wall. Across the driveway that separates your house from your neighbor's you can see your sister's best friend undressing in the moonlight at her open window. (Perhaps she even knows you're watching her!) It's a world in which gossip follows the weather as the subject, or the actual content, of everyone's conversations. It's as if the decision to share the same geographical location, however arbitrary, gives you the privilege to create a sense of intrigue and drama by simply embellishing ordinary day to day events. This includes not only being able to imagine what your neighbors are like in bed, but knowing what they're like through first-hand experience.