There's a place where I work, rather two places where people tend to congregate and not move and socialize. Two squarish areas. One of the areas even has a square on the carpet. I've noticed this behavior and have been curious about the reasons for it. Then it hit me. Each of these areas have five different ways to leave them. The four standard boxlike exits--and one offshoot. Five points.

Five points in Huntsville,
Five Points in Atlanta.
Five points in Birmingham.

All three of these places in the Southeast have been places that have drawn artistic and differently minded individuals (usually in the lower economic classes) to them.

Who tend to not leave.

Why?

Witches were buried at Crossroads to confuse them. Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul at the crossroads. And who are most like the seers of the past? The painters, the musicians, the poets, the "weird" ones who not only won't, but are unable to live a 9-5 existence. There's too much to be done in the throes of the night.

I look in my own area of five points (Huntsville) and see musicians and artists and craftspeople who seem to actually care about their craftwork. I see poetry not only in words, but in the lives that are lived.

Having had a problem with being a shadow artist and only now coming into my own voice, I finally understand what drew me to the place. All the artists, all that energy I wasn't aware of at the time, but learned of over the years. There's tremendously talented people in my city, and a lot of them live in my neighborhood. Five points.

Five points in Huntsville, Alabama where there is a mill house after a mill house aftera mill house. And each one is different and unique, shaped and decorated in so many individual styles so as to render them unrecognizable as the cookie-cutter housing units they were back-in-the-day. The place has character.

Like every city, the existence of an economically underpriviliged, yet culturally forward-seeking community draws people from all walks of life. The most unfortunate aspect of this is that it draws people seeking to improve it economically, yet having no grasp of the cultural underpinnings. It would be one thing if they were patrons of the arts, but it's quite another when they obliterate other outlets of culture to further their own cultural agenda of middle america commercialism. We already have that everywhere else, we don't need it in these pockets of difference. Which is why people in these areas need to be very aware of what importance their neighborhoods are to them, what sense of history there is, and to look forward without losing sight of what is.