Bourdain on Pekar’s Cleveland.
By Jen | July 13, 2010
Anthony Bourdain joins the ranks of those paying tribute to the brilliant, acerbic Harvey Pekar, who died yesterday. If you’ve seen the episode of No Reservations filmed in Cleveland, wherein Bourdain outs himself as an unabashed Pekar fan, it’s no surprise that his is one of the most touching and honest paeans to the man and his work.
“What went wrong here?” is an unpopular question with the type of city fathers and civic boosters for whom convention centers and pedestrian malls are the answers to all society’s ills but Harvey captured and chronicled every day what was–and will always be–beautiful about Cleveland: the still majestic gorgeousness of what once was–the uniquely quirky charm of what remains, the delightfully offbeat attitude of those who struggle to go on in a city they love and would never dream of leaving.
(I know another city kinda like that, too.)
When you’ve finished reading that, go here. Be sure to click every link.
