Fauxmont is a fictional wooded neighborhood in Northern Virginia. Fred recently moved into the neighborhood, in Nov 2010, and is getting to know his neighbors. He passes on their stories through his blog.
It came to mind in May of 2010, after I threw my back out. I lay on the floor to relieve the pain and watched light change on an otherwise featureless white expanse of ceiling, which became a screen for projections of absurd and satirical imagination. Thanks to word processing software, and despite it too, the first of Fauxblog was posted after recovery in November of 2010. Recording gossip, ignorance, kindness, lies, love, eccentricity, deception, fantasy, fanaticism, insight, and sex, all through conversations. Software also corrected many but not all my spelling mistakes, which have been a lifelong difficulty.
Fauxmont blog is inspired by those countless fragmentary conversations I had with many of my neighbors when walking our Westie, Geordie. We drift from one topic to another. We take up a subject again from weeks or months before. It might be called a “Blog Opera”, like a soap opera, only in the form of a blog. These conversations built friendships making Fauxmont a community engaged in many different activities and interests. It is also a reaction to all the overheated and ugly rehtoric to be found on line. So many insulting putdowns, so much acting out, so little thought and friendship. People in Fauxmont talk to each other. They engage in conversation.
Residents of Fauxmont pronounce it “Foxmont” as there is nothing “faux” about the neighborhood to them. They share the woods with fox, chipmunk, squirrel, possum and other fauna. Fauxmont is said to have come from the French ‘Faux fuyant’, a by-way, but also a word for subterfuge and evasion.
A few famous historical figures are mentioned along with some politicians, but none of the characters living in Fauxmont is based on any real person. You may notice whimsical references to works by Lewis Caroll, Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and other writers; Dutch and Italian painting; the history of physics; the game of Cricket, and more. Enjoy your time in Fauxmont.
