Some of our group wanted to do the arch (there’s a kind of funicular that goes to the top), but Obama was speaking there, so the area was cordoned off. Natalie and Jenni went to the speech and said the vibe was wonderful, hopeful and optimistic, with women noisily correcting him every time he said, “IF I become president,” with cries of “WHEN, WHEN!” People were carrying “Republicans for Obama” signs.
I rode southwest in search of a museum on the edge of town that ended up being too far. I passed a day-old bakery with a suggestion to “Get your buns in here!”
A yard with a dead plushie.
The central plaza reminds me of Karl-Marx-Allee in the former East Berlin. The civic buildings are remarkably similar — the architecture of control, as some would describe it, has a grammar that transcends ideologies.
This was only a small portion of this allee. If one turned around, one would see the Arch at the end of the boulevard, a piece of massive sculpture that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Soviet Union. None of this shock and awe takes away from the magnificence of the arch or these government buildings, the feeling that we can only surrender in the face of such awe-inspiring solidity, power and symbolism. I’m getting carried away.
A few of us ride through the empty center of town to the Grand Center arts district where the venue is located. We pass block after block of vacant office buildings and warehouses, beautiful buildings most of them. Steven comments, “At least they haven’t torn the buildings down and replaced them with ugly modern condos.” Some have signs on them that they are available for lease; others stand dark and empty. There is no traffic. It’s Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., and we can ride down the middle of the street in the center of town.
The venue, “The Fabulous Fox,” is a former movie palace in the Orientalist mash-up style — strangely skinny Buddhas sit in sconces, lions with glowing eyes flank the lobby, and an elephant looms way up high above the proscenium. It’s way over the top and massive, almost the size of Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
There are “inspirational” pinups above the urinals in the men’s room.
Jackson Browne and some of his band came to our show and we chatted a bit afterwards. A former girlfriend of his was close with Jenni when Jenni was a kid, so they reminisced. It turns out we have Spanish friends in common as Jackson passed through Zahara, the little town on the Atlantic where I’d spent a few summers. He was impressed that big TV personalities, who also summered there, like El Gran Wyoming, would sit around with the local townspeople and sing songs late into the night. There’s no pretension, which I also found incredibly refreshing.
