Interactive Monday: More Mocks, Faux and Fakes
An article in today's Times about the Tokyo Tower turning 50 got me to wondering how many homages to the Eiffel Tower there are in the world. I've seen and driven under Torre el Reformador (above) in Guatemala City, and I understand that there is one in Paris, Texas.Do any of you know of others?
This summer a couple with a Nebraska twang walking behind me blurted out "San Francisco is just like Buenos Aires." When I turned and sneered back at them silently, the woman nearly gasped. Maybe that doesn't happen in Omaha, or at lest Lincoln. If Buenos Aires is a faux Paris, I'm not sure what that would make San Francisco. I just know San Francisco in no way resembles Buenos Aires. We can't even bury our dictators, members of the Doors and elite here.
The Eiffel Tower was greeted with the same disdain the Transamerica Pyramid received three decades ago. Simply surviving, however, is not a guarantee of gaining credibility, let alone gravitas. The San Francisco Marriott, for example, will be considered as hideous in the next
Millennium as when it opened in the 1980s and brought Far North Dallas Gauche Faux Deco Baroque to South of Market. The fact that all of the glasses in the penthouse bar broke during the 1989 earthquake proves that there truly are acts of an angry god of art. The building itself, however, will probably still be standing after "The Big One".Much of my life I've thought I was a fake but feel I've matured into being more mock or is it mawkish? Perhaps I need to go back to Guatemala City, sit under the tower and soak in the proper waves of falsiness.
UPDATE: If you look closely at the clouds to the left of Torre el Reformador, doesn't there appear to be a cowboy hat?
And here is the tower of Paris, Tennessee, that is five feet shorter
than the one in Texas.UPDATE: Oh, and lest I forget, we have this lovely eight inch Eiffel Tower in the mini-Edwardian greenhouse right here at the Junkplex.
Labels: architecture, Japan, Paris, San Francisco, Texas, Union Square
posted by Ladrón de Basura (a.k.a. Junk Thief) @ 10:38 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Bud and I passed through Paris, Texas on our road trip from Oklahoma City to New Orleans. We stopped at a gas station to ask for directions to the cowboy-hatted Eiffel Tower, and the lady behind the counter told us, "Well, I can tell you where it is, but it ain't much to look at." And she wasn't kidding.
Dave - Gee, so much for Texas pride. I feel honored to have been to the Cadillac Ranch on the west side of Amarillo.
Last evening, I heard that Portland is sometimes referred to as "The Paris of America", due to our vibrant restaurant culture. This strikes me as a bit much, especially in a state that also plays home to the Wallowas, sometimes known as "The Switzerland of the Americas".
In 1989, I was in community college. One day at school I overheard a young lady discussing the earthquake that had just happened in San Francisco with a friend. "That earthquake was so gay!", she said, without a trace of irony.
Rich - Oh, the city mothers of San Francisco would not stand for another city being called the Paris on the Pacific, or the Paris on the Columbia.
I'm sure that when the big one happens it will be a great chance for the televangelicals to blame the fags just as they caused Katrina. I wonder who would be blamed for a quake in Alaska? I guess there are a number of lesbian pipeline workers that are worthy of such blame.
Where does that leave L.A?
GULP!
WAT - I've heard several people say Santiago, Chile, is the LA of the southern hemisphere. It certainly has LA beat on smog, but people actually ride the subway (which is excellent) there. I've been there twice and love it.
The attenuated silhouettes make me think of people dieting to get into Heaven
Susan - "Dieting to Get into Heaven" sounds like the title of some hip, NYTimes best seller.
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