Comments on: The Bad Place

By: Old is the New New :: Get Hip To This Timely Tip

Old is the New New :: Get Hip To This Timely Tip — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:27:59 +0000

[...] The Old is the New New summer hiatus continues, but Route 96, my ten-year-old summer roadtrip blog, is kicking right along. We’re in the southwest now, and well into the good stuff. Highlights so far include Graceland, naturally, Enterprise Square, Oklahoma, a decaying theme park celebrating the free market system, and Miles Music Museum, probably the creepiest museum in Arkansas. Check it out if you still love our freedoms. [...]

By: The Garden of Eden at Route 96

The Garden of Eden at Route 96 — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 22:44:44 +0000

[...] Like Floyd Miles, the nutbar music collector of Eureka Springs, Dinsmoor was clearly a few seats short of a majority. But while everything in the Miles Museum seemed unsettling and dark, the Garden of Eden was filled with good vibes. For one thing, Dinsmoor was a dyed-in-the-wool Populist, and his concrete versions of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the Devil and the Angel of the Lord are intermingled with loopy leftist political allegory. In one installation, evil concrete bankers, lawyers, and preachers crucify Labor. In another, the concrete comon man uses his vote to fight back against the Trusts–monopoly capitalism represented by weird, tentacled beasts and watched over by corrupt politicians–while a woman and a black man, still denied the vote, look on. Above it all is Dinsmoor’s representatio of the Almighty: a giant concrete eyeball and pointing finger. A hollow tube runs from the “All Seeing Eye of Providence” down into the house, where Dinsmoor used to shout into it and startle passers-by with the voice of God. (One quickly develops some sympathy for Dinsmoor’s neighbors: “Oh, hi there, Samuel. I see you’re constructing another creepy concrete octopus on our street. Great…”) [...]

By: Rollen

Rollen — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 23:10:05 +0000

Fair enough assessment of the title, I suppose – though I think the only one of the American deities I’d have enjoyed reading a full-length treatment of would be the Railroad Baron. (I wonder if he’d gain any power from mass transit or Disneyland monorails?) I didn’t even know this was on LJ – but I’ll probably stick with the link I’ve got. (Does that make me a different sort of layabout, unwilling to go LJ? Meh – I can handle that.)

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 12:49:25 +0000

Thanks, Rollen. (And thanks for commenting here, unlike the large number of layabouts who only comment to this site’s LJ mirror. I really do have a bunch of readers, honest, it just doesn’t look like it here.) My feelings about American Gods are complicated – I would’ve probably liked it more if it was called European Gods’ American Vacation, which would’ve been more accurate – but I give Gaiman great respect for including House on the Rock, which is indeed a mindblower. We did make it to the House, but that’s away on the other end of this trip…

By: Rollen

Rollen — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 02:27:49 +0000

Wow – I’m not quite sure I can fathom all the levels of demented awe and reverent freakishness that this post conveys. This is about on par with the House on the Rock scene in Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” only without a pensioned Eastern European deity planning to bash your skulls in at the end of the adventure. Well done – and I look forward to the next topper.