Elf Sternberg

You know, I shouldn't mock my own town that much. It's a nice town, most of the time. The people are friendly, the management is decent. It would be nice if the streets didn't roll up at 6pm, but then maybe we wouldn't like it so much if it was on all the time.

That said, I do wish some store owners cared more. These signs have been in these respective states for weeks. I'm sure they have "Glut'n" pizza at Bison Creek; the last time I ordered a pizza for delivery from Bison Creek the dough was still raw. I get my pizza from Verona's now. And the real estate agent is apparently doing such bad business he can't afford to buy a vowel.

Ah, well.

Given that this was a parade, and we're a working-class town, a lot of time is spent spiffing up old cars and keeping them running. Below are some of the awesome vehicles that were in today's parade.

( Dragsters, Model Ts, Old Chevys. )

A few months ago, I described the new statues in our public square here in Burien, WA as "Lumpen Decepticon Zombie Art, and I still feel that way about them. They do kinda grow on you, not enough for me to want to keep them, but hey, at least I can take more pictures, ne, and try to get a feel for them.

Whoever made the female statue clearly has a feel for roboglueteus maximus, and I do mean maximus. Do we really think that robots will have the same integral design as humans? Do we hope so? The artist clearly does.

My city has been undergoing a renaissance of sorts, rebuilding its public square and replacing its late 60's-era rambler City Hall with a modern, four-storey construction of glass with a back that faces the city's main retail drag, curving along the curb, and a front that faces the city's largest open parking lot. (The satellite view is apparently after the tear-down, but before reconstruction began.) Being a modern, left-coast city, it commissioned some public art to decorate their front entrance.

This monstrosity is what they got. Called "mother and child," this 10-meter tall pair of lumpen zombie Decepticons striding across the parking lot is just the sort of thing to discourage any parent from taking young children to the city hall. The "mother" statue is especially disturbing, with her Barbie proportions, rasta-like dreads and menacing claws.

The city has recently announced that the statue is "temporary." Huh. I wonder why they might want to put a deadline on just how long this eyesore has to stay in sight.

They rented, not bought, the house. They have a very expensive, very large big red Dodge truck with what looks like a enclosed motorcycle trailer, almost the same color. They're in their late 20's, and they have five children. The two-year-old roams the street, unsupervised. The children, unkempt, apparently unwashed for several days in a row, seem almost desperate to make friends with those next door.

Yesterday, a big blue truck with Rent-A-Center came up the road. They unpacked a big stereo system and a huge wall-mounted plasma television.

Their regular friends drive a beat-up Kawasaki motorcycle, the rider cheaply armored if at all, and a totally cherried Nissan ricer, low to the ground with a sweet glossly-blue-and-logo paint job that must have cost a fortune.

Meet my new neighbors.

Actually, I haven't met any of the adults yet, but from what I've seen, things aren't promising. There's something about the Rent-A-Center television and the five children that makes me feel like I'm having a Darlyrmple moment. It might take a while for me to figure out if they're happy people or not, but I expect not. A six-thousand dollar rental television, an expensive truck and a rental home, indicates a deep-rooted expectation of instant gratification, the deprivation of which would be construed as suffering. "Much modern suffering has a distinct flavor of self-infliction. I am not talking now of the physical illnesses that derive from habits such as smoking, but rather of the chronic suffering caused by not knowing how to live, or rather by imagining that life can be lived as an entertainment, as an extended video, as nothing but a series of pleasures of the moment."