Verfremdungseffekt
videodrones; questions
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2009
- Messages
- 866
- MBTI Type
- INTp
- Enneagram
- 5w4
I just found the most gorgeous spot. I was strolling through Chinatown and Old Oakland, when I hit Washington and Ninth; one of those gentrified downtown areas that have been popping up the last decade or two -- a few blocks below the Tribune Tower, a block down from that hobby store. The buildings were all restored Victorian, turned into high-end storefronts. Along the front of the buildings was a recess; at first I took it for a series of lower entrances, as to a New York brownstone. Perhaps once it had been, though, from the look of the bricks, not for decades. Yes, bricks, in the Bay Area. Down a short flight of steps, and it was another world.
The wall to the right, restraining ten feet of sub-pavement, undulated in geometric red; each other wave was capped with an ancient, rusted iron star. Riding the barrier was a pointed wrought iron fence, to protect/impale the clumsy. The floor was a more recent brick, patterned in that gentrified downtown way. Overhead was a series of thin bridges, corresponding to the street-level walkways to each street-level door. On the underbelly of each, like a limpet, was a dull square light; perhaps fluorescent. Tucked into several of the folds and nooks to the left -- more brick, punctuated by reshaped windows and glass doors opening to, the best I could tell, limbo itself -- were tall, politely leafy potted plants; tall and droopy enough to add to the overall canopy. Punctuating the spaces between overhangs -- those with their dull square lights -- were shapely, polished dark wooden... I wouldn't call them picnic tables, exactly. The principle is the same.
I sat for half an hour, soaking in the shadow of the dying sun, transported. I might well have been in Boston, or some undefined speck in Western Europe. Perhaps I was, for a moment. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be there; no one took the time to oust me, though they might just have been preoccupied. Once I felt fate had been adequately tested, I uncrossed my legs, reascended the stairs, and beat the sun back to bed.
The wall to the right, restraining ten feet of sub-pavement, undulated in geometric red; each other wave was capped with an ancient, rusted iron star. Riding the barrier was a pointed wrought iron fence, to protect/impale the clumsy. The floor was a more recent brick, patterned in that gentrified downtown way. Overhead was a series of thin bridges, corresponding to the street-level walkways to each street-level door. On the underbelly of each, like a limpet, was a dull square light; perhaps fluorescent. Tucked into several of the folds and nooks to the left -- more brick, punctuated by reshaped windows and glass doors opening to, the best I could tell, limbo itself -- were tall, politely leafy potted plants; tall and droopy enough to add to the overall canopy. Punctuating the spaces between overhangs -- those with their dull square lights -- were shapely, polished dark wooden... I wouldn't call them picnic tables, exactly. The principle is the same.
I sat for half an hour, soaking in the shadow of the dying sun, transported. I might well have been in Boston, or some undefined speck in Western Europe. Perhaps I was, for a moment. I'm not sure if I was supposed to be there; no one took the time to oust me, though they might just have been preoccupied. Once I felt fate had been adequately tested, I uncrossed my legs, reascended the stairs, and beat the sun back to bed.
