Out Of Stock Pt. 3
(Concluding a paper for the 244th Congress of the Forum for American Folklore.)
3.13.35.301 “Pinball”
The studio enacts a complex program for dense agglomerations comprising extensive ramping, actively energizing storefronts and kiosks, moveable access-gates, vibrant situational lighting, quiet side-lanes, nodes for repose, active aural stimuli, timed event-windows, and a comprehensive scoring of citizen activities.
2140 Junior Architecture Studio, description from the Belltower School of Architecture Year in Review, 1999.
3.13.36.323 “Carpet”
Today, what remains is a vast overgrown lawn, dashed with split-rail fences, dotted with forsythias, Here and there, a little treehouse left up in a little maple tree.
Eric Beebe, “Brasstown: A Toxic Legacy,” The Wisconsinian (October 1979), p. 31.
3.13.37.328 “Flatpack”
“This kind of experience can be found waiting within the existing city, in long pieces, in the market streets. Many bulk goods sitting on their cardboard, rolls of sod, plastic slides, brick veneer, arcade machines, dog bubblers, baskets of rushes, fat-bottomed birches, curly bulbs, gas jets, manholes and manhole covers, sparrows, curb cuts and long sprayers, with cans of pink spray paint.”
-Dex Brickey, A Liar’s Guide to Bangkok. Phazer, 1995.
3.13.38.332 “Flight 800”
Behind the scenes, things get more complicated. Baker and the rest of the staff spend the better part of every day sorting and re-sorting artifacts from the old days of Eau Claire that have been saved by families or found in junkyards. “When people find out about what we do, they really want to help,” Baker explains. “But it means more time figuring out where everything should go – and how to tell its story.”
Lena Zwack, “A Piece of the Past: Old Eau Claire,” Museum Today (September 1993), p. 66.
3.16.42.388 “Gag”
In the land of the Countrypolitan cartoon, ground floors are taken up by bars; above them are offices for corporations and therapists. Beyond a little suburb, where the men stand outside and the women work inside, there are mountains, with a guru atop each one. The sea is lightly dotted with tiny islands, each one held together by a single palm tree. People look at each other with a curious mix of jadedness and disbelief.
-Tom Gross, “Introduction.” 75 Years of the Countrypolitan, Countrypolitan Press, 1998.
3.16.44.393 “Single File”
I’ve been walking this road so long/the houses start to look the same/I walk this line till I discover/it’s just one thing after another
Prudie Chapman, “One Thing After Another,” Prudie Chapman, TNT Records, 1985.
3.16.45.397 “Good Faith”
The Beekman
Roast beef, roasted tomatoes, and cheddar on sourdough
The Dreyblatt
Turkey, carrot, sprouts and Russian dressing on marble rye
The Samson
Capicola, prosciutto, muenster and swiss on a torpedo roll
-menu from Dreyblatt Street Diner, Chevy Chase, MD, ca. 1997.
3.17.46.411 “Paradisical”
I imagined a city on the side of a fluffy white cloud/but the definition changed as the cloud rolled by
-Billie Cautley, “Sitting on a Hill,” Here I Come, Amara Records, 1978.
