Essays

It’s Just So Wrong – Part 4

A week for being pissed off.

Cowboy Boot Sandals

These are so wrong I think somebody should ban them, or at least launch a social media shaming campaign. View here.

Photo: tecovasboots

BART Stations

When the BART stations were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s, we were still in the throes of modernism. Some were Miesian, some were more Corbusian. And yes, many were just bland. A few had beautiful artworks. One of the shining examples was the Embarcadero Station, full of granite and marble, floating. It was also one of the rare times that a tribute to the architect, Tallie Maule, was engraved into a BART station’s granite walls. But that is all gone now, covered up with ugly booths, ads, and clutter. One of the art pieces, a huge macramé piece called “Legs” by Barbara Shawcroft, couldn’t be kept clean and was removed. At least the Stephen De Staebler piece at the west end is still there. But the majesty of the station has been lost. This is true throughout the BART system. Perhaps the worst travesties took place when someone in BART management realized that BART stations, like everything else in this corrupt culture, could be a source of ad revenue. The X cross bars at the Rockridge and MacArthur stations are now marked with billboards. Thankfully, the two best stations, Glen Park and Balboa Park Stations, have been almost unmarred by “improvements.” I would like to suggest that these two fine examples of brutalism light (lots of lovely canopies and daylight to temper the mass of concrete) by Ernest Born be made landmarks so that BART management would be forbidden from renovating them.

Self-promotional link here.

Glen Park BART Station

Donald Trump

This is old news. But I am embarrassed to say that I am an American when someone this vulgar, this antihuman, and this idiotic becomes the presumptive nominee of the Republican party. It is just shameful. The Republicans are now Nazi wannabes. If any friend of mine is a Republican supporting this Fascist pig, I hope they unfriend me and delete me from their Rolodex. The Wall Street Republicans should be thankful for Hillary Clinton. She is their kind of procorporate candidate.

You don’t need any links here, do you?