a pastel rainbow

“Rows and rows of built-in drawers. She opened them smoothly, stepped
aside, gesturing with her hand like a wrongly accused smuggler sneering
at a cusoms agent. G-strings, silk panites, bikini briefs, garter
belts, teddies, camisoles, cotton panies in a dozen colors. Panty hose
still in the original wrappers. Stockings from fishnet to sheer.
Push-up bras, front-opening bras, bras with holes for nipples to poke
through, bras with straps that crossed over the back. Red, black,
white, and a pastel rainbow.”

—Andrew Vachss, Hard Candy, 1989.

the color of starving roses

“Carpet runner on the corridor floor as thin as a stockbroker’s ethics.
The walls were beige filth, the doors the color of starving roses.
Numbers scrawled on their faces with black grease pencil. Murky light
fell in spotty pools, most of the overhead fixtures wrecked—pre-mugging
preparation.”

—Andrew Vachss, Sacrifice, 1991.

Street diamonds

“A corroding van sat diagonally across from us, grounded on four flat
tires, an indistinct figure behind the wheel. An orange BMW approached.
Stopped. Man on the passenger side stepped out, went over to the van.
Money showed. A hand extended out of the van, a Ziploc bag held aloft.
The streetlights caught the vials of crack inside, sparkling. Street
diamonds.”

—Andrew Vachss, Sacrifice, 1991.

A Bloody Red Pole, Bullet Holes and A Shiny Beast: Stalking the Baton Rouge Aesthetic

The Baton Rouge Aesthetic: What is it? How can I describe this city’s unique je ne sais quoi? Baton, Rouge, aesthetic, unique, je ne sais quoi? There’s something going on here, and I think it’s . . . French! Sure enough, ‘le baton rouge’ or ‘red stick’ was, according to Wikipedia, the name given in 1699 by French explorers to ‘a reddish cypress pole festooned with bloody animals and fish,’ a boundary marker between Indian hunting grounds on the Mississippi River.
    A bloody red pole on a riverbank, ‘festooned’ with rotting carcasses? This is our civic source? A bloody pole?! So let us praise the most romantic of the romance languages: French. As Anais Nin noted in her famous diary, French words, when spoken, ‘fly in the air like messenger doves.’ Particularly for those who don’t actually understand it, French casts an aura, (or, ooh-la-la, it spritzes a perfume) over all actual meaning. Baton Rouge sounds good, and it looks good in print. It’s exotic and appealing, especially when Tabby Thomas gives it his Baton Rouuege twist.
    The architectural history of our town is full of twists. ‘It is pathetic,’ wrote Mark Twain, ‘that a whitewashed castle, with turrets and things . . . should ever have been built in this otherwise honorable place.’ He was referring of course to the Old Louisiana State Capitol Castle, built in a distinct style that the architect, a New Yorker, wouldn’t you know it, christened ‘Castellated Gothic.’ That translates, in 2008, as ‘Weird, But We Love It,’ and the building is now justly celebrated, a symbol of tolerance for the often unfathomable taste of others.
    The ‘New’ Louisiana State Capitol, completed in 1932, an enormous erection, is the tallest state capitol building in the United States. The view from the top is great, but otherwise this shaft of marzipan sandstone is somehow a disappointment. It’s too simple and too symmetrical, and, sadly, its distance from any skyline competition makes it look lonely. The vast, desert-like front steps, accented with Egyptian art deco motifs, lead to an interior that is all metal and marble and bullet holes. The overall effect is unnerving, and suggests to me nothing so much as the terrible weight of history.
    But that was then and this is the new millennium. If you’ve been downtown even once in the last several years, you’ve probably noticed the latest architectural trend. Between the Old and New Capitols, flashing brightly and then lurking in the shadows, like a molten fusion of the I-10 bridge, the Earl K. Long Medical Center, and the stacked concrete cubes of the East Baton Rouge Parish Courthouse, the tentacles of a frosted glass and stainless steel octopus are stealthily creeping through our downtown. Resembling a giant futuristic kitchen appliance, the Shaw Center for the Arts, the asymmetrical building with a hole in it, is the head of this shiny beast.
    Baton Rouge’s architectural vernacular, the housing style that surrounds most of us most of the time, is another creature entirely. I am referring to the simple but proud houses of neighborhood after neighborhood, generally dressed in creative and contrasting colors. The Baton Rouge aesthetic that surrounds most of us most of the time rests here. It is these houses and their lush green lawns. It is the sidewalks and streets of red brick, concrete or the grey and black tarmac. It is simple color, misted by the humidity. It rises with the glow of freshly fallen crepe myrtle blossoms.
    The Baton Rouge aesthetic? It’s in the sky, it’s the Gulf Coast light, soft and pearlescent. It’s in the air. It’s the sound of sirens and the steady surf of a highway in the distance. River traffic and occasionally even a steamboat calliope. It’s the ice-cream truck melody with a hip-hop beat, and the lonely ghost call of trains in the night.
    Baton Rouge is famous for its blues. Live music is often in the air, and rhythm & blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll are tucked inside the air, in the airwaves. I am referring to a radio signal, that of KBRH, AM 1260, ‘student operated vintage soul’ from Baton Rouge High School, is the greatest radio station on the planet, including the internet. Really!
    That reddish pole, festooned with bloody carcasses? It lives on, as the carmine KBRH broadcast antenna, the signal from which is joy and a treat, even as it flutters and fades away at the outskirts of town.

vanilla ice cream

“‘You like that mom-and-pop food, huh?’ Rejji said, smiling at my blue-plate special of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and chopped spinach.
    ‘I like just about anything I can pronounce,’ I told her.
    ‘Bet he tops off with vanilla ice cream,’ Cyn cracked.”

—Andrew Vachss, Only Child, 2002.

Rudy Ray Moore, R.I.P.

HELIATED

“[. . .] and then [. . .] into Gately’s personal mind, in Gately’s own brain-voice but with roaring and unwilled force, comes the term PIROUETTE, in caps, which term Gately knows for a fact he doesn’t have any idea what it means and no reason to be thinking it with roaring force, so the sensation is not only creepy but somehow violating, a sort of lexical rape. [. . .] Other terms and words Gately knows he doesn’t know from a divot in the sod now come crashing through his head with the same ghastly intrusive force, e.g. ACCIACATURA and ALEMBIC, LATRODECTUS MACTANS and NEUTRAL DENSITY POINT, CHIAROSCURO and PROPRIOCEPTION and TESTUDO and ANNULATE and BRICOLAGE and CATALEPT and GERRYMANDER and SCOPOPHILIA and LAERTES—and all of a sudden it occurs to Gately the aforethought EXTRUDING, STRIGIL and LEXICAL themselves—and LORDOSIS and IMPOST and SINISTRAL and MENISCUS and CHRONAXY and POOR YORICK and LUCULUS and CERISE MONTCLAIR and then DE SICA NEO-REAL CRANE DOLLY and CIRCUMAMBIENTFOUNDDRAMAMALEVIRATEMARRIAGE and then more lexical terms and words speeding up to chipmunkish and then HELIATED and then all the way up to a sound like a mosquito on speed, and Gately tries to clutch both his temples with one hand and scream, but nothing comes out.”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

a purple-and-tan windowpane check

“He [Pemulis] wore maroon paratrooper’s pants with green stovepipe
stripes down the sides. The pants’ cuffs were tucked into fuchsia socks
above ancient and radically uncool Clark’s Wallabies with dirty soles
of eraserish gum. He wore an orange fake-silk turtleneck under an
English-cut sportcoat in a purple-and-tan windowpane check. He wore
naval shoulder-braid at the level of ensign. He wore his yachting cap,
but with the bill bent up at a bumpkinish angle. He looked less
insolent than just extremely poorly dressed, really.”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

The night’s so clear

“The night’s so clear the stars shine right through people’s heads.”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.

Mary had a little lamb

“‘Mary had a little lamb, its fleece electrostatic / And everywhere that Mary went, the lights became erratic.’”

—David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996.