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.

Originally published last week in Sweet Tooth #3 (downloadable at www.culturecandy.org), this is my take on the ‘Baton Rouge aesthetic.’ Assigned and edited by Alex Cook. (Thank you Alex.) I was trying to fuse Tom Robbins and Dave Barry, as if such a thing were possible. I lost the italics in cutting and pasting the text, but, on the other hand, I also caught and corrected a typo.