Giornale: Empire State Plaza

            When you’re standing in the middle of the Empire State Plaza in Albany, no matter why you’re there, your future looks bleak. The outdated architecture, established in only shades of tan, brown, and brick, does not make you feel welcome. Seeing buildings for Agenc One, Agency Two, Agency Three, et cetera, made me feel like I was rereading “1984” by George Orwell. The brightest colors I could see were in the sky.

            The architecture continues the dystopian fantasy of the plaza in such a way that if someone had described it to me, I wouldn’t believe that this was supposed to be a place for the people. The buildings make me feel the same way that I imagine I would in Tomorrowland would if Disney World had been abandoned for 50 years, like an old episode of The Jetsons. Each building is built on internal supports, giving it a floating effect, meant to induce a feeling of being in the future of America. In theory, this makes sense. Albany is the capital of New York, and thus where decisions that will strongly impact our futures are made. However, years later, these buildings don’t invoke a feeling of the future, but of a burnt out American dream. It’s frozen in time, surrounded by a world in which it no longer fits.

            Though the space is built as a public space, like I said before, it doesn’t feel welcoming. While it seems to be representative of democracy- a place for the people- it reads more like a beaurocratic reinforcement of power. There are no commodities for people to enjoy, they just have to make do with the open brick space that they were given.

While walking around the plaza I was confronted by way more “No Entry” signs than I would have expected from a supposed public space. Due to the fact that the plaza is essentially surrounded by government buildings, it makes sense, especially when you consider New York in a post-9/11 world, that they would be shut off from the public. However, it just reinforced the feeling that you are not welcome here. While it’s mean to be an open, public space, you can still feel the hierarchy between citizen and government worker. Every Agency building is identical, thus giving you no clue what is going on in each one. You are forced to blindly trust that they will do what’s right for you without the ability to approach and question it. The buildings feel overpowering in their stature, built to justify and remind you just how small you are in the grand scheme of things going on. Even the steps of the Capitol Building are blocked off to the public, with large metal police gates and 6 separate red “do not enter” signs to ward off any visitors, no matter the intent. The beautiful buliding imposes regality and power over the very people that democracy claims to represent.

As a whole, Empire State Plaza feels like its namesake- an empire. The subjects of that empire are not given the key to know what their government is doing, and expected to take any open space they can spare as a gift. It is unwelcoming and imperialistic in nature, reminding you by the sheer size of the buildings who is above you in society. They say “do not enter”, but at this point I wonder why I would really want to.

Ekphrasis

A streak of white, a gentle shine contrasts with the pink icing, dripped perfectly over the dough of the donut. 

From afar, the dounts, one balanced upright, that same donut balancing a second donut in its center, appear a perfect picture. Two perfectly fried treats gleaming in the light, tempting you like a secret. “Eat me,” they appear to scream, like a treat from Alice in Wonderland, more pristine than any Dunkin Donuts ad the company could throw at me. The frosting looks so good I feel as if I can taste it by looking. The dough looks fluffy but crisp, the ideal donut, a perfect creation; a feast for the eyes in the sweetest way.

Close up, however, the illusion is broken. White streaks of paint, strewn on a canvas tell me where the sun shines. The pink icing, a myriad of streaks and strokes of a paintbrush, shows me the strategy of planning, where the artist placed her shadows, what the pinkest pink she believed would pass for a real treat could be, exactly what shade ought to be where in the perfect icing creation. The dough, once flaky and fluffy and crisp is now oranges, shades of orange in dots and lines, creating the perfect picture. The lines across the donuts where a fryer couldn’t reach are strategically drawn in in shades of white and cream. The shadows cascade in planned out gradients, mixed by the hand of an artist, not a baker. The oranges fade from beige to brown, flowing together in splotches of shadow and light to find the perfect mix for the sugary confection of the two donuts, on canvas, painted gently, painted sweetly.

Tang Museum, March 23^rd. Big Pink by Emily Eveleth, 2016.

x

Voyeur

I sit in my car and watch the family in the lot next to me. A woman- young, probably in her mid-20s- is standing outside her Toyota Rav-4 in the parking lot. The door to the left back seat is open as she tries to buckle a flailing toddler into her car seat, but the kid doesn’t want to sit. She wants to run.

A man with two dogs on leashes walks by, causing the child to scream with joy. This makes everything harder for the mom, as she wrestles her restless child back into the car seat. Finally one buckle clips, and the child resigns herself to the car seat, to having to go home. The second buckle in the cross clips shut, and she shuts the back seat door.

A mother’s day never ends; holding onto the cart with one hand, she tries to open the trunk with the other, but it doesn’t work. She moves the cart to the bit of space between her car and the next, opens the trunk, and unloads groceries one bag at a time. 

Once she’s done, she pulls the cart away back towards the storefront. Exhausted by her day already, at 11:30 in the morning, she trudges back to the car and gets in the drivers seat. She takes a sip of the iced latte in the cup-holder and shifts into reverse.

I don’t think she saw the woman rushing through the parking lot behind her. She reversed fast, whipping out of her parking space, coming dangerously close to hitting a pedestrian on the way out. But she doesn’t, the car turns, and she’s gone.

The parking lot is ravaged with pedestrians and irate errand-runners; rush in and rush out, that’s all there is to it. 

(Target Parking Lot in Wilton, 2/23/19)

Momentary Blindness

The dining hall is not as loud as usual. On weekends it never is.

“You know-“ I heard. I didn’t hear the rest.

            My phone buzzed, I could feel it.

            Someone is coughing at a table nearby me; she stopped soon after. I hear someone chewing a cookie, someone else sniffle, someone putting a fork on a plate. Someone else is sipping coffee rapidly. The mugs hitting the table sound different than the cups do.

The girl coughed again.

I can smell pancakes- or, I think they’re pancakes. I hope they are. I can smell hot chocolate on the table next to my laptop, the smell of the breakfast of each passerby, the pizza being made, omelets and fruit and dough.  

People continue to come in and out of the dining hall. I’m seated by the entrance, I can hear every footstep. Each conversation in snippets- “I’ll meet you guys right here”, “where’s the restroom?”, “so what do you want to do?”, “and then she…”. The crowds are picking up, I hear a lot of feet shuffling, and a single cane clanking against the floor. The zipping of coats surrounds me as people get up to leave, their brunch coming to a close. The clack of flip-flops against the floor leads me to question the weather, but it’s the weekend, so I don’t question anything. C’est la vie. Someone’s sneakers are squeaking. Perhaps he stepped in syrup.

Over all of this I can hear my laptop keys clack and feel the bumps on the F and J keys as I type, and now I can see again.

(Murry Aikins Dining Hall, 2/2/19)