The Party Crashers - a work of fiction

It was during the heady days before the violence started. When a badge of honor was to be had merely by hearing the words, “get ‘em outa here…get a job, loser!” But how to slip into the party, past the bouncers, unnoticed among the truckers’ hats, beards, strawberry blonde wigs, and over-sized t-shirts?

What if we just covered our own sign to fit in with the crowd until he starts to speak? Then we remove his support cover and wave our own. That seemed easy. And it would involve tape or rubber cement, or something else so primitive that wasn’t even an app for it.

But the last march was a thousand years ago; at least 1973. What would it be like now? The passion is as intense, but it’s about a person, not a cause. Or maybe it is a cause because the ravings against innocent people seem to garner as much support and anger as those who fought us so hard so many decades ago.

Yep, there had been other causes to support: women’s rights, Native American rights, animal rights, hungry and homeless kids, voter suppression, the building of McMansions; even the silly fuss over a Hooters coming to town. But this seems urgent. A demagogue feeding the frenzy of bigotry and xenophobia that surfaced 8 years ago. The fears stoked by an economy that hasn’t completely recovered and by terrorist strikes overseas and in the Republic.

But, what would the younger protesters think of our subversive plan, when, with all their chutzpah, they just throw on a protest shirt and get into the rally? Why were we planning such undercover tactics? Maybe because we’d been watching The Americans too long, and the appeal of covert action was more appealing than the in-your-face methods of our youth.

So, two signs of equal size are ordered on-line. The rubber cement comes out, and the board of one sign is carefully attached on top of the other sign. We’re excited. It’s been too many years, and too much life that pushed action to the side.

The BIG day arrives. We take a bus to the stadium for numerous reasons. Everyone on the bus is a big fan so it’s like a party going to a U2 concert…or maybe more like a Ted Nugent gig. The commotion is huge: a line of devotees snaking around blocks, parking lots, and lawns. Groupies are everywhere with badges on cowboy hats, American flags, the celebrity’s face on masks and hand-held fans, kids in costumes and, of course, those t-shirts, wigs, and zillions of signs.

A large group of protestors is gathered and chanting some anti-hate slogans tossed our way. But, because of our age and color, we fit into the fan crowd pretty well. We just bite our tongues and try to stay cool among talk so different from ours. Finally we’re at the entrance. Security is HUGE, but we lie our way in. The excitement is palpitating: the biggest performance in the country is about to begin! There’s a warm-up show with a preacher and dancing girls. The excitement is getting more feverish, the crowd getting more heated. Hmmm….would we be safe unveiling our true colors? Would our age save us from an angry crowd?

At last the real show begins. He comes out on stage to a deafening uproar of adulation. After minutes of basking in the worship, he finally speaks. It’s now or never. Our hearts are pounding so hard and we’re sweating so much, we pretty much look like everyone else. We glance at each other – now is the moment. The multitudes are so entranced that no one’s paying attention as we lower our sign and rip off the cover.

Up goes our sign and we start yelling at the top of our lungs, “Build Bridges, Not Walls”!!!! Everyone around us starts booing and yelling at us. HE finally notices us and seems genuinely shocked that the blue-hairs in the back are actually protesting him. So, instead of calling us losers, he politely says to security, “please guide the little old ladies out (we’re younger than him)….pick up your Social Security Checks and go home, darlings.”

Well, THAT was disappointing. I guess it’s back to raising hell on-line and in the papers.

  

What Becomes a Classic Most?

The first thing you notice when you drive up to this icon of steel and glass is the view – all of Los Angeles twinkles below you. The L-shape wraps around the pool, and the surrounding panorama is the support for this free-floating span of glass. Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #22, otherwise known as the Stahl House, arose in 1960 at the apex of what became known as Mid-Century Modernism.

Figure 1 CSH #22 Pierre Koenig 1959-60

Figure 2 CSH #22 Pierre Koenig 1959-60

An American reflection of the International and Bauhaus movements, this more organic and casual form manifested itself in residences that transported modernism into post-war suburbia. Inexpensive steel, open floor plans, and lots of glass brought the outdoors in. This was a fresh, clean look that made room for sculpted furnishings, intense colors, and “atomic” styling’s that looked to a bright and optimistic future; one that hosted the bold, forward-thinking “can-do” attitude of the west.

Figure 3 CSH #8 Charles and Ray Eames 1945-49

Nowhere was this more exemplified than in Arts and Architecture magazine’s 1945 challenge to architects: design an inexpensive prototype of a house for America’s burgeoning middle class. By the time the program ended in 1966, although many of the designs had never been built and many of the houses didn’t move beyond a prototype, architecture and interior design was forever changed.

Figure 4 CSH #18 Craig Ellwood 1956-58

Figure 5 CSH #21 Pierre Koenig 1958

Modernism became a classic. Just as 20^th c. art did, this architectural movement influenced all other aspects of international culture, from commercial projects and industrial products, to film and fashion. And, like other furnishing styles that have become classics – rustic, Neo-Classical, Eclectic, Scandinavian, and so many others – Mid-Century Modernism is timeless. Sometimes it takes a back seat to novelty looks of the moment – remember the big, poufy florals of the 80’s? But it was always there for those who wanted a more pared-down look, and it’s the chameleon that fits into every eclectic interior. It can be a fabulous Danish lamp sitting atop a rustic vintage farm table, or the sleek single-cushion sofa that supports the pillows of antique Guatemalan fabric.

Figure 6 A Beautifully Curated Assemblage

Perhaps John Etenza didn’t know the effect that his Case Study House program would have on the future of design, but its imprint is everywhere, and we love it.  And, thankfully, it will influence our design sensibilities forever.