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'The Most Radical City on the Planet' is poised to receive 3.7 million Dollars, for tearing down the library and installing a vacant lot. Ever since 1992, when Los Angeles residents got-together and gifted their hometown with scores of vacant lots, these urban amenities have been the rage in Progressive Cities. And Jackson can truly pride herself on being one of America's leading cities, in this regard.
I quote someone named 'Payne', who explains: "...And in reality, when you think about it, that space, which is located right there, just in front of the two museums, it would be a really beautiful green space,” Payne said. “When people come out of the museum, they will have a space to lounge, to relax, and just to enjoy downtown Jackson.”
From a purely experiential standpoint, this is a total win-win-win! After enduring the barely-survivable horrors of trudging through museums, imagine the compounding of the trauma, caused by being in the presence of BOOKS. Just as the smell of rubbing alcohol, triggers childhood memories of shot needles, the very smell of books, is all it takes, to reopen old wounds and reaffirm the victimhood status of the participant.
Instead, The Peoples need time to depressurize - to adjust their piercings - to send selfies to the folks back home, whom they may not see again, for hours - to get out their vape accessories, and "enjoy Downtown Jackson". This is why Lounge Lawns (AKA: 'Vacant Lots') are conveniently-spaced, throughout Jackson.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 09-22-2023 at 07:07 PM..
Reason: simpler title
In all fairness, libraries have been closing around the country — and the world — for years now. Surprisingly, the UK has seen the most closures, and this is pre-dating the pandemic years. My personal biased opinion is that we’re being ushered into a new dark age, despite all the usual facile explanations about everything being downloadable and remotely accessed now. Sure — by those who have the resources and know-how and awareness that a resource even exists. I mean, how many people know or are interested in the fact that the Nag Hammadi texts are accessible online for free? Most don’t even know what Nag Hammadi is, and if you told them, would probably shrug and dismiss it as an irrelevant curiosity.
Nag Hammadi is a great symbol for the state of our cultural legacy in peril.
In all fairness, libraries have been closing around the country — and the world — for years now. Surprisingly, the UK has seen the most closures, and this is pre-dating the pandemic years. My personal biased opinion is that we’re being ushered into a new dark age, despite all the usual facile explanations about everything being downloadable and remotely accessed now. Sure — by those who have the resources and know-how and awareness that a resource even exists. I mean, how many people know or are interested in the fact that the Nag Hammadi texts are accessible online for free? Most don’t even know what Nag Hammadi is, and if you told them, would probably shrug and dismiss it as an irrelevant curiosity.
Nag Hammadi is a great symbol for the state of our cultural legacy in peril.
HOW have just-barely heard of this? This is HUGE! Thanks for that link. The granddaughters and I will delve into the Nag Hammadi. Hopefully, no Rockefellers have a say in the trove's preservation. Last I heard, they were encouraging the mishandling (and subsequent crumbling - before researchers can even photograph them in their entirety )of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which must pose a threat to the Rockefeller Watershed's cosmology - or their misanthropic pursuits).
But yes. We ARE entering a new Dark Age. Again, the world is in the clutches of multiple cabals of criminal psychopaths (This time, though, instead of a cluster of dangerous religions, the cabals are wielding an amalgam of pseudoscience and egalitarian ideologies. But their true goal, again, is to rob and enslave the peoples of the world.) The bad actors in Jackson, are merely expendable pawns of the cabals.
And Yes: it's time to begin hiding records of how things are, and how they have been (books, magazines, phonograph records). ...hide them DEEP - beyond the reach of the various probes ...hide them when one is sure no satellites or contact tracers/cell phone trackers are watching. ...hide them before "Rural Broadband" completes the surveillance grid.
If memory serves wasn't the Welty library building originally a Sears?
There are plenty of libraries in the Jackson Metro. That spot seems to me to be a great opportunity to build a landscaped green space in front the of the historical museums.
The attack on libraries across the nation (book banning etc) is another matter entirely and very sad. But as far as better use of this particular space, I was kind of excited about this building, which has always been an eyesore, being torn down and replacing it with something picturesque.
If memory serves wasn't the Welty library building originally a Sears?
There are plenty of libraries in the Jackson Metro. That spot seems to me to be a great opportunity to build a landscaped green space in front the of the historical museums.
The attack on libraries across the nation (book banning etc) is another matter entirely and very sad. But as far as better use of this particular space, I was kind of excited about this building, which has always been an eyesore, being torn down and replacing it with something picturesque.
Yes, it was built as a Sears. I went into the Eudora Welty Library once and recall seeing a plaque indicating it was dedicated in the 1970s.
I just finished talking with my priest, who grew up in Jackson. He remembers going to Sears at that location, and to the previous main public library, the building of which still stands across State Street. https://maps.app.goo.gl/eNWfZLyxFUwtarFn8
He also remembers Sears at the Metrocenter, which was built in 1977 or 1978. I’m not sure if the Sears on State relocated to the Jackson Mall or Metrocenter,
I haven’t seen the library in person, and from the photos online it does look to be an unattractive building (I always marvel at the total bankruptcy of taste in buildings from the 60’s and 70’s. What was going on with people’s sense of aesthetic in those decades?!). On the other hand, the significance of the closure and demolition transcends aesthetics. We are talking about a library named after Eudora Welty, a Mississippi cultural icon and literary talent. She is part of the MS literary heritage. Welty loved MS and chose to stay in Jackson, her hometown, her entire life, and actively contributed to its cultural life. It feels disgraceful and disrespectful to demolish a library bearing her name.
I haven’t seen the library in person, and from the photos online it does look to be an unattractive building (I always marvel at the total bankruptcy of taste in buildings from the 60’s and 70’s. What was going on with people’s sense of aesthetic in those decades?!). On the other hand, the significance of the closure and demolition transcends aesthetics. We are talking about a library named after Eudora Welty, a Mississippi cultural icon and literary talent. She is part of the MS literary heritage. Welty loved MS and chose to stay in Jackson, her hometown, her entire life, and actively contributed to its cultural life. It feels disgraceful and disrespectful to demolish a library bearing her name.
It's from '46, so the design dates from almost the exact date of the end of World War 2. Jackson Jambalaya: Remembering the Sears building I'm imagining that the Drafting Architects flew home from Germany, and immediately got started on the new Sears. The style is 'Moderne'('Modern' without the "earnestness"/dogma/Socialist ideology). Moderne from that period was quite handsome. Google Image pulls up NOTHING. But I'm familiar with the style - particularly with a subset: Moderne's '50s Neoclassical/Beaux-Arts fusion, which looks so unimpeachably authoritative - the architectural equivalent of a Chanel suit.
This was right before the GI Bill caused every podunk cow college to create a school of architecture. So, American architects, right after the war, were still from good families, still came from a Beaux Arts academic background, and were aesthetics-first. (later - continuing into the present day - math and dogma came to dominate, to the near-exclusion of anything else - the apex of the resulting ugliness producing such Nixon Era Modern horrors as Jackson's Metrocenter)
A savvy team (both designers and clients), would have researched the style/goals/ideals/era which produced the 1946 original. Then, they would have expanded upon the original - putting themselves into the minds of the best designers of that era.
But that's not what happened, back when the building was adapted to its current use. I see that the remodel happened in the mid-'80s. My Decorator says the style, superimposed upon the '40s original, is 'Postmodern Neoclassical'. It's a kinky, fun style, when done with enough audaciousness and verve.
Nortpark Mall, originally, was an absolute masterpiece of Postmodernism. And recently, I found, for a friend relocating from LA, a Postmodern Neoclassical villa, dating from the early days of Hattiesburg's Canebrake community - waterside - and dirt-cheap, considering it's within yodeling-distance of the two richest men remaining in Mississippi. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/7...78044839_zpid/ The design is klutzy. But it offers such opportunities for fun. Unfortunately, the house (whose waterside pavilion, alone, made it worth north of a million) went into contract before she could call (and before I could snap-it-up for my Cousin Crazy, whose Pop Art paintings, Dinosaur replicas, and Pterodactyl chandeliers would have found a worthy setting - once 'The Oracle' had banished the timid interior colors).
But verve and audacity did not happen for the Welty Library. I'm not sure the Architects even understood the concept of 'History'. They may not teach that, at "State". To them, it may have been "Traditional". Somebody representing the City, or the Library Bureaucracy, may have just told some institutional architect (who normally designed schools and other prisons), "Wuuuuuuae won't eeeeeeeyeyyyiiiiiit tuh buuuuuuae traditional." And the Architect may have considered his firm to have delivered "Traditional".
So, for the last six years, Jackson has had the opportunity to fix the damn roof (time for white single-ply, anyway, I'm sure), bring in the dehumidifiers, epoxy the bricks back into place, and to give to the Postmodern re-do, the whimsy and audacity it should have had, since 1986.
Unfortunately, the Marxist junta imposed upon Jackson by outside forces, has no desire or intent or ability to make anything better.
Last edited by GrandviewGloria; 09-29-2023 at 07:21 PM..
Episode 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGi1X4ov05s This is a beautifully executed exchange between Dick Cavett and Welty and I think everyone who watches will appreciate and enjoy this. A rare treat. I only wish that Cavett had asked her to read an paragraph or two from her short story "Livvie," or "Petrified Man."
Episode 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGi1X4ov05s This is a beautifully executed exchange between Dick Cavett and Welty and I think everyone who watches will appreciate and enjoy this. A rare treat. I only wish that Cavett had asked her to read an paragraph or two from her short story "Livvie," or "Petrified Man."
Thank you so much, Seadory, for these videos! Years ago, I watched a film version of 'The Ponder Heart', in which an uppity piece of White Trash was pronouncing 'Mrs.' as MIZRIZ.
Apparently, whoever shaped that production of The Ponder Heart, had watched these segments of Dick Cavett, and so had heard Miss Welty talk about 'Mizriz'.
Possibly, in her day, or among people she'd know, 'Mizriz' was used in a pointed way. However, by the time I came along (and in the backwoods places where I was, before we moved to Fashionable Northeast Jackson), the only POINT, in saying it that way, was to make the point that one was educated.
The same sorts who pronounced 'Athlete' as "ath-uh-luuuuaeeete", said "Mizriz". ...the same sorts who, today, think that to overpronounce the word 'A' (as opposed to the letter 'A'), as one would pronounce the letter (instead of just saying "ah", as one should have been taught, while reading aloud in Sunday School) makes them sound "professional".
And I did not miss hearing Dick Cavett note that Miss Welty did not attempt to write in dialect (something they both found odious and awkward - not that knowing so, is going to stop ME from doing it, as the above paragraph should illustrate).
Also, I'm trying to imagine living in an era when male talk show hosts were not hideous little psychopaths with disgusting hair. Dick Cavett and Johnny Carson (both before my time), from what I've seen, looked and acted like actual humans.
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