The Opera House

[elbom]

Comments

[darksomnabule]

this is a great photo. i love the car in front of this grand, lonely building.

[elbom]

This used to be a busy, cosmopolitan town. It was supposed to compete with Minneapolis -- but it never happened.

[darksomnabule]

Yeah, I think that's the case in many places. Also, I think things have become so centralized, whereas before, when people didn't travel as often, towns of all kinds could sustain so much on their own. For instance, my mother grew up in a small town in Indiana. It had 15,000 people when she was born in 1933, and it still has that population. In the 30s and 40s, they had multiple cinemas, live theatre, and many shops. Now they have no movies at all; people travel to a larger town for all of those things. they have no live theatre, and most shops have been replaced by walmart. shitty world.

[elbom]

Yes, most of the action here takes place at Wal-Mart and SuperTarget, on the south side of town, while the previously glorious downtown, north of the railroad tracks, looks like a ghost town. I remember the same thing happening in Jerusalem. There used to be so many movie theaters in downtown Jerusalem, each with its own character -- not to mention bookstores, record stores, restaurants, interesting shops, new places to discover -- but with the rise of the giant mall on the southernmost tip of the city, which looks and operates like a heavily guarded military fortress, the classic downtown quickly faded away. This whole arrangement is very convenient, functional, economical -- and I do appreciate the advantages -- but it's less exciting, that's for sure. I've seen the same thing in London. I was there in 1984, 1991, and 2005. All the cool little stores were gone. But we all know where they are now: on the internet. The wide variety of obscure, non-mainstream stuff that used to be out there -- and that Wal-Mart, Target, and the malls

[bigeis]

How many real estate developers have looked at that building and thought, "I could turn this into loft apartments so easily . . . "?

[elbom]

That would make perfect sense -- if it wasn't North Dakota.

[shimmerhawk]

Awesome building. I didn't know that was in GF.

[elbom]

Beautiful, isn't it? It's on Third Street, one block east of this place:

[shimmerhawk]

And a neat old chocolate store! Places like that are fun. :)

[elbom]

Home of the Chocolate Covered Potato Chip...

Did you see this?

[marlowe1]

http://www.benyehuda.org/ramxal/migdal_oz.html

Ramchal's plays. As opposed to his books about being a good person.

Tell me what's going on in them. SOmeone on weirdjews2 said that they were beautiful and Shakespearean. I'm sorry there's just one.

[elbom]

I love the flowery, over-the-top, pre-modern language. It does feel like a classic comedy, with a few terrifying, almost tragic moments: young lovers, blocking characters, a series of misunderstandings, the truth is revealed just as they're about to be put to death, a happy ending. And it's also very didactic: God is omniscient, the ultimate judge, you can't hide anything from him, etc.