(dave e)

that guy's probably part of the Sears contest that's going on right now. similar to the recent contest where people raced to see who could visit the most major league ballparks in a season, this guy was doubtlessly running from hither to post trying to be photographed before the most buildings vacated by the failing department store. hmmm. reminds me of the most photographed barn in america here, dave. i mean, do you realize that the silver spring centre didn't matter to you or me at all until you took this guy's picture? do you realize that because of this photographic recording act, you found the link to the "notable buildings of silver spring" web page? and because of this photographic recording act, you were likely pleased to find that this building did in fact register on someone's site as "notable." hmmm. fulfilling, wasn't it? i mean, it was for me. so fulfilling in fact, that i needed to create a narrative around that photographic recording act in order to both define it and memorize it.

i've just got one question for you... if i send an email to a friend about this comment i'm posting, is that life-writing i'm doing? or is it folklore?

by the way, dave. you are the absolute BEST at making adverbs and verbs out of nouns.

i am totally smitten with the notable silver spring office buildings page. i celebrate its implied resistance to the unhappy look of the new discovery communications centerpiece. and your narrative just must absolutely be true.

except.

i left out that he was west african and really seemed to have found some sort of true meaning in that building. i tried really hard to come up with a story for him that didn't somehow involve an imagined i-love-america-because-i-just-sent-a-letter-from-that-post-office-and-i-want-to-send-a-picture-of-it-back-to-the-folks-in-ghana.

i think maybe he's on the photograph-old-sears-buildings-for-sears contest.

what, is it uncool to talk about simulacra and sign systems these days? what about the most-notably-photographed-building-in-Silver-Spring? what about myth making?? what about GOD?!?!

right. the building had no gestalt until it became not just the bourgeois "silver spring centre" but the meaning-endowed and meaning-bestowing simulacrum through which a nigerian guy with a tattered disposable camera got interpellated into the suburban semiotic.

see, i think the notable office buildings of silver spring collection, in its heartfelt tug toward nostalgia, is engaged in an effort to restore the inherent value of the material, a too-late rage against the demise of the pre-modern. that's what the lee building, the silver spring centre (note the olde worlde spelling), and the world building provide. antidote to the discovery world-headquarters postmodern (i honestly believe that the most important part of the discovery building is the prominent satelite dish array on the west side roof) (or the largely unused green space on wayne, fenced off to keep the city place mall unrulies out, i guess)... i don't hate the discovery building; i just try not to look at it. and where does the gorgeous AFI marquee fit into the old/new silver spring aesthetic? the "downtown silver spring" sign at colesville and georgia? by the way, that sign totally cops the style of the elvis presley boulevard sign at I-55 and e.p. blvd. seriously.

i started off being goofy, but i think i actually wound up agreeing with this. fritz, what have you wrought?