July 27, 2004
Day 4.
Mostly panel discussions today. Jean continues to amaze me, with a fascinating paper on Filipino American bands with the Redpath Chautauqua Traveling tent show. (I was just reading her piece in Interlope last night -- .)
Annalissa's paper on the U of Michigan archives prompts a germ of a project: a secret history of American cities and towns, a Philippine archaeology of our traces on the American landscape.
After the panels, Marie Sulit (who works on Ely Mabanglo), Joyce Ramirez (who works on "Philippine diasporic philanthrophy," and gave a fascinating paper about it), Annalissa, Jason and I decide to go visit the Arch. We hop on the Metrolink, walk through the parking garage and the park, and there it was: all 630 feet of Saarinen-designed steel and concrete.
It's a lot smaller than I thought, but it's magnificent regardless; the clouds would drift across the sky and be reflected on the arch's surface. We go through security and check out the Westward Expansion Museum, where Annalissa is met by an overenthusiastic ranger (he wanted his picture taken with her). It isn't particularly exciting visually, but well-detailed in historical content; we notice as well that the font for the 1898 section (there are separate display panels for each year of the 19th century) has been changed, and it's clear that someone -- maybe Filipino, perhaps Cuban or Puerto Rican -- had demanded it be changed.
Then we finally get onto the tram into the Arch; we're stuffed into these tiny ferris wheel-like pods that look like they come straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Saarinen had to design special elevators to be able to move up in a curve.) The view is great, although the observation deck windows are deceptively smaller -- almost like a castle's arrow slits -- than they look from below. (Outside you can see the stadium, where the Cardinals are playing against the Giants; I discover later, on the Metrolink going home, that the Giants won, and I am cheerfully booed by the train riders for being a San Francisco resident.)
Our sightseeing done, we come down and walk back out through the park to get some dinner. Familiar music is coming from somewhere; I recognize it as Liz Phair's "Never Said." "It sounds like a CD," someone says. Jason says, "No, it's live drums." "Maybe it's a Liz Phair tribute band," someone suggests. "What if it's really Liz Phair?," I say skeptically, thinking there was no way Liz Phair could be in St. Louis.
So finally Annalissa asks a passerby who's playing tonight. "Liz Phair," the woman answers. We walk down to the edge of the park and see a few hundred people sitting on the lawn in front of the stage.
A few minutes later, I am 8 yards away from Liz Phair's bare feet. She looks great. I still can't believe I'm so close to the stage. She plays "Mesmerizing," "Fuck and Run," "6'1," "Divorce Song," some songs from the latest album, (we skip "Why Can't I," walking away in horror, in order to get drinks), and ends with "Supernova." I stand there with a huge grin on my face, the monument above us arcing into the night, a cold glass of Foster's in my hand. It's a perfect summer evening. We are thrilled. It's a free gift from the wonderful city of St. Louis. (To top it off, a fireworks show followed.)
That's little Liz there (my Zire doesn't handle the dark very well, so she looks really tiny). I feel like buying a Nelly CD just to celebrate St. Louis.
Posted by the wily filipino at July 27, 2004 09:33 AM