Posted on 06/17/2021 10:37:06 AM PDT by Rummyfan
I drove through Uptown today to see the latest barricades. The pictures showed some purloined umbrellas from Buffalo Wild Wings, piled and painted with the usual slogans and abbreviations. Couldn’t see much, as they were on the other end of an alley. The neighborhood looked busy; lots of traffic, new apartments, more under construction. Fewer boarded-up stores and restaurants - that is, the boards are down, replaced by glass and FOR RENT signs. The great mast of the Uptown theater is still lording over the neighborhood, waiting for its zeppelin.
The theater closed during the pandemic, and will not reopen. It has been evicted, which is a strange thing - how can you evict the very thing that it is? But it fell behind on rent, which somehow happens when you close everything for two weeks and another two and another two and oh we’ve stopped measuring things in fortnights, carry on, stay safe. The Apple Store never reopened after it was looted; the corner restaurant in the Rainbow building closed; another corner shop, an Aveda salon, announced this week it would close because it was not certain of its clients and staffers’ safety.
This was roundly rebuked on the Minneapolis subreddit, which has a large cohort of people who get really, really mad when you suggest something is amiss in the neighborhood, or that it has anything to do with people’s individual choices. It’s all pandemic and cops, the two implacable forces that guide and shape everyone’s moral behavior. There is no individual agency.
(Excerpt) Read more at lileks.com ...
I am a regular reader of The Bleat. Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome!
Would I be correct to ‘presume’ this is in the area of the George Floyd Memorial Square / Intersection / No-Trespassing Zone?
Uptown used to be a fun place to go
The only good protester is a flattened one.
Different neighborhood.
Haven’t seen Lileks in many years. He’s a nice read.
The title should be: The Bleat on The Blight. 8>)
That’s a keeper.
I remember laughing until I was on the floor crying at his Gobbler blog.
That man gave me the best laughs of my entire life. One of the greatest writers of the era. At the time there was also “Seanbaby” who was a founding member of “Portal of Evil”, alongside such great as “Regrettable candy” and “fat chicks in party hats”. Sean is a literary genius as well.
Yes, the section on the Gobbler is hilarious. I also love his Interior Desecrations section.
I loved his books, and gave them as presents.
What happened to Gnat?
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