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WANDERING AN
AMERICAN CITY
Every city, I suppose, is a dream-language speaking to us via architecture, public art, and people. I've had the privilege to wanter in a few foreign cities, where the dream comparison was particularly striking because I couldn't speak the language. But even American cities each have a distinct voice, albeit modern technology tries to do all it can to try to homogenize us.
This truth came home to me this morning as I walked the streets of downtown Kansas City. I carry in my blood the voice of St. Louis, across the state, the home town I'm enroute to visit after dropping this car in Chicago. Kansas City speaks, shall we say, a language of the same family. The juxtaposition of old and new, the public fountains, the treasured, antique buildings, all have a distinctly midwestern voice. I heard a similar kind of voice once when I spent a day in Louisville, Kentucky.
But the variations and embellishments of each city are delightful! Here, my eyes took in the "Muse of the Missouri" fountain ; the fine, old Aquila building (photo, top right), perfectly preserved from 1885; a medieval-style, stone-arched doorway on an otherwise-nondescript downtown side street; the creative murals of gigantic books and of famous Kansas Citians, painted on the library parking structure, as wonders!
I went mad with my camera. "These things have been photographed a thousand times!" a voice in my head said.
But I didn't listen. The wide-eyed child in me ws too awed, dazzled, filled. And eager to share what he saw.
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