"Only in Los Angeles can you drive to an Assyrian palace to buy blue jeans and leather goods."
Well, true. This is yet another reason why southern California, despite its appealing quirks, is not the kind of place I want to return to permanently.
In Commerce, CA, along the I-5 freeway from San Diego to LA, there is an outlet mall called the Citadel Outlets. Unlike the average shopping complex, this one features an Assyrian theme, complete with giant winged bulls strung along its fortified walls. There is also a giant LED screen, which helpfully "[delivers] high-impact messages to the many thousands of commuters who pass the property on the I-5 northbound and southbound each day."
Despite my gushing affection this summer for certain aspects of American capitalism (the unionized grocery store, mostly), I've never liked outlet malls. But what I do like, more than almost anything else in history, is the Assyrians. In ninth grade, I wrote a highly verbose research paper on them, complete with an awesome drawing of them beating up on some hapless Phoenecians. As Kartik knows, every time I go to an art museum, I contemptuously steer clear of the Egyptian art and head for the Ancient Near East. Every time I see a stupid hipster beard, I think of how lame it is compared to the fearsome curly beards of dudes like Ashurbanipal. And so on.
Lisa mentioned that this might have once been a tire factory--which turns out to be not only true, but part of a very weird history. Though I'm a little curious why, having made this same trip north on the I-5 many times since 1990, I've never seen the mall before.
In Commerce, CA, along the I-5 freeway from San Diego to LA, there is an outlet mall called the Citadel Outlets. Unlike the average shopping complex, this one features an Assyrian theme, complete with giant winged bulls strung along its fortified walls. There is also a giant LED screen, which helpfully "[delivers] high-impact messages to the many thousands of commuters who pass the property on the I-5 northbound and southbound each day."
Despite my gushing affection this summer for certain aspects of American capitalism (the unionized grocery store, mostly), I've never liked outlet malls. But what I do like, more than almost anything else in history, is the Assyrians. In ninth grade, I wrote a highly verbose research paper on them, complete with an awesome drawing of them beating up on some hapless Phoenecians. As Kartik knows, every time I go to an art museum, I contemptuously steer clear of the Egyptian art and head for the Ancient Near East. Every time I see a stupid hipster beard, I think of how lame it is compared to the fearsome curly beards of dudes like Ashurbanipal. And so on.
Lisa mentioned that this might have once been a tire factory--which turns out to be not only true, but part of a very weird history. Though I'm a little curious why, having made this same trip north on the I-5 many times since 1990, I've never seen the mall before.
posted by ch at 9:01 AM
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First off, I think those other posts are ads so somebody should delete them.
But my question for Partial is why do you not like outlet malls? Is it grouped in with a general dislike of malls or something specific to outlets? Does it have something to do with providing lower quality goods to "lower quality/class" people? Is it the fact that they model themselves as small cities completely based on capitalist consumption? Please explain.
Mostly it has to do with upper middle-class people who think that buying things at outlet malls makes them thrifty or adventurous.
And I'm not sure how to delete those other posts--I'll leave that up to Nathan.
DELETED!
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