by
Jaye B.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi came to me in a dream, blueprints in his hands. He wanted me to build the shopping mall I envisioned him designing all along. I had grossed over 400 million $ in epic poetry sales and gave him the go ahead, already knowing that it would bankrupt me in the end.
Even though all the square footage had been rented out and stuffed with everything from electronics to furniture upon the mall's completion, virtually no one came to the grand opening. I was condemned to wander alone in my investment, unable to grasp the total loss at hand. With all the doors and windows now sealed up, I was in a solitary confinement worse than the prison system in America could ever conjure. Making my inmate way to the Pyramid of Cestius the artist insisted be in the mall's center, I realized I had been duped and I doubted the thing was even up to code.
There wasn't even an oculus to allow some light in and was promised by the architect. Despairing at the commercial failure of this project, I felt my soul sinking deeper into the vast Imperium cenotaph the mall had now become. Circling the memorial kiosk pyramid over and over, I planned an escape route. But there were none. Not even down the Emperor Crassus wing which had six thousand slaves crucified along a makeshift Appian way. Sulking in the Arcimboldo food court , I had to face the obvious, that the invisible hand behind all of this belonged to some Ponzi scheme despot.
It was in the bedrock cineplex that I discovered why I have never been able to escape from the gravity of the mall. On one screen, Mussolini could be seen founding the Fascist party and on another Aureus weeping at some coinage minted with his likeness cliché stamped upon it, the world's first mass media. And on another screen Caligula bleeding out the very ink that Piranesi deftly etched his fantastic ruins with and which I'm forever condemned to wander through since there is no 'The End' to any of the movies playing out in this complex.
(C)2016-Jaye B.
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Jaye B. is a writer, musician and artist. His art criticism has appeared in Art Paper, New North Artscape, Art Muscle, Northfield Magazine and elsewhere. His articles have also appeared in City Pages, Twin Cities Reader, Mysteries Magazine, Fahrenheit San Diego, High Plains Reader, New Dawn and Rain Taxi. He has appeared on BBC Radio, WGN Chicago, WLW Cincinnati and elsewhere in the mediasphere to discuss his work. Please help support Reset News @ Paypal, Cash App or contact the author for other options @ jayeb444@protonmail.com
The Romans were Phoenician, but you won’t learn that in the Acimboldo Food Court.
Gorgeous day here, went to a friend's property. Lots of people showed up, mostly girls. River property is popular.