Recently something called "The Lounge by AT&T" opened up in my neighborhood. It is an attempt to marry boutique urban chic, in the form of an espresso bar, with an outlet of a corporate behemoth, AT&T. (I have noticed watching football on Sundays that Capital One is advertising a similar experiment, Capitol One Cafes.)
The Lounge by AT&T is on the ground floor of a brand new residential high-rise, the Vertex Off Broadway, which was built on land recently occupied by a semi-dilapidated Lorraine Motelesque apartment building (a structure I have been told was built for tourists attending the 1962 World's Fair).
In the dim autumnal light of my AM work-bound walk, The Lounge by AT&T looks like any department store window display. Everything spotless and airtight. All that is missing are the manikins. "No one in tres chic Seattle will ever be caught dead in that place," I thought.
But then last night, on my way back from the doomed anti-Kavanaugh rally downtown, I passed The Lounge by AT&T again, and it was chock full. At nearly every table a young couple sat with laptops and textbooks, cramming for midterms perhaps. Shoppers happily inspected the various flat screens and other digital devices on offer.
This morning I passed The Lounge by AT&T once again. Just on the other side of street, due west, is a blue-tarp-shopping-cart-and-refrigerator-box shanty that sits beneath an evergreen on the road verge. Two people live there. One was wrapped tight in a blanket against the morning chill.
I feel the need to recite another prayer: "O Great Satan. May your mammon-engorged children tear down your plastic citadels and drown themselves in the sea to be reborn again far away and long ago."
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