The Domain

I work at a place that's housed in "The Domain", a site in northern Austin where billions of dollars have been sunk into the ground. Where I work is considered, by me at least, the boonies of the Domain, way the hell down south. I've mentioned before that this Domain place kinda creeps me out. I'm going to share a few pictures that might help me make you, my few readers, feel what I'm talking about. I'll give a good explanation, but I don't want to blather on with commentary.

First, to start some blathering (d'oh!), let me say that when I took these pictures, I got to work an hour early, started my photo-project, and then walked until I had only enough time to turn and walk back...I never reached the other side of the place. I was taking pictures and all, but making it barely past half-way?

This first picture is taken at the most southernly point, atop a parking garage, and, when magnified, one can see Austin's skyline ten miles to the south. I need this picture to ground me in some kind of actual real-world existence, because for me, it got really weird after this.



This next picture kind of made me cringe. I like to call it my "Capitalist's Versailles". It does show some things, though. I was beginning my northern ascent through the Domain, and this is still pretty far from the action. On both sides of this courtyard apartments are visible (kinda, behind trees), and these apartments are designed to look like they're from different designers and different eras, and their built upon shops like American Eagle Outfitters and The Coffee Bean. Normally this kind of thing--apartments atop of shops--is called "mixed use", and it occurs in most large cities naturally. Here it felt fake and mildly scary. This picture though, the focus of the courtyard, the anchor at the bottom (or top, as it was) is a Dick's Sporting Goods store. Capitalist's Versailles, I'm telling you.



These next three are closer to the Action, and are closer to the point where I had to turn around and head back. Visible in these again will be strange looking apartments above very high-end stores, glassy eyed trust-fund baby-consumers out walking, hoping to become hipsters, and many other kinds of douchery. Two things I'd like to point out in the first picture: in the upper left and the far right we'll see rectangular banners attached to lampposts, the kind that in small towns advertise a parade or other kind of local celebration or awareness-type activity...in this picture they say "Cadillac". The second thing I want noticed is the square advertisement just left-of-center in the foreground, the one with the either native-american or east-indian looking chick, "Discover your bliss" or some similar nonsense written on it. Those were everywhere. A different example will be in the next picture.



This next picture we get a slightly closer view of the "...bliss..." ad, as well as a more centered "Cadillac" banner, different of course from the last photo, but here on the left, in front of a ubiquitous Starbucks, we'll see an actual Cadillac on the sidewalk. No for-sale tags. No license plates. Just chillin'. There were lots of them.

Should that creep me out as mush as it does?

More apartments on the right...



In any case, this last picture has the same silver Cadillac as the previous picture, and trained eyes will recognize an awning from the previous picture existing in this picture in full. I think that this picture is a beautiful capsule capturing probably everything I think is wrong with the consumer-driven America...little diversity, sparkling fakery in city design, a gross homogeneity in high-end retail stores...



When added to the previous picture, what we get is an Anthroplogie (high-end clothing) next to an Apple store (I am an admitted Apple fan) next to a Banana Republic next to a Starbucks (that Steeping Room is the Starbucks tea shop). All lined up on a fake main-street, surrounded by a hodgepodge of apartment buildings. All very new. All with no character. Well, I guess that "character" remark is subjective to how one would feel about living in a fake city based on an outdoor mall. Is a place's character subjective necessarily?

The apartments aren't that expensive. Three drawbacks to living in the Domain (besides the Succubus-like way living in such a consumerist nightmare would slowly destroy a lefty humanist): no grocery store, no liquor store, no pub. No place to go to unwind after work? No place to get the essential foodstuffs? (Whole Foods should be to the rescue in a few months.) Not that everybody drinks of course, but damn, isn't this Texas and not freaking Utah? (I do recognize that here in Texas there are dry counties...)

Maybe I ended up blathering on too long. I'm gonna make it through sometime and have more (frightening) pictures for you, my few but loyal readers.