* One feels so naked, alone, and antlike crossing the barren, windswept plaza around the Boston City Hall. I could feel my steps quickening as I walked, turning my head to-and-fro, scanning the nearby rooftops for snipers.
There is no human cover, absolutely none.
By the time I reached that gargantuan, looming monstrosity and scrabbled up the steps (to avoid the imminent bullet to my back), I was willing to confess to anything if only they would let me leave.
Boston City Hall is a soul-crushing behemoth.
* From Kingsley Amis’s essay Sod the Public:
Most artists, or people who think of themselves as such, have to get the public to watch or listen before they can sod it. The famous pile of bricks at the Tate Gallery was powerless against those who never went to see it, and while still on the shelf Finnegans Wake is impotent. Architects are different. They have the unique power of sodding the consumer at a distance, not just if he lives or works in the building concerned, or just when he passes it a couple of times a day, but also when he happens to catch sight of it miles away on the skyline.
