June 06, 2007
Red's Flag
Red Modern Furniture's New Venue.
by Jerome du Bois
Last October the local coterie of pseudo-cool got the vapors about Jonathan Wayne relocating RED, his overhyped, overpriced furniture (and fashion accessory MINT) store into a --drum roll!-- Ralph Haver building on Camelback near Central. We haven't been there, but we visited his McDowell store several years ago, nearly suffered heart attacks at the purse prices, but still managed to pick up one of my favorites for a reasonable price, a beautiful green wicker thing. (What-- it's okay for a guy to have favorites among his wife's purses . . . isn't it?)
Anyway, we pass this place several times a week as we go about our business and pleasure, and in the middle of May I suddenly noticed that ragged, tattered, neglected U.S. flag you see up there in the left photo. I got out of the car and took a picture; then we went home to think about what we had just seen.
We've never passed more than a dozen words with Jonathan Wayne, so we have no idea of his political leanings. But look at the place. Look how A-J-squared-away it is --one morning Catherine saw Jonathan sweeping the asphalt area between the entrance overhang and the sidewalk --except for that poor exhausted flag, which sticks out like the sorest of thumbs, throbbing red, white, blue and threadbare, like the original barber pole, which was a battlefield surgeon's bloody rags wrapped around a tentpole, as a signal of both the relief and infliction of pain. Wartime.
We wondered if it was a political statement, or just opacity. But Jonathan Wayne is no slob, though his notion of window display and signage --on McDowell, for seven years-- was simplistic, shrill, and lazy. Still, he was neat, he spelled everything correctly, and he wasn't blind to detail. We finally decided that I would saunter in (undercover!), look around at the outrageously priced plastic and fiberglas and leather and chrome, check out the purses (of course --you never know), make small talk, and then, upon leaving, sort of casually turn and say, "Say, what's the deal with your flag? It looks kind of tattered." And see how he, or whoever was there, would respond.
What could they say? Variations of:
"Oh, yeah, we've been meaning to replace that."
"It came with the place. We like it that way."
"Are you kidding? Ralph Haver himself hoisted that flag. What are you, sacreligious?"
"It's a political statement! US out of Iraq! Wait! Who are you? Who --did --did Cheney send you? Gonzales? Hey, come back here--!"
Okay, so we're having some fun. I planned to get in there before Memorial Day, whose symbolism we take seriously. But life got in the way, and by the time we got back to this concern--
Whoa Daddy, the flag's gone. Soon after, Double Whoa Daddy, the flagpole disappears. (Proof above right.)
We waited for the other shoe to drop, somewhere. Where were Robert Sentinery and Nan Ellin and all the other urban preservationist tightasses who think every midcentury local building is as untouchable as Lourdes? Surely they are talking to Jonathan --at this very moment-- or will be soon, about his unconscionable, inexcuseable desecration of [genuflect now] the very office wherein Ralph Haver's feet tread (trod?), and where his brainwaves may still reverberate!
We can only hope.
In the meantime, the great country which preceded, supports, and will supersede Jonathan Wayne's minor existence, continues to bless even his thin, twee niche of the economy: raiding the pockets of well-to-do paper-traders and gays in the local fruit loop with thermoplastic nostalgia and overpriced second-market fashion.
While overhead, invisible but visibly --and daily-- and globally-- tested, Old Glory waves in freedom, and waves, and waves, and, waving, overcomes.
[Nota bene:Today is D-Day. But remember, every day is D-Day.]
Posted by Jerome at June 6, 2007 06:11 PM | TrackBack