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Carrion Luggage #1092724 added July 3, 2025 at 9:55am
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Gatekeeping
Almost done with my "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+] entries: one more after today's.
Barbican
I think Barbican would make an excellent band name. It would have to be one that plays rock. Because fortifications were made of rock? Yeah? Yeah? Come on, that was funny.
I'm not sure if they'd get to play at the Barbican. It seems way too highbrow for that kind of music. But then again, I don't know; England helped to elevate rock to high art. Okay, they made rock a high art, and we just kind of followed along over here.
All I really know about that particular complex, though, is that it exists. That, and what I just read on the Wiki page I just linked. Of all the London landmarks with distinctive architecture—Elizabeth Tower, the Eye, the Shard, Tower Bridge, the Old Bailey, to name a few—Barbican Centre is one I've never, ever seen in an establishment shot for scenes set in London. Perhaps there's one out there somewhere; I haven't seen every movie and show in existence, nor would I want to. (Apparently, it was used in some scenes in the Star Wars spinoff series Andor, which I've only seen part of, but that's not the kind of thing I'm talking about.)
The equivalent for the US is, I think, having a good idea of what the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building look like, but never having seen Lincoln Center. Which is understandable.
Historically, a barbican was a kind of fortification. Specifically, a "fortified outpost or fortified gateway." Like all defensive structures, they were useful until they weren't. The arms race that saw improved armor lead to improved weapons which led to improved armor which led to improved weapons, and so on, was mirrored in the defensive walls vs. siege engines race.
Sometimes I think that, if it weren't for war, we wouldn't have been nearly as inventive.
Oh, who am I trying to fool? Myself? No, I don't think that "sometimes;" I think that all the time. Even the Space Race was part of a war, albeit supposedly a cold one.
But sometimes, we can turn the language of war over to peaceful pursuits. Like, I don't know... the arts? We can still argue about their aesthetics and meaning, but at least we don't usually kill each other over the disagreements. |
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