A site to make eyes sore.

I clicked on a headline offered by Slate, “Anti-Gay Segregation May Soon Be Coming to Oregon,” because I was curious what in the world that could be.

But I didn’t find out because I got totally sidetracked by the photograph of something like a cross between a mausoleum — one erected by someone who detested the deceased — and the ventilation tower of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (which we saw in the movie as the entrance to the secret headquarters of the “Men in Black”).

But the cutline said, “A 2007 rally for gay rights at the Oregon State Capital in Salem, Ore.” And I thought, That’s the actual state capitol of a state in the United States? Wow. They sure do go for some ugly out in Oregon.

Wikipedia describes it this way:

Chosen from 123 entries in a countrywide competition, the design of the new building deviated from the normal design of state capitol buildings. The design was labeled a combination of Egyptian simplicity and Greek refinement.^[18] Overall it is Art Deco in style, and is one of only three state capitols in the United States constructed in that architectural style.^[20]

Yeah, I’m glad there are no more than three in that style. I can barely take this one.

And I thought I kinda liked Art Deco, until now.

It’s like the architect thought, “I’ll start with something that vaguely suggests a dome, but make it cylindrical — only not smoothly cylindrical; I’ll add this ridge thingies. It’ll look kinda like the chamber of a revolver, or the edgy interior of an oil filter. And I’ll make the whole thing out of something that looks like cheap concrete.”

Man, I’m glad I don’t have to drive by that every day. I can think of a lot of bad things to say about that generation of SC lawmakers who built our present State House, but at least they had some taste. Or maybe, as a native South Carolinian, I’m just genetically predisposed toward neo-classical.

Ahhhh… It’s just so soothing to look at this after contemplating that monstrosity out West.