There’s something about indoor American shopping malls.
They have a pattern, like a dull drumming down.
A walk around a mall, like déjà vu, like a lolling dream: Penny fountains, ceramic tiling and dulcet tones; faux-oak kiosks, plastic plants, and elevator music.
People in streams, in petering spurts: the couples, the elderly, the awkward teenage clumps, the solo shopper; of all colors and sizes, to each their own orbit; janitors milling, people watchers watching, mall walkers walking. Like drifting snowflakes, each their own molecular make, completely different, completely the same.
A mall is a mall is a… In Chicago, in Denver, in LA, and Pittsburgh, and Omaha and Rochester and…
Hungry? Find the food court. Your favorite comfort food? Oh, by God, they have it. Chinese, Pizza, Subs, Mexican, Ice Cream, anything you want!
You don’t have to buy anything. But if you want to, the mall has something just for you.
Brand name stores: Radio Shack and The Body Shop and Victoria’s Secret and Lens Crafters and... Don’t forget the candy store, the sports memorabilia store, the Oriental shop. Every mall: the same
American shopping malls: offering a plastic hominess, like an airplane blanket or like a microwave dinner.
