I knew for sure that I had absolutely RUINED my mother’s 60th Birthday. We had just walked into the W Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. Earlier, I’d flown in from San Francisco and she’d driven down from Adairsville, GA – a small country town where she’d spent the month with my Grandfather and Uncle’s family. My mother was born and raised in the Southeast, and I am a fifth generation Californian. The plan was simple. I’d fly into Atlanta in advance of Thanksgiving and we’d spend the night, then the next day we’d visit the First Emperor’s Exhibition at the High Museum to see the Terra Cotta soldiers. http://www.high.org/main.taf?p=3,2,1,1
I’d selected this particular hotel for no real good reason, other than a) I knew they’d have a gym b) they were close to the museum and c) I’d stayed at the W one night in Seattle, so I knew the chain was customer–service oriented, and I’d found a great rate online.
What I neglected to remember was that the hotel had a brand for being “uber-cool” – and something of a scene if one cares for that sort of thing.
Somehow we’d missed the lobby but a kindly security guard (read – he looked like a CIA agent, wearing a sharp suit and certainly wired to the hotel’s central command) directed us to the front desk. We entered the dimly-lit, highly stylized elevator, where techno was piping in, and eyed each other nervously. I immediately flashed back to the endless battles where Mom insisted I TURN OFF THAT RACKET because it hurt her head, she had a sneaking suspicion the drumbeat had its origins in some voodoo cult, and that listening to it would eventually send me straight to hell.
What had I done? Was choosing this particular hotel some kind of subconscious passive aggressive payback, now that Mom was getting older and I had a slight upper hand in the world? My gut got tight and I could sense my mother shrink into her purple velour pant suit. Her Provencial quilted over night bag that went with her bible cover oddly matched the bold prints on the W’s walls. She was NOT comfortable. And I wasn’t either.
The elevator doors opened and we were confronted with three barely legal boobilicious babes in short skirts and evening gowns. The security guards behind them oddly reminiscent of pimps. Why hadn’t I taken more time to find a cute southern BnB? And I opted not to go to the Four Seasons BECAUSE…!?! Mom smiled meekly and squinted to make her way in the lighted –to-look-like-a-dance-club lobby. I could feel my travel day stress rise.
We received our keys and a very southern hospitable blonde checked us in and persuaded us to try SPICE – the much touted restaurant in the hotel, the quieter region, next to the whisky bar where all the low cut evening gowns were assembled. It was getting late, so we thought we’d give SPICE a shot after dropping off our stuff. I took a deep breath and in we went back to the ELE-DISCO-VATER, took one look at each other, burst into giggles and began cuttin’ the rug. I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE… shaking our money makers and all that jazz.
The room was what one would expect for a bordello. Black granite counters with silver glitter flecks in the bathroom. The black lacquer desk was framed in bright purple and silver lame´ printed wallpaper – but the big fluffy beds with the white leather headboards sported pressed cotton sheets, and lime green fleece throws that promised comfort especially since we’d have to look at them one night only.
Mom busted out camera. “Oh look we can get an intimacy kit for only $10!” She said. “I wonder what’s inside.” Thankfully Mom’s thrift got the better of her curiosity and down to dinner we went. (With the ritual bootie rockin’ moves that were now de rigueur for every elevator ride we took there.)
Spice was full of beautiful staff – and the young and powerful business chic elite. The hostesses wore backless dresses. The waiters wore purple tunics. The ceiling was adorned with sculptures made of hundreds of old bell pulls no doubt salvaged from old churches torn down to make strip-mall-strip clubs. The bell pulls hung together of varying lengths- and evoked the region’s Bible belt heritage. We were led to a corner table, with silken pillows and once seated Mom said to me– “ Its just so not southern. Its something out of Star Wars. I wouldn’t be surprised if Luke Skywalker came in with a wookie.” Interior decorators beware: it is fine line between chic and trendy and the Cantina Scene.
We ordered the most “tender calamari I’ve ever put in my mouth” eggplant tortellini, papaya salad, and whiskey fizz that tasted like Tahiti. Mom sucked it down like it was iced tea, so we got her ‘nother. She was grinning from ear to ear so I knew I most certainly had NOT ruined my mother’s 60th Birthday. “Its one I certainly won’t forget.”
The next day the Terra Cotta warriors were appropriately regal. My Chinese history is sorely lacking, so I was fascinated to learn about Emperor Qin and his rise to power. But of course the discovery of his army buried underground within the last decade is something of particular interest to any self-respecting Smithsonian magazine and archaeology documentary junkies like me and Mom. Lost cultures, the ancient world, ritual art, all good things for hungry brains to chew on. (When there was no tender calamari available.)
His vision was to unite the many cultures for the first time with a single currency, standardized systems of weights and measures, language, shared literacy, ascension based on merit not rank. He created a regime that produced art for the afterlife –and it did - last long, long, long after the lives of anyone that had anything to do with it. There were model bureaucrats, lifelike horses, musicians, and acrobats, all assembled larger than life to entertain the dead emperor. The number of slaves and artists to compile all that treasure is truly astounding.
It makes one think about all the slaves and communities that were in the process of being dominated, sure it must have brought a kind of peace to the regions. But what is the ultimate legacy of these epic endeavors? EG Rome, the De Medicis, the Catholic Church, the US etc. Humans seem to do this often: amalgamate power, lose it, disconnect, reform, re-configure, disintegrate, evolve. And ultimately much of this effort becomes fodder for the morbid curiosity for some quirky academic (eg the Egyptians royalty.) As our natural world bears the weight of our industrial empires, threatening at any moment to pull the rug out from under us, what kind of leadership and what kind of vision will bring us into a civilization with far more to show for it that some trinkets and glittery jewelry, pretty tiles? Or a 1,000 life-sized sculptures… or a chain of uber-cool hotels…?
When we made it back to my Uncles’ house for ribs later, we peeked in the recipe box that had been given to my aunt on her wedding day, by two of my great aunts. It was full of family favorites typed or handwritten by the matriarchs of the family. We passed them around, and I found one in my late grandmothers’ hand – Rosa’s Wild Duck. None of us knew who Rosa was, and I certainly haven’t ever had duck while visiting Georgia. But I got to keep that one, and look forward to trying it out.
In the land of standards –– taking time to try something from another generation – and enjoying the exploration of flavor that comes from a recipe not off a plastic package can be a political act.
OK. I’m trying to write this in a Mexican Restaurant in Adairsville Georgia and a big yellow wigged clown making balloon animals just showed up, and I give up. This week I’m going to have to leave ya’ll with 4 things. And for those who haven’t visited the southeast, don’t for a minute think that Georgia is homogeneous cultural wasteland- it is immensely diverse. (No Wookies though – I don’t think.)
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