{"id":236,"date":"2007-02-06T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chocolatemussolini.com\/cm\/default.asp?n=571"},"modified":"2007-02-06T23:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-07T06:00:00","slug":"i-didnt-even-make-up-those-skyway-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"i didn’t even make up those skyway facts!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of you not from these parts are probably unfamiliar with skyways. I shall attempt to explain.<\/p>\n

Picture yourself in a mall. Not just any mall, but a mall that’s 90% food court. A mostly-food-court mall that’s not spacious, but more of a tunnel lined with shops and mysterious doorways. A mostly-food-court narrow-tube mall that spans eighty blocks, from which you can sometimes see outside, but cannot easily get to it. An eight-mile mostly-food-court narrow-tube mall that smells like school-lunch pizza and Subway, and is packed full of businessmen in cheap suits with cellphones grafted to their skulls, talking about action items.<\/p>\n

So you see, the Minneapolis skyway is easily one of the most soulless places on earth.<\/p>\n

I made my last truffle delivery today, to 800 LaSalle. I worked in the building for six years, as it houses the State Theatre. While I’ve been to Rock Bottom in recent months (the restaurant, not the state-of-being), I haven’t been in the skyway in the hinterland behind Dayton’sMarshall Field’s<\/strike> Macy’s since the time I worked there.<\/p>\n

It took me far too long to get there, since my main goal was to take a break from work, not race for lunch. This meant that while I still passed 95% of the people in the skyway, I did so without shoving, elbowing, or trampling. It was considerate, but unsatisfying. I have no idea why people take to the skyways just to get their leisurely stroll on, when they could expend even less energy just staying at their desks; this would also offer the added benefit of Minesweeper. I may never understand.<\/p>\n

It was strange to revisit my old building. Of all things, I remembered the carpet well, probably because the pattern is ‘muted midwestern casino’. I was glad to see that Le Cache and Cookies & More! were still there, but Park Cafe was gone, and almost everything in the adjacent building had been replaced with the identical store under different ownership.<\/p>\n

On the way back to work, I passed a group of girls just as one said, “Drop that zero and get with the hero!” I wanted to yell something at them about schlinging a schlong, but I have class<\/i>. Also, I passed a guy playing a guitar for change in the US Bank skyway, and his song was just ‘Michelle Barton’ repeated over and over. The tune sounded very familiar, but I couldn’t distinguish it until the last line. Here, I typed it up just for you:<\/p>\n

Michelle Barton, Michelle Barton.
Michelle Barton, Michelle Barton.
Michelle Barton, Michelle Barton!
Oh, Canada<\/i>.<\/p>\n

You’re welcome.
Jenni<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those of you not from these parts are probably unfamiliar with skyways. I shall attempt to explain. Picture yourself in a mall. Not just any mall, but a mall that’s 90% food court. A mostly-food-court mall that’s not spacious, but more of a tunnel lined with shops and mysterious doorways. A mostly-food-court narrow-tube mall that …read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/po9qt-3O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/cm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}