Pyramid Power

[robotnik2004]

Originally published at Route 96. You can comment here or there.

Memphis’ other star attraction is the Great Pyramid of Memphis–a mammoth pyramidal -shaped object in the city’s downtown core.

I guess the idea of the Great Pyramid was to link Memphis on the Mississippi with Memphis on the Nile, ancient capital of Pharaonic Egypt. Memphis on a sweltering Sunday afternoon did a passable impersonation of an extinct civilization–nobody but Canadian tourists were stupid enough to venture out into the clambake heat–but the evocation of the distant past would have been more convincing if the Pyramid weren’t built out of mirrored steel.

Like many of the people we saw in Tennessee [2006 Edit: Well, that’s just mean.] the Great Pyramid was big and ugly and weird, but it didn’t really do anything. We tried to run up its sides but the soles of our shoes were cooked by the heat radiating off the mirrors. We admired the three-story-tall statue of Ramses II (looking a little like Elvis, circa the 1968 Comeback Special, if you squinted). We discussed what the Great Pyramid might contain: Templars? A SMERSH base? A collector for telluric currents and magic ley line energy? Sonny West and Charlie Hodge, buried alive in their master’s booby-trapped theft-proof tomb?

Maybe Memphis will start a trend. Maybe other run down industrial cities will try to lure tourist dollars for their stagnant economies by borrowing from the wonders of the ancient world: the Hanging Gardens of Hamilton. The Colossus at Flint. Hey, it could happen.

Next stop: The Ozarks.

Comments

[waiwode.livejournal.com]

Strange Coincedence

Just this morning I read about that pyramid (or what was left of it) in Jack McDevitt's Eternity Road.

Doug.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

(Searches Amazon) Hey, that looks kinda cool. I've always been a sucker for post-apocalypty stories.

the Ozarks?

[jeffwik.livejournal.com]

You aren't going to have nice things to say about my homeland, are you?

"The Colossus at Flint" foreshadows one of the Ozarks' dominant tourist attractions.

Not so fast, Mississippi...

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

I promise to treat your homeland with the same respect you always use to treat mine. :)

re: the Colossus
Oh yeah, we went there.