As close readers of this site well know, from time to time we receive letters from a nameless son of the night, letters so long and so strange that, though we hesitate to expose you to this possibly evil genius (we've found more than a few disconcerting acrostics in his texts), in the interest of Art and Knowledge we bravely slap them up. In the past, he's concerned himself with rambles on nature, stadia, Slick Nic, and, well, we're not quite sure. And last night, at the unholiest hour, this arrived. A play! A real live play! We just skimmed the top, but it looks hot hot hot.

A Quick Trip to Hell(muth), A Tragedie in One Act

Scene: Two Barcelona Chairs. In the background, a debatable Poussin.

Seated, SATAN, at left, and a VISITOR, an unusually tall architect, possibly
David Childs, at right.

SATAN: So good to see you again, David!

VISITOR: It's always a pleasure, Phi——

SATAN: Lucifer will do. Or, you know, Your Satanic Majesty.

VISITOR: ——Lucifer, yes, of course. Well. I've got a problem.

SATAN: Credibility?

V. Yes. No. It's Danny. That damn freedom tower. I thought I'd outmanouvered
him with the snap-off torch tower and the whole, you know, tactic of
precisely meeting his requirements in a way that was so visibly awful that
any given simpleton would be desperate to do away with those awkward bits
and trim down to my intended design... It's so hard to pretend to be a
lesser architect than you are.

S: Is that a fact?

V: But it's just not working. I can't shake him.

S: Well, I could make a few calls. I have a chip I can cash with that guy,
used to be the mayor of Peekskill? Lovely place.

V: Well, that's very kind——

S: Of course I would require that your subsequent solo design resemble a
piece-of-shit upside down perfume bottle from the mid 1990s. I'm thinking
that the lid would be 200 feet of solid concrete. I mean, you're the
architect, I'm just riffing here. Brainstorming.

V: Yes, sure. Of course. You're ideas are always unique. Do you have a
pencil?

S: But the question is, David, what's in it for me?

V: Peter said there was, I don't know, some kind of standard contract. Some
kind of scroll to sign, something about one's immortal soul?

S: Yes, but records indicate you sold yours to the developer dollar twenty
years ago. And I have nothing on those guys, they don’t even return my calls
any more. But you've got spunk, kid. I like that. And the Time Warner
Center, I mean, what can I say?

V: glad you liked it.

S: Yes, well, I tell you what, there is a little something you could give
me——

V: Please, anything but that.

S: Yes, that one project.

V: Lucifer, no.

S: Oh! But yes, my tall friend! That one project in your career where you
actually showed a flicker of, I don't know...

V: Greatness?

S: Well, I was going to go with "Brio", but sure. Greatness, David.

V: Look, forget it.

S: Can't! I mean, while everyone was distracted by downtown and the
olympics, that project just kept going forward, might have been built, even
though the design is what, from 1999? And it wasn’t bad, was it. Not bad at
all, amigo. That soaring steel superstructure. It's own lovable nickname,
the chip. That deep skylight. That simultaneous drama and restraint. Those
two sections of a circle intersected with each other. Nice spot of pure
geometry, reminds me distantly of Utzon. Almost made a great deal with him.
Anyway, yes. That great swoosh of dynamic light rising above the post office
like the liberated ghost of poor old Pennsylvania Station. Poetic,
pragmatic. I mean, good architecture, really! Not bad for this dirty town!

V: Thank you.

S: I mean, not good for me, you understand. You really had me worried. Your
one truly decent project. Good architecture back on 8th avenue. After all my
hard work in the 60s to destroy the old Pennsylvania Station. I mean, not as
good as that original was, but not bad for this lesser age, right?

V: There's no other way?

S: That's why I'm so glad you came. I'm thinking the developers hand it back
to, say, Hellmouth, Obata. HOK. God I love those dudes. What they've done to
Professional Sports Stadiums, I wish I could take credit for that. But for
Moynihan Stadium let's have them do something really heartbreakingly bad.
And yet it will have some pathetic "reference" to the old penn station: not
good enough to relieve the pain of its loss, but just bad enough to remind
you of the pain. Oh it'll be great. Some kind of squalid droopy space-frame
with hideous proportions. I mean, Listless, David, really Listless! That's
what I love in architecture, half-assed value-engineered listlessness. What
do you think? I mean, travel should be depressing as well as tedious and
scary, don’t you think?

V: Look, I just wanted a way to get rid of those turbines.

S: Consider it a done deal. Should take a couple weeks, you're all set.

V: This isn't what——

S: Look, dance with the devil and he calls the tunes. I think Johnny Cash
said that. Well, look, gotta run. Give me a call if you get too distracted
by the fact that Portzamparc has a Pritzker and you don't. Robert Moses Will
show you out.

V: You know, what I really wanted to be was a movie star.

FIN

Posted in Gotham, Our Fallen World, The Pit, Words, Words