Case Study Eri #8

Her fingers knead the rolling paper and pack the tobacco in snug. She does this instinctively and with little effort. But that doesn’t at all detract from the care and consideration that goes into each phalange movement. Her cigarette is lit and dangling off the side of her mouth before I realize she’d even finished.

Eri is from Cordoba, Argentina and finds herself in front of the Walt Disney Concert Hall after sundown. The California leg of her trip just began a few hours ago as she checked into the Hotel Cecil on Main. An establishment rich with LA lore and specters. When I began to regale her with such tales as the Black Dahlia and the Nightstalker she merely waved off the prospect of fear as insouciantly as tapping ash from the cherry of her cigarette.

Eri was on her gap year. Having completed her degree in architecture and working for a short spell she soon decided it was time to ship off for a year. For the sake of her sanity. And her excursion took her all over Mexico for several months. And soon she’d return home to Cordoba to further investigate her existential crises.

Her eyes flooded the platinum façade of the Walt Disney Hall as would the eyes of a classically trained architect would. This gal knew her stuff. She could recite different schools and philosophies of construction and design like a tenured professor. Knew her Corbusier from her Eames. And could wax for hours on sustainable building materials and the role of architecture in civic engagement. You’re falling over and picking yourself up constantly over the ken of this audacious Argentinean.

The conversation chronically strayed toward the elevated and the high-falooting. I needed to festoon a soppy blanket over the discourse before it culminated in an incendiary lecture series on Frank Gehry and the movement toward socially responsible architecture. I ran down the list of questions. Blathered, really.

“A trio of questions right off the bat: What do you love, what are you afraid of, and what’s in your pockets?”

She loves to smiles, she says. And this is supported by the toothy grin she wears all evening. She looks up at the US Bank Tower building and wobbles slightly as she reveals her debilitating fear of heights. Finally, she digs into her pockets and brandishes a lighter, a beat-up map of Los Angeles, and a cell phone.

As the night progressed I began to build a sturdier and sturdier character profile of her. It was beginning to take real shape and started to graze the skyline. Eri was a wealth of information. She provided an ample amount of bricks and clay.

“So tell me about Cordoba. The bullfighting and the Mosque and such.”

“You’re thinking about the wrong Cordoba. That’s Spain. My Cordoba tangos.”

“Okay. Do you tango?”

“Nope. You have the privilege of meeting the only Cordoban that doesn’t tango.”

I don’t tango either. I’m going to file that under “shared interests.”

A few more informational cornices and plinths added to this complex Eri structure: When she mimes walking (as per the many anecdotes she wields) she makes a little beeping sound effect that isn’t at all redolent of walking outside of robot cartoon characters. The blips and bloops hilariously colour the stories (and the night) though. She also claims Italian fluency but upon really straining my ears I realize she’s just speaking Spanish with a thick Italian accent. She has the nattiest of jackets. A denim cover that’s been in her possession since she was a teenager. Oh, it had character. It was less an article of clothing and more akin to a flag. Held high and flying as she marches to her next skirmish abroad.

I handed her a receipt and asked if she’d be so kind as to sketch something. Anything, really. A self-portrait. Blueprints. Abstract shapes or squiggly aesthetic lines. Something reflective of how you’re feeling at the moment. And with deft fingers she produces:

At this point we’d had just about walked the distance of a half marathon around the city and our dogs were barking. Ferociously. We took a moment’s refuge in front of the steps of City Hall where we admired the marble colonnade from a prone position massaging our toes.

We continued to rap under the looming tiled arches of the building. I watched her mouth the words of Cicero etched across the outer façade, “he that violates his oath profanes the very divinity of faith itself.” I launched into another question before the conversation veered again toward significance and the too epistemological.

“What’s your favourite word?”

“It’s kind of salty.”

“What is it?”

“It’s ‘sexo.'"

My eyebrow piques up in amusement.

“But it’s not just the word ‘sexo.’ It needs to be said rapidly and in an endearingly juvenile manner.”

She demonstrated with an exuberant salvo of “sexos.” You couldn’t tell where one ended and the next began. It was just a litany that buoyed you upward like high tide. A torrent of silliness that carried you off.

And off I went. Drifting off to sea. The city under a deluge. But in the far off skyscape I could just make out the gable of the Eri structure I erected breaking the surface. Standing valiantly against the crashing waves. Stalwart and timeless. Like the ideal architecture that she is.