Return Of The Ziggurat

Barley, a dog, stands in front of a bizarre terraced yard made from concrete and bare earth that extends up and out of frame. This time, there is a handrail.

Here we are, over a year later, and I am no closer to understanding the ziggurat yard. The earth along the road and back-filling the tiers are still bare earth, home to only tiny weeds that are still too small to have drawn the ire of whatever dark will has decided that this will be a monument to the inanimate, an edifice of desolate order. However, it now has a handrail. This was not part of the original design, and close examination reveals that it is being held in place by simple concrete screws that were sunk after the fact. To me, this exactly the same flavor of environmental storytelling as a sign in a shop forbidding some weirdly specific behavior: It’s a clue to a story that unfolded in the interim.

For her part, Barley could not be less interested in these scaled-up LEGOs. Nothing here piqued her interest as even being worthy of a sniff. I had to cajole her to stay put while I took the photo, because she was eager to move on to (both literally and figuratively) greener pastures.