The Far Bar Corridor

As I write, Saint Louis is awaiting the grand jury’s decision in the Michael Brown case. As this decision has approached the city has succumbed to a mounting sense of fear and foreboding. Not one day of late has passed without another watcha-watcha moment occurring. Today at work there were two separate mass emails warning employees to exercise caution in the event of trouble. Really? There must be a shortage of plywood in town by now, what with all of the boarding-up of windows that has occurred. We live near Clayton, the county seat, where the grand jury was impaneled. I could possibly understand boarding-up in the vicinity of the courthouse, but why was it done over half-a-mile away at the old Famous Barr building? When I stopped off at the grocery store tonight, I noticed that they had removed all of their outside merchandise. It is the week of Thanksgiving, a week that normally sees an increase in grocery shopping, but the mass of people shopping tonight had more the desperation that Saint Louis normally reserves for impending snowstorms.

The picture with this post doesn’t have anything to do with this evening’s events. I chose this image of the entrance to the Far Bar of Los Angeles for tonight’s post, because its dark corridor initially seemed foreboding. That feeling matches the one that I am experiencing now. While the Asian fusion restaurant inside turned out to be a delightful experience that does not infer any hopeful happy endings tonight. We went there on our last night in LA. We had planned to dine with Lou and Pearl, Anne’s uncle and aunt, but Anne fell ill and we had to beg off. Dan suggested it and went with us too. It was just across the street from our hotel and provided just the right amount of nightlife for us that night. It was rated best Little Tokyo bar in 2013.