Monday evening, Stephanie and I got all itchy for a roadtrip so we headed east and slightly north and ended up on the sleepy streets of Brownsville, which, for all we could tell, had been emptied out by the zombie apocalypse. Oh, except for RJ’s Hibachi, a greasy spoon that gleefully abuses the “hibachi” part of its name by completely ignoring it. It was hoppin’.
We had some time to kill before the sun sat (we went specifically to see the MindField at night, since we’d both seen it during the day), so we kicked around the town square, peering into windows and marveling at the sheer number of tanning salons within a 300-foot distance. The sun finally biffed off and the lights — which underwhelmed me, I have to say, as a millenial who was weaned on the whiz-bang of MTV and Disney — came on and we padded through the grass, shrieking at real frogs and imaginary snakes. (And mosquitoes. I am the motherloving pied piper of mosquitoes.) We didn’t see dear Billy Tripp himself, but Stephanie was kind enough to leave a little cash gift in one of his comment boxes since she took a couple of books to give away. I left nothing because I’m a horrible grifter who never carries cash.
We both noticed several changes in the sculpture that either hadn’t been there before, or that we hadn’t noticed before. The highlight? The little naked dolls way up at the apex of the sculpture, their stringy hair blowing in the breeze.
More pics of the MindField (including pics from my last visit) live here.
The dolls were there before. Every time I go to the Mind Field (and by “every time,” I mean “twice”), I notice something new or different. It’s like, alive or somethin’.
Whoaaaa, man, you’re freaking me out. But for serious, that thing is growing.