Shirley's unpublished post 911 Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor:

Standing at my Mandarin Oriental window, looking at the greatness of San Francisco’s skyline, I consider the story in today’s Chronicle about Joan Didion. It dealt with the very same viewpoint I am gazing at, but only in a literal sense. The Chronicle wrote that the great writer was thankful that she did NOT have to stay at the Mandarin Oriental and look at the Transamerica Building.

My English teachers taught me that Didion was the consummate practitioner of synecdoche, the figure of speech where something stands for something larger -- like a great building standing for the moral decay of post modern America. They taught me that no one so completely captured the disillusionment and social disintegration of California, her synecdoche for America. That Didion’s California Dream was the American Dream turned into a nightmare.

Enough pessimism can mobilize collective guilt. I suppose that could enable people to see the Mandarin Oriental, the Transamerica Building and the World Trade Center towers as symbols of great decadence, a synecdoche for great evil. I prefer to see them as magnificent sources of pride.

The Mandarin Oriental is hosting some celebrities to whom Didion style post modern disillusion does not easily stick. Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, Minnie Driver and Seal are in town for concerts and, I suppose, looking at the same skyline without fear or dread or shame. Their voices, I pray, see a progressive vision of the genius of San Francisco -- a financial district built upon a landfill which had been mere bay water a century ago.

We built this city!
We built this city!
We built this city!
On rocks we rolled.