Dateline: Holiday Inn, Arlington VA, 28 March 2005
Weird side note to long interesting day: the new, bizarre window coating on the outside-facing rooms of the Pentagon.
I hadn't been in the PNT for a bit now; last time, I think, was late last fall. So this was my first time seeing this new window tinting they've done on all outside offices (known as the E Ring, these are the nicest offices because the views actually show something). Well, today I got a good gander because all three interviews I did were E Ring stops.
I asked my public affairs handler what was up with the windows, and she tried to explain but sort of gave up, kind of muttering to herself. Instantly, I recognized this phenomenon as one of the those weird techno things that the experts explain to you once, and you sort of understand it, but when you try to explain it again to anyone else, you just end up choking on the words, giving up with a defensive sort of, "I dunno, it just does something!"
I don't doubt it cost a lot, and I am willing to believe it's highly useful. After all, the blast-resistant glass they put in the new wedge that got hit on 9/11 saved plenty of lives (the glass is deadly in those sorts of attacks). But man, it's weird to see. The outside world is a crazy sort of green on a cloudy day, and I don't mean your-old-man's-favorite-sunglasses-green, I mean weird, what-did-you-put-in-my-drink green. I'm told that on sunny days, it's a lurid sort of yellow (a brilliant combination for Packer fans, but for anyone else?).
My last interview saw me sitting across from the guy who had his back to the outside wall. On either side of his head were windows. As I interviewed him, the vision of the outside view was stunning: lurid green, nasty storm cloudy flying by in hyper speed, regular flashes of lightning. It was just so hallucinatory that I wanted to stand up and yell "Cut!" (then turning to the crew I'd say) "What in God's name is wrong with the rear-projection window views. Damn it, they look puke green! Can't anybody fix that before I go insane getting this shot in the can? Come on people! Show me some professionalism! How can I work under these conditions?"
About the only thing I can compare it to is when Oliver Stone is obviously screwing with your head in movies like "The Doors" and "Natural Born Killers" (he loves to dick around with absurd speed on clouds and sunsets/sunrises/storms, tinting the footage in some psychedelic tone).
Seriously, I expect to read some Post story 20 years from now about a Pentagon worker who sues DoD for twisting their brain with that view. It's just not natural.
Still, the haircut was good. No windows at all there.
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