Scenes from an LA mall

I'm in LA for the Pirate Cinema tour this weekend, and my publisher's rep is taking me around to local stores to sign their stock between the public events. Today we found ourselves in a mall in Glendale, which featured pureed cupcake beverages and signs warning chihuahua owners about escalators. America! Heck yeah!

(Thanks to all the Happy Mutants who came out to Pasadena today -- hey, west LA, I'm at Mysterious Galaxy in Rendondo Beach tomorrow at 1430h!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Delightful Creatures • not food • photos • usausausa • Weird

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I guess a “don’t bring your f*in lapdog to the mall” sign would be too much to ask.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  There was a couple in Home Depot in Palm Springs today with three little dogs in their shopping cart. Southern California is hardcore lapdog territory.
  - niktemadur
    
    I’ve never seen a Home Depot with escalators.
    But yeah, I get your point, just had to say that.
    …
    Wait… wait… I’m having a thought… nah it’s gone.
    Escalator signs! Small dogs cradled in arms!
    It’s gonna cost a small fortune.
- http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood
  
  I read that as “laptop.” I was confused, and vowed to just stay off of all escalators. There are five danger circles and one DO NOT EVER circle. Hell with that.
  
  Although, to be fair: outside of airports, I haven’t been on a single escalator since moving to Santa Barbara in 2006. They don’t exist here, and are now half-remembered beasts of yore.
  
  [EDIT] Wait! There is one, in a parking garage downtown. My god, I have cheated death without even knowing it, so many times.
  - Jake0748
    
    Escalators are scary fun!
- Philboyd Studge
  
  These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct. We must not be lulled by the concept that these are our family members or our friends. They are not. They will not respond to such emotions.
- https://plus.google.com/104067355242126774300/posts?hl=en Dennis Smith
  
  I think you confuse dog with rat…..
Marcelo Teson

If that was the Glendale Galleria, you missed the amazing Kyo Chon chicken booth in the food court, featuring Korean fried chicken wings. In general the Glendale Galleria has a very unique food court. So does the mall in Little Tokyo downtown, which features Shojin, one of the finest Japanese restaurants west of the Mississippi. I loved that about LA malls when I lived there.

Also, the things you think are weird about that mall are much more California than America in general. Midwestern malls are a whole other circle of hell. Just sayin.
- niktemadur
  
  Malls are a whole other circle of hell
  
  Back in the early nineties, a Mexican study was made of traffic flow in malls – why some areas are human swarm points, while others are accompanied by chirping crickets only.
  
  The solution/proposal was circular malls, like an architectural donut with the food court in the center. Supposedly a mall was built like this in the city of Saltillo, state of Coahuila, to resounding success… then I never heard or saw anything about this “paradigm shift” ever again.
  
  Then again, to this day greedy Mexican entrepreneurs have never understood the USA mall stroke of evil genius: 1/5 mall, 4/5 parking space.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    The solution/proposal was circular malls
    
    That sounds familiar.
    - http://twitter.com/bradgall Brad Gall
      
      Or this.
      
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon
gwailo_joe

As a Cali guy, I get the sentiment…it’s thoughtful.

But ten people out of ten thousand might even notice that sign; how many of those it’s actually intended for…I have no idea.

But the percentage of the type of person characterized that would ‘get’ it…and actually DO it?

I’m not even gonna go there.
Jake0748

How frikking stupid are the people who these signs are aimed at? And how is it that they have (presumably) jobs and money to spend at the mall anyway?
Simon Fraser

Attend _to_ children, surely?
http://twitter.com/gths Ǥɍǡḩḁᶆ Ӻᴙᴇᴇᴍᴀᴎ

Wouldn’t most people carry their chihuahuas in their handbags anyway?
http://codeflow.org/ Florian Bösch

Picture is kaputt http://craphound.com/images/8061081106_7c4176962d_c.jpg
jimkirk

So Johnny Bravo can’t use the escalator?
Bartacus

My wife works in a similar mall- I wasn’t there but all I can say is that the sound a small dog makes when its toe is mangled in an escalator is the most horrifying thing she has ever heard at her job.
Jimbo2K7

If you had ever seen what happens when a child’s foot in a gummy shoe gets dragged into the gap between the step and skirt of the escalator you might not think the sign is so amusing…

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/parental/escalator.asp

A picture is not really necessary. The description should be sufficient. The injury is described as degloving – where the skin is literally peeled off the foot like a glove.
- Quiet Wyatt
  
  Like, omigod! Barf out! Gag me with a spoon! That is just grody. Grody to the max!
  
  (we are talking about the Galleria and malls in Glendale, after all…)
  - Robert
    
    Do they still talk like that?! I thought that was an ’80s thing.
ihavenomouthandimustscream

Brodie: Listen, not a year goes by, not a year, that I don’t hear about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid which could have easily been avoided had some parent – I don’t care which one – but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect that escalator.
Robert

Just a quick note of appreciation for whoever fixed the images so that they don’t display thumbnails on click anymore.