I just learned via BoingBoing that beloved Tucson institution Magic Carpet Golf closed for good recently. I'm in Philly right now, but I lived in Tucson for ten years, and never failed to appreciate Magic Carpet's funny/scary magnificence while driving by. Even in the nineties it was a thing of beauty that was nonetheless cracking up and falling apart, like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.
I guess this is the problem with a lot of beloved institutions: in my ten years in Tucson, I think I only played golf there twice. Like the ice cream truck or reruns of Are You Being Served?, I always expected it to be there even if I never wanted to partake.
There's a beautiful flickr set here, taken after it closed.
This place is so awesome. There's stuff like this all over southern California and they're slowly all dying out unfortunately
ReplyDeletedefinitely a classic.
ReplyDeleteSo sad to see it go. Tucson will never be the same. btw... happy b-day! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sadly horrified at the passing of Magic Carpet, as its increasing dilapidation only seemed to improve its glamor. I moved out of Tucson a few months after it passed beyond the veil, so I never got to give it one last, sad, desperate round into the Haunted Mine or whatever that damp-smelling, rat-infested papier-mache cave was supposed to be ...
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