In an America ablaze with religious fervor that has
captured nearly half the nation's voters, Ben Ehrenreich of
LAWeekly captures the day that Jesus was to come to Echo
Park.
Over the next two months, I saw them more and more. By
June, they were affixed with packing tape to every palm tree and
streetlamp in the park, taped even to the chainlink fence at the
south end of the lake. They grew more exuberant as the day came
closer, and said nothing more about L.A. going down.
I walked to the park at a little before 6 last Thursday.
In preparation for the Lotus Festival, tentlike plastic canopies
had been set up across the park, and a shimmering silver-and-red
dragon float was already docked beside the island in the lake. I
could find no preachers, no throngs of weeping pilgrims, just a
heart-shaped wreath of roses and a Magic Markered cardboard sign
near one of the picnic tables at the north end of the park. The
sign read, Jesus Echo Park July 7 8 pm. A dozen or so
people sat around it, drinking and barbecuing chicken, but none
seemed particularly ecstatic. I was early, I decided, so I walked
around the park.
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