Mural Mural On The Wall

A few weeks ago Offbeat Frontier ventured to downtown Los Angeles. (Angles Flight Article) While lost in the urban jungle we stumbled upon a really neat mural. On the AT&T building (located on Grand Avenue, between W 3rd and 4th Streets) there is a 3D mural dedicated to "the golden age of telephones" and how it shaped the world we live today.

Bell Communications Around The World

The "Bell Communications Around The World" was designed by Anthony Heinsbergen. The greatest part about the mural is that old telephone parts were used in its design. Bells, transistors, and switchboards connect the continents and takes us back to the days of calling operators and using something called "phone book" to look up numbers for prank calls.

Operatorus: Greek God of Dropped Calls

We did notice one thing, in the artist's representation of the world it seems that Japan is missing. As a leader in advanced technology for the past 20-30 years it seems odd to not represent the nation. It took some careful observations, but we ended up finding Japan on the mural.

Japan in 5 Years Time

*Note: The mural was built in 1961, so that's probably why Japan was forgotten. It is a known fact that Japan has time travel technology (they are simply not sharing it with us). They most likely traveled back to the 60s and persuaded Heinsbergen to represent Japan as some sort of transformer robot island.

According to Roadside America, there is a "Time Capsule of Communication" that is supposed to be unearthed at the 50th Anniversary of the Building. Which happens to be in 2011.

Offbeat Frontier has some ideas of what we will find next year in the "Capsule of Communication":

1) 2 Dixie Cups and String

2) The Red Phone from the Batman TV Series

3) Edison's patent for text messaging (which he stole from Samuel Morse)

*This joke I am proud of, but afraid not all who read it will get. A thinking man/woman's joke.