It's a time when one could wander a studio lot, open the door to any given soundstage, and
discover some sort of wonder: a cowboy as adept with a six - string as he is with six - shooter, a
giant pool where mermaids perform a water ballet to the music of a live orchestra, a tavern where sailors about to ship out sing in lament of the absence of dames at sea and dance with each other (since — wink — they're going to have to get used to that situation — wink again), or a lavish bacchanal hosted by a Roman centurion who's on the verge of accepting a new kind of faith.
Ingrid Calame goes out into the world to
discover what it looks like, tracing the marks she finds on public and private streets from Wall Street to the LA River, from the Indy Speedway to a
giant defunct public wading
pool.