The architectural details and oddities that peppered the Klara Sax sections were actually quite enjoyable to me, but what is Delillo getting at with these seemingly random details?

At first it seemed like Delillo was simply including shreds of whimsy into the urban environment that he suffused with depressing imagery earlier in the novel to balance it out. Turning from the dreary Bronx, there are "Angels with butterfly wings tucked under a cornice on Bleecker Street. Or the mystery of a white clapbord cottage on the roof of an office building. Or the odd deco heads, sort of Easter Islandish, attached to the corners of a midtown tower" (372). Though it's obvious later that he isn't trying to redeem the urban setting when he includes a description of the deterioration of Klara's old Bronx neighborhood, I thought Delillo's addition of these light-hearted(?) details next to that of the "surreal city" could also juxtapose/demonstrate the significant differences between classes, between the people that live in the surreal city and the people who live in this area. Is Delillo advancing or working up towards a bigger issue about race/class/the hierarchy? We see more than a hint of this earlier, with Cotter's discomfort upon seeing the peanut vendor whilst seated in the stadium, Bill's pursuit of Cotter, Sims' suspicion of the census, and the street prophet's certainty of a government scheme regarding bomb shelter locations.

I loved how Etzel Olsch describes the parabola as "the most contemporary thing he'd ever seen" (303) because a parabola is really just an arch, a prominent element of many ancient and space-age architectural styles, but mainly associated with the ancient (Roman aquaducts and coliseums, etc.). Using a mathematical term, "parabola," in lieu of the arts-associated "arch," the narrator manages to detach the aesthetic from architectural design and emphasizes the sterility and clinical nature of the rocket factory and the people that get dragged into the war machine. While its tragic that Olsch can't recognize an arch in a "sports stadium" he can't even summon up enthusiasm when he finds out that rockets are launched in parabolic paths, responding with "Oh, that's nice." I think an absence of cultural and right-brain sensitivity is apparent in almost all of the other characters too, implying perhaps that in wartime, everyone is lost to these types of indifference.