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Dominique Zamora

Zamora

Dominique Zamora has been a writer and photographer since long before she was even remotely good at either. She is uniquely fascinated by decaying buildings and deadpan. In summer 2012, she began writing for Foodbeast.com, where her piece, "16 Things That Taste Just Like Your Asian-American Childhood," became one of the top 5 most-read articles on the site of all time (and a special nod to her UCI heritage). She currently writes for Foodbeast, Los Angeles Magazine, and 7 Deadly Magazine.


The Story Behind the Story:

I first visited Camelot Golfland when I was a little kid. It wasn't until I returned on a school trip in sixth grade, however, that I realized it was just a few miles from my house, and not until I came back one more time for my high school's grad night that I finally saw how kitschy and run-down it was. Reading Joseph Mitchell in my journalism classes at UCI rekindled my interest in the sad, old place if only because it is so sad and so old, and I couldn't help but wonder why it's still standing — especially in tourist-capital-of-the-world Southern California, not ten minutes away from Disneyland. I thought about other closed arcades like the Powerhouse in Orange, or Nickel Nickel in Anaheim, and about how I missed having places to go to and have fun and be a kid without having to pay $50 a month. At the same time, I couldn't pretend Camelot was still the same magical, fairy tale castle of my childhood, not when its walls and signage were caked in so much rust.

The title, "Obituary of a Medieval Arcade," was inspired by Joseph Mitchell's "Obituary of a Gin Mill," and just as that piece mourns the death of the old, lawless speakeasy, I hope my story offers a fitting eulogy for another dying piece of Americana.