November 19, 2007

tell your douche friends — objectsinspaceandtime

Fishaay and his megaphone rain wisdom down on the streets of Providence in support of Marcos and Taylor’s movement. Absolutely brilliant. 

November 11, 2007
“ The modern American tourist now fills his experience with pseudo-events. He has come to expect both more strangeness and more familiarity than the world naturally offers. He has come to believe that he can have a lifetime of adventure in two weeks and all the thrills of risking his life without any real risk at all.
Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914), U.S. historian. The Image, ch. 3 (1961). via NYSH&TA
“ The tourist who moves about to see and hear and open himself to all the influences of the places which condense centuries of human greatness is only a man in search of excellence.
Max Lerner (b. 1902), U.S. author, columnist. repr. in The Unfinished Country, pt. 1 (1959). “Lo, the Poor Sightseer,” New York Post (Sept. 15, 1954) via NYSH&TA
November 10, 2007
“ To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and failings don’t cling to you the way they do back home. You’re able to drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You’re expected to be stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers acting stupidly. You walk around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps. You don’t know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures of each other, haggard, dysenteric, thirsty. There is nothing to think about but the next shapeless event.
Don Delillo, from James Axton, in The Names, ch. 3 (1982), via Mary-Jo
Honestly? Who gets down in the pool at the luxury resort with their evening wear on? Come on now, marketing..

Honestly? Who gets down in the pool at the luxury resort with their evening wear on? Come on now, marketing..

“ The tourist certainly yearns for the authentic—and tourism fuels that desire. In sights of the national past, for example, travel promotions lure tourists with the temptation to “stand on the very spot the general fell,”“witness the actual sights, sounds and smells of the clashing troops,”“see the original manuscript later drafted into law,”“observe the genuine skills the early settlers used in making soap,” etc. In the rhetoric of authenticity, italicized adjectives certify the real.
Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, ‘Suit Case Studies: The Production of a National Past,’ p. 34
'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' —Walter Benjamin
“ Souvenirs are collected by individuals, by tourists, while sights are ‘collected’ by entire societies.
Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, p. 42
Welcome aboard, advisors.

Welcome aboard, advisors.

November 7, 2007
Souvenir spoons. A long-time fascination of mine. What possessed us to take an object as functional as the spoon, strip it of all utility, and make it into an ornate desirable suitable only for display? As it turns out, the RISD Museum has tons of them tucked away in a remote corner of collection storage. They were made and donated by Gorham.

Souvenir spoons. A long-time fascination of mine. What possessed us to take an object as functional as the spoon, strip it of all utility, and make it into an ornate desirable suitable only for display? As it turns out, the RISD Museum has tons of them tucked away in a remote corner of collection storage. They were made and donated by Gorham.