Here’s a brilliant rant about the supermarket shopping experience

Is Safeway Sucking Your Soul?

We are surrounded. We are immersed. American consumer culture is teeming with so many neon-colored, overprocessed, semicomestible, demon-spawn products we can no longer even recognize how bad it is, how it is all meant to drive us slowly insane, so slowly we forget to keep asking why we feel so sick all the time, and we just shut the hell up and buy more giant tubs of Country Crock to go with our liquefied reconstituted pork tubes because we think this is the only way.

HoustonChronicle.com

has a well-written, appropriately tongue-in-cheek article about Norwegians reacting to Jenna Bush’s seeming-devil-invoking hand gesture that was really a Texas Longhorns sign. The coverage of this has been really lame; pointing out that the gesture is similar to a heavy-metal sign in Norway. But even the SF paper ran a picture of a rock concert in San Francisco where people were using the same gesture. But it was an AP story; they left the story unedited, making no reference to the fact that it’s something that happens at every rock concert in this part of the world as well. Yes, the Norwegian press reacted, based on their metal-esque interpretation of the gesture, but the story doesn’t have to have this wild-eyed “in NORWAY, heavy metal fans made this gesture when they enjoyed their loud rock music” as if we’ve never heard of that fascinating and exotic foreign fact.

========================================================
FreshMeat #23 from Steve Portigal

               (__)
               (oo) Fresh
                \\/  Meat

FreshMeat is kicking it old school. Don’t you think?
=========================================================
We can remember it for you, wholesale
=========================================================
It’s a common exercise in December to reflect back on the
about-to-expire year, but it can be particularly
challenging to identify the highlights in any category.
Sure, cultural critics produce a raft of best-of lists,
but how easy is it for the rest of us to look back?

We are all exposed to media (or information, or stories,
or whatever you’d like to call it) at an enormous quantity
and at a staggering rate, receiving content from TV,
magazines, newspapers, advertising, blogs, music (radio,
CDs, and MP3s), email and more. So, it shouldn’t be hard
for me to come up with some 2004 list of something, right?
After all, I read two daily papers, more than 125 blog
feeds, and about 10 magazines. I manage two mailing
lists (one about the Rolling Stones and one about user
research), participate in several others, as well as
online discussion forums. I contribute to three
different blogs. I’ve got a handle on the zeitgeist,
right?

Wrong. I can’t remember a damn thing.

What the heck happened in 2004? I can remember the front-
page stuff (crimes, war, politics) but little else. So I
decided to do an experiment: I went to several online
sources – BoingBoing, MetaFilter and Core77 –
and skimmed their archives of two random 2004 months,
February and April. I used these sites as triggers for
stories that seemed cool when they broke but eluded my
memory by the time December rolled around.

Just those two months amounted to over 150,000 words-and
many, many stories. Most I recognized with a hockey-card
collector’s nod – “seen it; seen it; seen it;” some I didn’t
notice at all at the time (or if I did notice, made so
little impact that I didn’t recognize them months later);
and a few still seemed new and cool. But a bunch of others
stood out as important, had personal resonance for me, and
seemed, somehow, to be representative of the year. So here
we go:

February, 2004:

The Grey Album – the highest-profile mashup, created by DJ
Danger Mouse from Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles’
White Album

Gay weddings at City Hall in San Francisco

Cingular buys AT+T Wireless

Scientists discover M&Ms randomly dumped into a bowl pack
together much more densely than spheres

Amazon writers caught reviewing their own books positively

Flickr launches

The Dynamap – bringing the power of layered online data to
a printed medium

Howard Stern dumped by Clear Channel

Brian Wilson performs his lost classic Smile, 37 years
later

Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ released – it does very
very well

Janet Jackson’s breast becomes the most searched-for image
in Lycos

A BBC poll named Apple designer Jonathan Ive as the most
influential person in British culture

Glare from Frank Gehry-designed Disney Concert Hall heats
up neighbor buildings

April, 2004:

Porn stars get HIV

BBC launches TV programs for pets

Roboticist develops swarming traffic-cones

Adbusters launches “Black Spot” sneakers

Legoland starts tracking kiddie visitors with WiFi and
RFID

Scary pics of an overweight guy designing his own Tron
costume

Retro 1850s and 1950s appliances

Google launches Gmail

Campbell’s sells Warhole-esque cans of soup as a tribute
to Andy

Burger King’s subservient chicken ad

IKEA founder, Ingvar Kamprad, has overtaken Bill Gates as
the world’s richest man

Academic conference about Wal-Mart

Sony launches a premium brand, Qualia

These are stories about design, technology, culture,
politics, media, and entertainment, all jammed together –
stories that are probably familiar, but that most of us
couldn’t have listed on our own without going back over
some kind of archive. Anyone who took Psychology 101 (not
me) will know that there are different types of memory. In
this case we’re contrasting the memory of recall with the
memory of recognition. We might not be able recall the
names of all our high school teachers, but we could
probably recognize most of them by name or photo. (Of
course, there are some teachers who we’ve blocked from
both recall and recognition due to excessive trauma – but I
digress.)

Perhaps some of the items listed above provided a frisson
of recognition, a surprise of a forgotten incident, the
pleasure of an interesting experience from the past or a
splash of perspective gained from just a few months’
distance. And you could do your own lists, using the
filter of what tripped your fancy or tickled your funny
bone, and that list might provide some fun for others
around you, but the parlor game would still hold; in this
time of information overload, we seem to need the stimulus
to have the response.

Why, if we’re consuming so many cultural stories, is it so
hard to recall them? Again, those Psych 101 students
will know about the Recency Effect – our inclination to add
weight to the more recent items. (Film studios plan
release dates for award-likely movies based on this
phenomenon; Sideways, released in the fall, seems to have
won a conspicuous number of film awards.)

And the Recency Effect is markedly intense when we try to
sum up the cultural experiences of a large period of time,
say a year. We’ve spent that time primarily consuming
information-not accumulating knowledge – the zeitgeist
database rapidly building, each fresh item reshaping the
slag heap, with the older pieces buried ever deeper below.
Try it yourself: you can probably recall last month’s
cover of ID Magazine (or a similarly relevant industry
journal), but not the one before it.

The notion of consuming media, in a period of history that
serves up so many choices, was recently addressed by Peter
Merholz in his thoughts about “media obesity”. (Indeed,
when does anyone have the time to listen to 40G of music?)
Of course, the tag-team of marketing and technology are
adding ever-more options, increasing the challenge of
ever-keeping up: If you enjoyed Seinfeld when it was
originally on television, and then again when it was in
reruns, you can now own it, so that you are able to watch
at least once more. Oh, and then one more time after that
with the commentary. So in addition to all the new media
experiences being generated from this moment forward,
there are re-released and enhanced versions of media
experiences from last year, from 5 years ago, or from 30
years ago. We’re at a single point in time with a stream
of media bearing steadily down upon us like a NASCAR final
lap, while if we’re not careful we’re going to get pounded
by the reverse commute of yesterday’s content.

And if we consider design, specifically, we have to ask
ourselves whether our contribution to this congestion is
unique in any way, or simply more of the same. Designers
are certainly in the consumption business, and while
design both creates and reflects the cultural stories
we’re considering here, the work is typically tangible.
Sure, “the iPod” sits in the zeitgeist somewhere near
“Janet Jackson’s breast,” but Lindsay Lohan’s iPod is a
concrete, physical, experience-able, designed artifact –
especially for Lindsay herself. And maybe “design
stories” – or “personal experiences with design” – are
a kind of story that is more memorable precisely because
it’s tied to an artifact. These kinds of stories may be
richer, individualized, or recall-able on other levels
(tactile, olfactory), making rapid and effective
connections with memories, emotions and experiences in
ways that that are palpable – indeed, literally physical
– and have an upper hand in providing effective tour guides to
both our collective and individual stories.

So here’s the corollary experiment: I was easily able to
generate (mostly from recall, with little need for
stimulus-recognition) a list of my own design-y
experiences from this past year – experiences that
affected me emotionally and intellectually (either
positively or negatively):

Touching the Bean at Millennium Park in Chicago

Rem Koolhaas student center (McCormick Tribune Campus Center) at IIT

Ontario College of Art and Design’s new Sharp Centre

Cornerstone Festival of Gardens

TomTom GO GPS

Bruce Sterling’s opening keynote at the IDSA Western
Region conference

It looks like design can impact an individual’s stories,
pushing past the Recency Effect, lodging in whatever
cranial fissures house the items available for recall. And
what a nice thought that is, looking back at all we’ve
been through and ahead at what’s still to come. Dylan
wrote, “She’s an artist, she don’t look back”, but he also
wrote, “Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.”

—

A similar version of this article appears on the Core77
Industrial Design Supersite. Check it out, with pictures
and everything, here.

========================================================
FreshMeat #21 from Steve Portigal

               (__)
               (oo) Fresh
                \\/  Meat

People, put your hands together now for FreshMeat!
=========================================================
There’s a party in my mind and everyone’s invited
=========================================================
At the dawn of the eighties, I looked towards my imminent
ritual transition to manhood – my Bar Mitzvah. My
preparations began with the acquisition of a portable
tape recorder (used for listening and practicing the
Torah portion I would eventually chant). My friends and I
immediately put this device to use, creating fake radio
programs, with interviews, songs, commercials, and
closing credits. The post-modern media parodies of
National Lampoon and Saturday Night Live were well-
established at that point, but not to a 13-year-old. To
us, presented with a new enabling technology, pretending
to be on the radio seemed the natural thing to do.

These new technologies continue to appear. Within recent
memory, some products that put previously unachievable
professional-grade abilities in the hands of ordinary
people include video cameras, desktop publishing, teeth
whitening, home theater, hairstyling products, and home
dry-cleaning. Further, consider some of the brands that
offer “professional” as part of their promise: Hummer,
Jeep, Viking, Thermador, SubZero, Bosch, Nikon, and Smart
and Final.

In our culture there is a growing interest in trying to
be like the professionals. As consumers, we’re interested
in how business is done. The popular press reports the
amount of money that a new movie makes in its opening
weekend. Advertisements (most recently Dell) profile the
product designers, user researchers, usability testers,
and others who are behind the scenes for the products we
buy. Many of the ubiquitous reality-TV shows are simply
pulling back the veil on a previously hidden process
(MTV’s Cribs documents the homes of the famous, Take This
Job- tracks the work activities of people with unique
occupations, Airline shows the minutiae of getting
passengers boarded for an on-time departure, and Family
Plots tells all about a family-owned funeral home). The
boundaries between consumer and producer continue to
blur, a change that was massively accelerated by the
Internet. For more about this, check out The Cluetrain
Manifesto. Customers (really, fans) of companies form
communities to debate how those companies and their
products should evolve. For example, Google’s social
networking site Orkut includes two communities with over
1000 subscribers: What Should Google Do? and What Should
Orkut Do?

But beyond simply acting upon that sense of ownership by
talking about the companies, many people are taking
advantage of new enabling technology (i.e., Photoshop) to
go one step further – to create new “products.” And, with
a distribution channel like the Internet, they can also
share their creation with an enormous audience, just like
the professionals.

Fan-created fiction (or “Fanfic”) is artifact of fandom
in general, but the quantity and breadth of Internet
sources further demonstrates the extent of consumers
acting, literally, like producers. The “Lois and Clark”
Fanfic archive has over 2300 stories and is updated
regularly. There are other fanfic sites devoted to NYPD
Blue, Law and Order SVU, Felicity, anime characters such
as Sailor Moon, and video games including Max Payne and
Zork. As well as many, many Star Trek sites.

Similarly, DVD Tracks is a site that was set up to host
alternative commentary tracks for DVDs, recorded as MP3
files by ordinary viewers.

For products, specifically, one of the most popular
formats for consumer-developed concepts is the parody.
SomethingAwful.com runs a regular forum where
participants create realistic, disturbing, obscene,
bombastic and hilarious product concepts, ads, book
covers, movie posters, and more. Check out this for
fictitious recalled food products like Nestle Boogers, or
this for fake religious toys such as Biblical MadLibs and
Erotic Dreidels.

Some people might look at those pages and groan, grimace
and think “Hardy-har, I’ve seen stuff just like that on
comedy TV shows.” That’s exactly the point! Now, ordinary
folks can create parodies of real products and services
as well as commercial media. Ironically (or
frustratingly, if you can’t handle too much recursion)
this trend was beautifully pegged in a Saturday Night
Live parody ad for computer they called McIntosh Jr.
Using the tagline “The Power to Crush the Other Kids” one
young boy earns the envy of his classmates by printing
out a fake brochure for the “pubic library.” See the ad
here.

Beyond straight-up parodies, we can find people crafting
conceptual visions of the future. Look at this to see
wireless coffee delivery and payphones converted to
clean air dispensers, among other imaginings.

But what probably hits closest to home for many of us are
the proposed design evolutions of real products, created
by regular people. A beautiful iPod watch is here. You
can see 150 other iPod concepts – new form factors, new
finishes, skins, features, and more here.

These people obviously have real passion and enthusiasm
for the iPod. We also find a similar energy with an
eagerly anticipated product update, such as the Nintendo
DS. When the public has no idea what their future object
of desire will look like, fake images begin circulating
to feed that hunger. Gizmodo.com

, an excellent site for
information about the latest technology products, has
been soliciting concepts for the Nintendo DS (see some
examples here) as part of their campaign to obtain an
actual pre-release image of the product. They are even
offering a bounty (get the details here) for whoever can
provide this image.

A further variation is the how-to information created by
enthusiasts who not only share the result of their
project, but also publish detailed instructions for
others who may want to duplicate their example. They are
publishing their own designs, and the means for others to
complete that same design. Want to build a lit cityscape
for your kitchen window? See how Ryan Hoagland did it
here. Mike Harrison tells you how to build a Nixie Tube
clock here. Physically modifying a PC (or “casemodding”)
has produced a entire subculture of DIY hardware
designers who no doubt are influencing manufacturers like
Alienware. See the process of building a casemod that
looks like an anime girl here, or visit www.moddin.net to
see ultra-custom designs like a toaster, an Underwood
typerwriter, a V8 engine and others that evoke futuristic
technogeek wet dreams. The turn-your-Mac-Classic-into-an-
aquarium meme became so widespread that there is an
entire collection of Mac-based aquariums here.

Product designers may have a negative knee-jerk reaction
to all this. Who do these people think they are? Up to
this point, the limited availability of glorious tools
(and training needed to use them) placed this type of
speculative conceptual activity out of the reach of the
masses. Now the technology, if not the ability, is within
reach of millions. But for designers this is really a
“the-more-the-merrier” situation. These new enabling
technologies (i.e., PhotoShop and its brethren) further
the discourse about what is possible, and what is desired
– and that discourse is an essential ingredient in the
work we do for non-fake clients.

For example, consider how user research methods such as
participatory design (also known as PD) explicitly
harness this desire. PD asks regular people to help
design future products. The designers work directly with
users to identify needs, rapidly prototype solutions, and
iterate those solutions on-the-fly. Although some may
fear that bringing non-designers into the actual pencil-
and-paper moments of design may reduce the design to a
mere sketchmonkey, PD is not consumer-led design. The
designer takes the lead, informed by what the users know
best – the problems they have today with existing
products (of a lack of product). People will offer
alternatives to ideas suggested by designers, but the
biggest value for the designer is in understanding the
needs behind that input (i.e., it’s not clear that people
are ready for an emergency fresh air dispenser as
suggested above, but we can see the connection between
that concept and existing products such as the USB-based
personal ionizers that are sold online).

When someone says, “I want a handle,” that shouldn’t be
taken literally. The need being expressed is, “I need an
easy way to carry this device into another room.” The
designer is not simply implementing a wish-list but is
actively translating and transforming. That is what they
do best: act as a magic engine that takes in needs and
spits out wants – in a way that solves the need. No one
really “needs” an iPod watch, but they may “want” one.
Some people want one badly enough to create a picture of
what it would be like!

Participatory design is a significant shift in how we
approach user research – instead of focusing on the
problem we are now working with users to develop the
solutions. Of course, in the process of creating
products, needs, wants, and solutions are often just
proxies for each other as we struggle to articulate half-
baked ideas. But half-baked ideas are artifacts of the
creative process. It’s exciting that these regular people
are already creating partially cooked concepts on their
own, without a client, without a PD session, without a
designer, or a facilitator. For the designer who seeks to
center their solutions in the world of the user, rest
assured that the users are already headed out to meet you
halfway.

If we ever wanted proof that such a thing is possible,
that everyone really is a designer, we need look no
further than these impassioned expressions of desire to
be involved with products we love.

—

A similar version of this article appears on the Core77
Industrial Design Supersite. Check it out, with pictures
and everything, here.

Gary Condit is back in the news today. Guess we’re approaching normalcy.

========================================================
FreshMeat #9 from Steve Portigal

               (__)                     
               (oo) Fresh                  
                \\/  Meat

=========================================================
Cultural stories of the day — more than meets the eye
=========================================================

Just the other day a colleague asked me what I thought
about the near-term effects of the Current Situation
on advertising and marketing messages.

I replied that I had observed a complex, contradictory,
and divergent set of cultural themes going by, and it
didn’t seem to be as simple as the articles in the Times
and others were making it out to be. We explored some
specifics, and so I’m sharing my next rev of those
thoughts here.

Just the fact that terms like “Current Situation” are
appearing on blogs (that term is defined here)
points to the complexity of the issue – there is no name
for it. Of course, the choice of phrasing here brings
to mind the media coverage in the film “Starship
Troopers,” or a short story by Philip K. Dick.

I think we want to believe that it is an easily understood
series of events, perhaps a monolithic notion, but there
are a range of contradictory cultural stories being told.
As cultural stories, all are equally “true” and I’ll review
some here more as exploration than as social crit.

Let’s look at “issue conflation” – what exactly are we
concerned about now? About two weeks ago there were a
number of high profile “tribute” concerts:

* Allegiance of Neighbors, a benefit performance for
New Jersey victims and survivors of the 9/11 attacks,
featuring Springsteen, Joan Jett, Jon Bon Jovi
* United We Stand, Michael Jackson’s concert in Washington
for the Red Cross and other charities
* The Country Freedom Concert, in Nashville, with Trisha
Yearwood, for the Salvation Army relief effort
* Paul McCartney’s “Concert for New York City” paid
tribute in content to the firefighters, police and
rescue workers of 9/11, but where the money is going is
less clear (to me)
* Neil Young’s Bridge Benefit – the 15th year running,
this concert raises money for a local school to help
special needs children. Yet the musicians dealt with
issues of loss, peace, war, America, hope, freedom,
and love
* Music Without Borders, held in Toronto, featuring the top
Canadian performers, to benefit the United Nations Donor
Alert, detailed the plight of Afghan refugees between
musical performances

Who are the victims we are helping out? Americans? Afghans?
Firefighters? The overriding story is “Donate! Help out!
Stand up!” – but is it to reward bravery, to protect the
innocent, to care for the survivors? Already, it becomes a
bit more complex.

Another “issue conflation” appears when business people
speak of the economy, they can be heard referring to
“the downturn and September 11th” in one breath, speaking
out one indivisible atom, presenting them as one unit, one
factor in the business climate.

Another theme is what I call “transnationalism” – the
American flag being adopted by other nations as a symbol of
their support for the U.S. In Canada, long vigilant to
avoid being perceived as Americans, the American flag was
flown across the country, and now appears on buses (for
example) with the words “United We Stand.” This would not
have happened before 9/11. (Nor would it have happened
without an increase in Canadian nationalism that has been
percolating for a couple of years, and in case you think
this isn’t relevant to business, that particular trend was
capitalized on, if not generated by, a brewery).

“Back or forth:” When people speak of their hopes, or
expectations for an unclear and perhaps scary future, they
speak of two different things – moving forward, and moving
backwards. Some express a yearning to return to what was
once good and simple, before our society lost sight of what
was important, moving to the inevitable events of 9/11.
Others describe moving ahead, getting past the tragedy, to
find a new place ahead where we’ve learned some lessons,
and things are good and simple, and the focus is on what is
important. The endpoint is the same, but the perceived
direction is opposite. Advertisers can use Norman Rockwell
to tap into one of these themes, but it doesn’t come close
to addressing the other theme.

“Security first:” Apparently, both gun sales and enrollment
in self-defense classes are on the rise. It’d doubtful that
anyone expects to protect themselves from anthrax or
hijacking in this manner, but general feelings about
security are leading people to respond. Even issues around
computer security seem to be receiving more media
attention, somehow under the same general concern.

“The elasticity of inconvenience:” In the first days
following the resumption of air travel, the media showed
the effect of new security measures on travelers, each of
whom said something to the effect that it didn’t matter how
long it took, as long as they were safe. In the following
weeks, every time there were new measures put in place, the
news would do a similar story, but the tone began to shift,
as people began to imply their frustration with losing
their nail clippers, and having to wait at the same time.
The news stories still would feature the disclaimer about
preferring safety to inconvenience, but something had
changed – the travelers mouthed the statement as some
truism that they felt socially obligated to say. It now has
the same flavor as the Jerry Seinfeld “not that there’s
anything wrong with that!” disclaimer that must be said
quickly whenever someone is described as gay.

“Symbol devaluation:” American flags are so in-demand that
companies can’t make enough of them, one of the greatest
memes of the last little while. Millions of individuals
seeking to announce…something…with the flag. Then a
week later, NBC has changed their logo (appearing in the
bottom right corner of every program) to a red, white, and
blue version. Local auto dealers cover their showrooms with
red, white, and blue balloons. Are they doing what they can
to help out, or are they cashing in on a crisis? Or both?

Further to this, cars began to sprout antenna flags. What
happens when a car with a flag on it cuts you off in
traffic? Or the driver yells something angry or impatient
at a pedestrian, the flag whipping in the breeze and they
speed away? What does the act of posting a flag imply about
neighborliness, kindness, or brotherhood? Should it be any
different than it was?

Other stories which point to some complex and contradictory
experiences and perspectives:
* Bill Maher censured for saying that the terrorists
weren’t cowards (and that firing missiles from far away,
as the U.S. does, is cowardly)
* Public opinion polls suggest U.S. citizens willing to
surrender privacy rights in order to prevent future
tragedies
* University of British Columbia professor Sumera Thobani
saying that the history of U.S. foreign policy is “soaked
with blood” and facing extreme criticism, and pockets of
support for either her opinion, or her right to express
her opinion
* The Canadian government moves to override the patent on
Bayer’s anti-anthrax drug Cipro
* Increasing enrollment in Arabic language classes

In each of these, some basic principles that our cultures
assume are fixed and permanent are being questioned. And
for each, there are responses, columns, ads from the ACLU,
debates, etc. But issues are more complex than before, new
thoughts are being voiced, and old beliefs are being
challenged.

Again, these are cultural stories. They appear in the
media, at dinner parties, in email, around the photocopier
at work, etc. They are all happening simultaneously, and
we’re all participating to some extent in each of them. And
obviously, it’s all far more complex than this space would
allow for, but the goal here is to at least point to some
of the themes, to illustrate the complexity, and to provide
some food for thought.

—

An updated version of this article was published in LiNE Zine

Update: ‘Air rage’ is back

By JESSICA WEHRMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
January 14, 2002

– In the months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, airline travel was primarily populated with placid, patient customers who braved long lines, applauded flight attendants and, on a few flights, burst into “God Bless America.”

Months later, most passengers are still patient, despite a few muttered complaints at security. But in a handful of cases, the bad behavior – also dubbed “air rage” is back – and it has led to arrests.

Most recently, an airline pilot was arrested after making what authorities called “inappropriate” comments at an airport security checkpoint. Elwood Menear, 46, a US Airways pilot, was released from jail Monday after being charged with making terrorist-like threats and disorderly conduct. Officials would not give specifics on the comments.

========================================================
FreshMeat #1 from Steve Portigal

               (__)                     
               (oo) Fresh                  
                \\/  Meat

Pass it on!

========================================================
What is the connection between quality and authenticity?
And is it really a small world after all?
========================================================
Do you ever watch other people when you go on vacation?
Perhaps it’s an occupational hazard, but I find myself
constantly curious about the people I see. Did they
choose this place for the same reasons I did? If not,
what brought them here?

This seems to be a fun exercise although it’s rare to
get any answers. It does provoke self-analysis, which if
you’re me, is a good thing to do on vacation.
I found myself in Waikiki a little while ago. It’s
totally a tourist area – a few blocks with hundreds of
hotels, surf lessons, beaches, palm trees, cafes, and
restaurants. Other parts of Hawaii are considered by
some as the “real” place to go – in fact I have to fight
the need to apologize for choosing Waikiki as my
destination.

While there, I thought a lot about previous trips to Las
Vegas, which is another area that exists solely for
tourists to come and consume manufactured tourist
experiences.

Vegas is typified by the Venice casino, a recreation of
its namesake (indoors), with clouds painted on the
ceiling and gondoliers who use professional audio
equipment for their singing. To me, it’s crap. Most of
the Strip is (increasingly) this sort of crap.

In Waikiki, two guys in an SUV pull up to the beach at
6:30, then leap out clad in a brand-new bright red and
gold nylon traditional toga-like outfit (obviously, it
looks nothing like a toga, but the point is, there are
no pants to it). One takes a conch shell and stoically
blows into it three times, turning 90 degrees each time.
The other scampers around carrying a burning stick and
lights all the built-in torches along the beach.

Now, this struck me as cool. Obviously, this was
completely manufactured for tourists who want to think
they’ve had some kind of authentic Hawaiian experience.
It was goofy, but I pointed out to myself that at least
it was derived from something real. To me, this form of
revisionism seemed less dangerous, less offensive, and
less crappy than mini-versions of Paris, New York, or
Venice.

Is it simply the fact that Vegas passes itself off as
opulent indulgence (successfully, it seems) that presses
so hard on the inauthentic button for me? Or is the
context of Hawaii so powerfully wonderful that no amount
of Disneyfication can eliminate it? And why is it that
the guys dressed up like Klingons at the Star Trek
Experience were the most genuine thing in all of Las
Vegas?

Clearly further study on these locations is required. My
current hypothesis is that it is the vacationer’s intent
(gamble, relax, indulge, party, nature-immersion, etc.)
that tints the sunglasses the appropriate shade of rose.

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Postscript: If you’re interested in Hawaii from a
cultural and historical point of view, check out The
American Raj by John Gregory Dunne, in the May 7, 01 New
Yorker. He looks at the multiple ethnic groups and
cultures (the Navy being one of them) that make up
Hawaii, and does a nice comparison of Pearl Harbor (the
event), Pearl Harbor (the movie), and the sinking of the
Japanese fishing boat by the Greenville.

Postscript 2: A recent NYT travel feature “Honolulu
Proves Clichés Can Charm” provides more description of
Waikiki.

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