Rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
You Are There
photograph: Thomas J. O'Halloran
Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a nowhere which is basically everywhere? It’s almost harder to find one’s way out of the strips of dealerships and fast food joints that are to be found on the outskirts of any major town. There are no signposts since the essence of branding is to create a location which is identical everywhere. How is it possible to distinguish one Wendy’s or McDonald’s from another when the whole idea is to provide the same thing no matter where you go. The same applies with the Holiday Inn Express, whose rooms and facilities are created following the same master plan and grid with the breakfast nook serving a similar menu of modest items, with a small workout room residing by the pool. The buffet of consumerism is all the more disconcerting since there’s the ultimate suggestion that perhaps one is trapped in a never-ending procession of similar entities. Sometimes one segues right into the other and you experience a version of Ground Hog Day. Your Google maps will confirm you’re occupying a new set of coordinates though it’s unclear how you know you’ve gone anywhere.
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Francis Levy's debut novel, Erotomania: A Romance, was released in August 2008 by Two Dollar Radio.
His short stories, criticism, humor, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, The Village Voice, The East Hampton Star, The Quarterly, Penthouse, Architectural Digest, TV Guide, The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and other publications. One of his Voice humor pieces was anthologized in The Big Book of New American Humor (HarperCollins). His collection of parables, The Kafka Studies Department with illustrations by Hallie Cohen will appear in
September.
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