Book Tour Reading #2 Now in Production
Have gotten started on Reading #2 of the Virtual Book Tour. Just landed in England, located coffee, and endured the agony of a car rental agency with its computers down.
Thinking back, I really was very stubborn about sticking with the rental agency I'd chosen -- I was going to have a British vacation, dammit! No computer glitch was going to keep me down! And eventually, things did come together, but what a long, drawn-out experience!
Anyway, it all worked out... and when I think back, I'm struck by the fact that at Gatwick there was only one British car rental agency. American agencies had moved in and pretty much taken over -- Avis, Hertz... and I think Budget. It seems odd to me, thinking back, that I just couldn't get away from the States, even on the other side of the Atlantic. I suppose it's getting that way pretty much all over the world, what with McDonalds in every port and Nike and whatnot in proliferation.
I remember when I was in Germany, how people complained so bitterly about McDonalds being everywhere, and it was a bummer. But nowadays, I think it's even moreso. The world is a lot smaller now, than it was in 1986 (20 years ago! don't remind me!) and the lack of local color just makes the whole world seem that much smaller. It's getting to the point, where it's tough to find any local color at all, anymore. Even at the smaller places -- perhaps especially at the smaller places, since those places often have inferiority complexes they hope to overcome with ascribing to mass-produced dominant culture commodities. Everybody wants to be somebody, and when the Big Guys (and the United States) are seen as Somebody, and American companies make it really, really easy to consume their products, then everybody has easy access to a whole new identity, compliments of marketing culture.
Ah, well. I suppose it's been this way since time immemorial. People have been cirumnavigating the globe in search of What's Cool and What's From Somewhere Else (often the two are synonymous) for as long as they've been able to hop in a ship and go. Ancient Chinese pottery shards have been found on the coast of Chile. The Merrimack Valley was a destination for miners and ore traders from the British Isles and Phoenicia. And the Silk Road opened up the East to the West aeons ago. So, it should come as no surprise that we continue to do this cross-cultural integration thing.
I just wish we could retain something of the original, now and then. If there is such at thing as "the original"...
Thinking back, I really was very stubborn about sticking with the rental agency I'd chosen -- I was going to have a British vacation, dammit! No computer glitch was going to keep me down! And eventually, things did come together, but what a long, drawn-out experience!
Anyway, it all worked out... and when I think back, I'm struck by the fact that at Gatwick there was only one British car rental agency. American agencies had moved in and pretty much taken over -- Avis, Hertz... and I think Budget. It seems odd to me, thinking back, that I just couldn't get away from the States, even on the other side of the Atlantic. I suppose it's getting that way pretty much all over the world, what with McDonalds in every port and Nike and whatnot in proliferation.
I remember when I was in Germany, how people complained so bitterly about McDonalds being everywhere, and it was a bummer. But nowadays, I think it's even moreso. The world is a lot smaller now, than it was in 1986 (20 years ago! don't remind me!) and the lack of local color just makes the whole world seem that much smaller. It's getting to the point, where it's tough to find any local color at all, anymore. Even at the smaller places -- perhaps especially at the smaller places, since those places often have inferiority complexes they hope to overcome with ascribing to mass-produced dominant culture commodities. Everybody wants to be somebody, and when the Big Guys (and the United States) are seen as Somebody, and American companies make it really, really easy to consume their products, then everybody has easy access to a whole new identity, compliments of marketing culture.
Ah, well. I suppose it's been this way since time immemorial. People have been cirumnavigating the globe in search of What's Cool and What's From Somewhere Else (often the two are synonymous) for as long as they've been able to hop in a ship and go. Ancient Chinese pottery shards have been found on the coast of Chile. The Merrimack Valley was a destination for miners and ore traders from the British Isles and Phoenicia. And the Silk Road opened up the East to the West aeons ago. So, it should come as no surprise that we continue to do this cross-cultural integration thing.
I just wish we could retain something of the original, now and then. If there is such at thing as "the original"...
posted by Kay Stoner at 4:01 AM
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