Okay. I'm stealing that word for this idea while you all look the other way.
Generica.
I started thinking about this trend, and I do think it is an international one, from two different directions, 1) is how we seem to get imprinted with forms and shapes and patterns, our mother's face, the voice of our father, the sillouette of two brothers standing on the familiar porch steps and how we, or rather, our deep unconscious constantly searchs for those patterns and records them as we go through life, so that even in a strange land we will mistakenly think we see the face of an old friend or the back of the head of a former teacher. 2) While thinking about ebeth's upcoming trip to our fair city, New York, and whether or not she should try Katz's deli, I was reminded of another visitor. She was the daughter of an old friend, visiting New York because she thought she wanted to be discovered as an actress. ( Yes. That's a completely different story in itself, I'll have to share later. Apparently there are those innocents left, but they are few, aren't they?) At any rate, she arrived and we were supposed to go to dinner.
[I]"I love Italian food"[/I] she gushed, and I pictured us strolling through Little Italy, looking, smelling, reading menus, trying to remember where that really good zuppa was...Umberto's, no, Il something wasn't it, it was off of Mulberry next to the place with the garden out back... when she went on, [I]"I hope there is an Olive Garden here because that's the best." [/I] There are, if you can believe Cityscapes, about three thousand Italian restaurants in Manhattan...I let Mrs. Nation take our wide-eyed guest to the Olive Garden.
And that's when it hit me. Why would New York want an Olive Garden? Or a Gap or an Abercrombie&Whatever or a Victoria's Secret, if the idea is to draw people from other places to come visit here? If this place is the same as what you left, what is the appeal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, we still have MOMA, and the Natural History Museum and Soho and ... so maybe my question is why would Tulsa, Knoxville and Ft. Worth want all the same stores (they even have the same paint on the walls, it's like the old Catholic Mass, no matter where you went it was identical too.)
Anyway, this thought, if you can call it that, is still mushy in my head. Is this striving for sameness something new or is it the result of the constant drumming of marketing, think :'soft drink' drink [B]Diet Coke[/B], think: home improvement, drink [B]Home Depot[/B].?
I started thinking about this trend, and I do think it is an international one, from two different directions, 1) is how we seem to get imprinted with forms and shapes and patterns, our mother's face, the voice of our father, the sillouette of two brothers standing on the familiar porch steps and how we, or rather, our deep unconscious constantly searchs for those patterns and records them as we go through life, so that even in a strange land we will mistakenly think we see the face of an old friend or the back of the head of a former teacher. 2) While thinking about ebeth's upcoming trip to our fair city, New York, and whether or not she should try Katz's deli, I was reminded of another visitor. She was the daughter of an old friend, visiting New York because she thought she wanted to be discovered as an actress. ( Yes. That's a completely different story in itself, I'll have to share later. Apparently there are those innocents left, but they are few, aren't they?) At any rate, she arrived and we were supposed to go to dinner.
[I]"I love Italian food"[/I] she gushed, and I pictured us strolling through Little Italy, looking, smelling, reading menus, trying to remember where that really good zuppa was...Umberto's, no, Il something wasn't it, it was off of Mulberry next to the place with the garden out back... when she went on, [I]"I hope there is an Olive Garden here because that's the best." [/I] There are, if you can believe Cityscapes, about three thousand Italian restaurants in Manhattan...I let Mrs. Nation take our wide-eyed guest to the Olive Garden.
And that's when it hit me. Why would New York want an Olive Garden? Or a Gap or an Abercrombie&Whatever or a Victoria's Secret, if the idea is to draw people from other places to come visit here? If this place is the same as what you left, what is the appeal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, we still have MOMA, and the Natural History Museum and Soho and ... so maybe my question is why would Tulsa, Knoxville and Ft. Worth want all the same stores (they even have the same paint on the walls, it's like the old Catholic Mass, no matter where you went it was identical too.)
Anyway, this thought, if you can call it that, is still mushy in my head. Is this striving for sameness something new or is it the result of the constant drumming of marketing, think :'soft drink' drink [B]Diet Coke[/B], think: home improvement, drink [B]Home Depot[/B].?
Here in Generica,
we like our style to be in style,
we see the smile of all our mothers
on the faces of the ladies
selling cars on the tv screen
look
there are our brothers
standing in line at Starbucks
wearing the same color khakis
as the fellow in the ad. Yet,
we sleep so well,
so deep
we no longer have those anxious
dreams impelling us to unfamiliar places,
to unclaimed stairways
unopened doors.
Joe(Not on purpose, I try to be a little more like everyone everyday)Nation
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