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ALL_CONSUMING

                                     July 20, 2012

   "I'm glad that-- to put it crudely--
  the masses are being made aware of                  SCIALABBA
  culture.  But I'm sorry that this
  awareness is first awakened through the
  medium of advertising and therefore
  perceives culture, at least at first,
  as an object of consumption."

           -- Scialabba, "Crowds and Culture",
              about the problems the places
              jammed by crowds of tourists.
              Collected in "Divided Mind" (2006)


   Unless we're going to abandon the whole
   idea of markets, I think we need some
   form of them that doesn't seem quite so
   degrading: a need for creators and
   "consumers" to trade "commodities" with
   respect and understanding.

      It is possible that they can do
      this in Japan in ways we've long
      lost track of here.

            OTAKU_FED

      It is not terribly clear how this thought
      would be applied to the problem that
      Scialabba cites in his essay-- travels to see
      the ancient seats of culture in Italy that
      are nearly pointless because of all the other
      travelers, many of whom seem a bit lacking
      in a clue about why they're there.

      It could be that the "sellers" in this
      case should have more respect for the
      buyers (not to mention the locals) and      As it stands, they
      establish quotas/limits: they might find    risk a market crash
      that they can get as much or more money     as word spreads that
      off of a smaller number of visitors.        there's no point in
                                                  trying to "do Rome"
      The queues on the ground would then be      because it's just
      moved to a waiting list for visitors.       too crowded.


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