Roadside Attraction Research Articles

Reinventing the Afterlife in Japan (1960-2020): From Temple Dioramas to Architect-designed Hell and Heaven Parks

In Japan the ancestralized dead are generally associated with graves and memorial tablets. Yet the most tangible and elaborate form of post-mortem contact with the mass of those existing outside this status (for example in the hells or as hungry ghosts, gaki) is provided by three dimensional re-creations of the otherworld, based on the painted scrolls portraying the six paths of reincarnation (rokudō-e). They are to be found in temples containing halls dedicated to the infernal King and judge Enma (Yama), in relatively recent additions to other temples or, more generally, on sites of “Buddhist leisure” such as contemporary religious-themed amusement parks, or even as roadside attractions. Amusement and religious instruction continue to be combined also in sites such as the sacred mountain of Tateyama, anciently known as an abode of the dead and later as a pilgrimage destination. In order to develop tourism in the 1990s the local prefectural authorities built a museum housing the famous “pilgrimage mandala” scrolls as well as a series of parks. The most ambitious of these is the Tateyama mandara amusement park (Tateyama mandara yūen), a very complex symbolic and multisensorial representation of the world of the eponymous scrolls. Designed by a well-known architect it mainly portrays the souls’ itinerary through the paths of rebirth and includes seven paradises in the form of installations by artists. Other attempts at recreating the afterlife include minor tourist attractions such as the Izu Gokurakuen (paradise amusement park), now prized by some as an example of retro Shōwa nostalgia, a building containing still another version of plaster dioramas of infernal tortures embellished by light effects, plus a paradise attached to a sex museum. Another type of re-creation is constituted by the models of new hells (such as that for “eraser thieves”) made by schoolchildren to whom an artist and former teacher had shown pictures of the Tateyama mandalas as a source of inspiration.

The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate

Reviewed by: The One and Only Ruby by Katherine Applegate Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Applegate, Katherine The One and Only Ruby; illus. by Patricia Castelao. Harper, 2023 [240p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780063080089 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780063080102 $12.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 3-5 Little Ruby, the baby elephant featured in The One and Only Ivan (BCCB 02/12) and The One and Only Bob (BCCB 05/20) has come a long way since her time as a roadside attraction at The Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, and she's flourishing now in the care of her adopted herd at the Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary. Lately, however, she's been plagued with worries about her upcoming Tuskday, when the other elephants in her herd will celebrate the arrival of her tusks. She's not interested in being the center of attention or having to give a speech—at [End Page 285] least, those are the reasons she gives to others about her anxiety. The truth, however, comes from a place of deeper trauma, and it's only revealed when she's encouraged by Ivan and Bob to talk about her experience as a baby on the African savanna. Applegate yet again shows her ability to explore grief and its lifelong ripples with a subtle tenderness, balancing the joy of Ruby's current life and relationships with the fact that Ruby only lives in the sanctuary because she lost a mother to poachers and was forcibly relocated multiple times (eventually to the U.S., where readers of previous books will know she lost yet another maternal figure). The direct narrative tone gives depth to her personality: Ruby can be as mischievous and playful as she is stubborn and sometimes angry. Ivan, Bob, and Ruby all share terrible experiences at the hands of ignorant and even cruel humans, and while Applegate shows their current caretakers as compassionate people, she never offers redemption to those that hurt the friends and acknowledges the traumas that will stay with the trio for a long time. An elephant glossary is provided in frontmatter while an author's note discussing conservation, ecotourism, and elephant endangerment concludes the book. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Settler colonialism and the violent geographies of tourism in the California redwoods

Hidden from view, underneath the tourism landscape of the California redwoods, is a genocidal settler colonial history of warfare, massacres, and forced removal of Native Americans from their ancestral lands. This history has been ignored in the touristic narrative of people and place presented by a redwoods attraction in northern California, which are rife with unacknowledged histories and geographies of violence. Framed by scholarship on violent geographies in tourism development, this study shows how redwoods tourism has erased Indigenous people and history from the landscape, and how new ‘power-laden’ tourism imaginaries have been created in their place. The new tourism narrative is found in the spatial layout, interpretive signage, exhibits, website, museum of Native American artifacts, and interpretive trails in a roadside attraction called Trees of Mystery. Secondary historical literature and maps of local Yurok ancestral territory and land ownership construct a counter-narrative of the site's geography and history. Findings reveal a fanciful settler colonial history highlighting heroic male loggers on the ‘frontier’, and representations of ingenious Native Americans as historic people who produced beautiful tools, clothing and artwork but are now defeated, dead, and exotic. In fact, white settlers, backed by the U.S. Army and local militias, appropriated and logged Native American redwood lands, and in doing so massacred resident Yurok People and forced the survivors from their traditional territories. Conversely, the Yurok People have been reclaiming ancestral lands, reviving cultural practices, and resisting settler colonialism from the early 1800s to the present-day. Across the Americas, countless other settler colonial tourism sites like these sit upon violent geographies. Unearthing the hidden geography of this particular site shows how decolonizing research might be undertaken at other tourism sites situated on stolen Indigenous lands in the U.S. and beyond.

Qualitative Field Observation of Pedestrian Injury Hotspots: A Mixed-Methods Approach for Developing Built- and Socioeconomic-Environmental Risk Signatures

Road traffic injuries constitute a significant global health burden; the World Health Organization estimates that they result in 1.35 million deaths annually. While most pedestrian injury studies rely predominantly on statistical modelling, this paper argues for a mixed-methods approach combining spatial analysis, environmental scans, and local knowledge for assessing environmental risk factors. Using data from the Nova Scotia Trauma Registry, severe pedestrian injury cases and ten corresponding hotspots were mapped across the Halifax Regional Municipality. Using qualitative observation, quantitative environmental scans, and a socioeconomic deprivation index, we assessed hotspots over three years to identify key social- and built-environmental correlates. Injuries occurred in a range of settings; however, clear patterns were not observed based on land use, age, or socio-economic status (SES) alone. Three hotspots revealed an association between elevated pedestrian injury and a pattern of geographic, environmental, and socio-economic factors: low- to middle-SES housing separated from a roadside attraction by several lanes of traffic, and blind hills/bends. An additional generalized scenario was constructed representing common risk factors across all hotspots. This study is unique in that it moves beyond individual measures (e.g., statistical, environmental scans, or geographic information systems (GIS) mapping) to combine all three methods toward identifying environmental features associated with pedestrian motor vehicle crashes (PMVC).

Decline of luminous firefly Abscondita chinensis population in Barrankula, Andhra Pradesh, India

Luminous fireflies are a roadside attraction group of insects which act as environmental indicators and indicate the quality of surrounding milieus. However, recent studies suggest that water pollution and climate change are involved in the decline of firefly populations around the world, and have sounded an alarm regarding the conservation of the firefly population. Therefore, the present study aimed to assess the current status of the firefly population in a remote place called “Barrankula” in the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh, India, which is surrounded by paddy fields. Two decades ago (during 1996), the population of the firefly Abscondita chinensis Kiesenwetter 1874 (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae) around the freshwater canal of Barrankula was documented in the several hundreds (>500) of individuals within a 10-m2 area. However, the same site was found to have a declining population of Abs. chinensis (only 10 to 20 individuals) within a 10-m2 area in January 2019. Thus, further population modeling studies are imperative to investigate the factors influencing the distribution and abundance of Abs. chinensis and to conserve this species. In addition, this study also investigated the luminescence emission patterns of Abs. chinensis under captive conditions, where gradual depletion of luminescence was detected under starved conditions. Abs. chinensis documented in this study is the first record of faunal diversity in Andhra Pradesh.

Apology Letter from Starkburg County Jail

Apology Letter from Starkburg County Jail George Singleton (bio) Your mother never suffered acne, Max. I need to go ahead and start at the beginning, I feel. If you come across that photograph of her, know that the raised red splotches across her cheeks, neck, and forehead diminished for the most part by the end of our honeymoon. I don't know if this will make you feel better or worse, but she wouldn't leave our hotel room down there on Tybee Island—the El Dorado, which might've been swanky back in 1940 or thereabouts but couldn't exude any flair other than constant mildew by 2001, while your mom and I hid out for two whole weeks, which was enough time, evidently, to conceive you. I know that, in time, you will google my name, and your mom's—especially after this latest incident. You will find a mug shot of her all swollen-faced and raw. Know that she got bailed out right after the wedding reception, and that your uncles and aunts and grandparents on my side of the family dropped all charges. Know that it was me—me!—who talked sense into everyone. I'd be willing to bet that by the time you read this you will have heard my name connected with other words like "ne'er-do-well" and "reprobate" and "son-of-a-bitch." I understand. I won't deny occasions when those words might connect with my being. (I just got out my old English book from my one semester in college and found out those words might be called "appositives." Or "synonyms." Or maybe both. I found out that you don't need Google to get stuck in a vortex, as long as you keep turning a book's "leafs," or "pages.") In my defense, I don't know why your mom had a pistol strapped to the inside of her thigh during the entire wedding ceremony, even if it was one of those tiny, tiny pearl-handled .38 pistols marketed toward women. I blame her brother—who would be your uncle—Cade. He never liked me. He stood up in the middle of the rehearsal dinner the night before and lifted a glass to say, "Here's to marrying out of your station," which made everyone on his side of the family, the Pryor side, laugh hard and nod and clink their Scotches, while everyone on my [End Page 139] side sat there wondering what a station might mean. Listen, Max, my side of the family might not be as savoir faire as your mother's, but goddamn we could buy them all up with the money we got over three generations of selling "authentic" hillbilly slingshots at every Stuckey's, fireworks outlet, peach stand, Petro truck stop, South of the Border, pecan stand, and roadside attraction between about Missouri and West Virginia, Kentucky to Florida. When your uncle Cade said that thing about "station," I imagine that most of my people sat there with an image of all our mom-and-pop convenience stores where we sold hillbilly slingshots right up on a stand near the cash register, probably next to pepperoni rolls in West Virginia, or pecan logs most everywhere else. I don't want to knock your momma, Max, but we could take her formally educated Pryor relatives, box them up, and use them for tax deductions at the Goodwill or Salvation Army every December. I don't want to beat a dead drum, Max, but if the Joy side of your genes was so stupid would we have known to diversify into corncob pipes, or jars of okra advertised as pickled turtle dicks? ________ That photo you'll find of your mom resulted from my decision to offer one-of-a-kind thank-you gifts for the groomsmen and bridesmaids. It's not even the groom's charge to buy gifts for the bridesmaids. I've been in some weddings over the years, Max, and here's what I've gotten in return: a pewter beer mug, a non-pewter beer stein, a money clip, and a Zippo lighter. I thought that one...

Personalizing the Apocalypse: Frontier Mythology and Genre Hybridity in „Maggie”

An independent U.S.-Swiss co-production released by Lionsgate Films and Roadside Attractions, Maggie 2015 is marketed as apost-apocalyptic Horror drama and appears most obviously as azombie-apocalypse film. It soon becomes apparent, however, that Maggie differs markedly from other, more traditional zombie-apocalypse films. It blends recognizable elements from several mainstream genres and, though largely conforming to the well-known conventions of so-called classical realism, echoes some of the alternative narrative strategies traditionally associated with independent American and European cinemas. Although Maggie is rich with interpretive possibilities, this article shall touch on a less overt, some might even say fringe aspect of its narrative; namely, its engagement with a number of aspects of America’s frontier mythology. This might seem astrange connection to make at first since the frontier myth as apopular cultural referent is most often associated with the Hollywood Western, and the Western is clearly not Maggie’s most recognizable narrative schema. However, the myth’s association with the Western, while historically dominant, is far from exclusive and it would also be amistake to deny the myth’s links to other film genres through the related connections that exist between categories of films that, on the surface, seem to have little to do with one another. This is especially so in afilm as “genre confused” as Maggie.To be clear, this article does not claim Maggie to be a Western, at least not in any traditional sense that we might understand it. Rather, it interprets Maggie as apart of amore general trend in contemporary cinema typified by the hybridization of the codes and conventions of numerous genres and subgenres; especially, but not exclusively, those that bring an international perspective to bear on traditional genre categories. In the case of Maggie, this works to undermine audience expectations through aprocess of inversion and deconstruction that reconfigures the erstwhile familiarity of the zombie-apocalypse’s popular-cultural terrain. For, in referencing the Western and its related frontier mythology in the way that it does, Maggie demonstrates the adaptability and continued relevance of both in relation to the complex dynamics of contemporary global film genres. It is within this context that Maggie references the Western and, in so doing, highlights the continuing influence of frontier mythology in contemporary popular culture. PERSONALIZACJA APOKALIPSY — MITOLOGIA POGRANICZA I GATUNKOWA HYBRYDOWOŚĆ W FILMIE MAGGIE HENRY’EGO HOBSONANiezależna amerykańsko-szwajcarska produkcja zrealizowana przez Lionsgate Films i Roadside At­tractions — Maggie 2015 — jest reklamowana jako postapokaliptyczny horror, a jawi się w sposób najoczywistszy jako zombie-apokaliptyczny film. Wkrótce stanie się jednak oczywiste, że obraz ten różni się znacząco od innych, bardziej tradycyjnych zombie-apokaliptycznych obrazów. Łączy w so­bie rozpoznawalne elementy z wielu gatunków głównego nurtu kina i mimo że przeważnie opiera się na znanych konwencjach tak zwanego klasycznego realizmu, przywołuje pewne alternatywne strate­gie narracyjne, tradycyjnie identyfikowane z niezależnym amerykańskim i europejskim kinem. Mag­gie obfituje w liczne możliwości interpretacyjne, jednak niniejszy artykuł koncentruje się na mniej widocznym, można by nawet rzec marginalnym, aspekcie jego struktury. Mianowicie na obecności w nim kilku aspektów mitologii amerykańskiego Pogranicza. Na pierwszy rzut oka może się to wydać dziwnym odniesieniem, ponieważ mit pograniczny jako odwołanie w kulturze popularnej jest najczę­ściej kojarzony z hollywoodzkim westernem, a sam western nie jest też najbardziej rozpoznawalnym narracyjnym schematem filmu Hobsona. Jednakże skojarzenie mitu z westernem, historycznie domi­nujące, nie jest przecież wyłączne i byłoby również błędem odmawianie związków zmitem innym filmowym gatunkom przez ich pokrewieństwa, istniejące między kategoriami filmów, które na pozór wydają się mieć niewiele wspólnego. Jest tak szczególnie w przypadku utworu tak „gatunkowo mie­szanego” jak Maggie. Dla jasności — w artykule film ten nie jest definiowany jako western, przynajmniej nie w tradycyjny sposób rozumienia gatunku. Jest raczej interpretowany jako część bardziej ogólnego trendu we współczesnym kinie, naznaczonego hybrydyzacją kodów i konwencji wielu gatunków i podgatunków; zwłaszcza, choć nie wyłącznie, tych, które przynoszą międzynarodową perspektywę na podstawie tra­dycyjnych gatunkowych parametrów. W przypadku Maggie działa to tak, aby podważyć oczekiwania publiczności przez proces inwersji i dekonstrukcji, który przeformułowuje dotychczasową swojskość popkulturowego zombie-apokaliptycznego obszaru. Dlatego że odwołując się do westernu i ide­ologii Pogranicza w sposób, w jaki czyni to Maggie, film ten demonstruje zdolność adaptowa­nia się i trwającą ważność obu tych fenomenów w relacji do złożonej dynamiki współczesnych glo­balnych gatunków filmowych. To właśnie w tym kontekście Maggie przywołuje western i — czyniąc to — rzuca światło na trwający wpływ ideologii Pogranicza na współczesną popularną kulturę. Przeł. Kordian Bobowski

Jess, Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

Reviewed by: Jess, Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity by Kristin Elizabeth Clark Karen Coats Clark, Kristin Elizabeth Jess, Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity. Farrar, 2016 [272p] Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-374-38006-9 $17.99 E-book ed. ISBN 978-0-374-38007-6 $9.99 Reviewed from galleys Ad Gr. 8-10 Jess is finally eighteen, so she has begun to transition from being Jeremy by taking the hormone treatments her father denied her. With the urging of her long-term best friend, Chunk, she decides to travel to Chicago to attend the wedding to confront her father as the girl she is transforming into. Jess is too caught up in her own drama to see that her best friend is hurt every time Jess calls him Chunk (his real name is Chuck) and uses fat-shaming as her ultimate insult, even though Chuck has been rock-steady through all of Jess’s changes. Throughout the trip, Chuck drops hints about Jess’s self-involvement that Jess deflects, rationalizes, and sometimes turns against Chuck himself. Their road trip is full of tropes and clichés, including the inevitable breakdown and the visits to weird America roadside attractions, but it is punctuated more thoughtfully by Jess’ need for transfriendly hotels and restaurants and her worries about passing. However, she never really grasps the point that other people need support as well, so her happy ending feels contrived and unmerited by her character, with a plot twist that comes as a narratively unwarranted surprise. The story is therefore overshadowed by an authorial presence that wants both an accommodating world and a more emotionally giving transgender teen to meet somewhere in a happy middle, but readers may still have sympathy for Jess as she negotiates the country and her identity. Copyright © 2017 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination by Lydia Mattice Brandt

Reviewed by: First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination by Lydia Mattice Brandt Sarah Anne Carter First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination. By Lydia Mattice Brandt. (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2016. Pp. xii, 284. $39.50, ISBN 978-0-8139-3925-4.) First in the Homes of His Countrymen: George Washington's Mount Vernon in the American Imagination explores not only how Mount Vernon became an important and flexible national symbol but also why it came to serve this purpose. Lydia Mattice Brandt's excellent book explains how this house can simultaneously be a prism for understanding and seeing changes in American culture and a palimpsest on which a wide range of ideas may be inscribed over two centuries. In five deeply researched and lucidly written chapters, Brandt offers a fascinating interdisciplinary history of public interest in George Washington's home. In chapter 1, "Prints and Pilgrimage, 1790s–1850s," she considers how the house made real the notion of Washington as a Cincinnatus-like figure, a connection that elevated his symbolic weight. Brandt tells this story by analyzing a range of prints and written sources that detail pilgrimages to Mount Vernon and by exploring how the site became a place to visit, even as it fell into disrepair. Chapter 2, "'Keep It the Home of Washington!': The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association of the Union, 1854–1890," examines the women who transcended the national crisis of the Civil War to preserve Mount Vernon. While some of this ground has been covered elsewhere, the author does a fine job of tracing the specific material context of Mount Vernon as it was restored and became a popular tourist destination by the 1890s. Chapter 3, "Replicas, Replicas, Replicas: 1890s–1920s," offers a fascinating look at the desire to copy—in some cases, in full scale—Mount Vernon, suggesting a Lost Cause "vision of the Old South" (p. 95). Details associated with the house, such as the "Mount Vernon Piazza," became part of the colonial revival in U.S. domestic architecture (p. 110). Chapters 4 and 5 engage more directly with the development of the historical profession and its relationship to Mount Vernon's public and increasingly politicized image. In "Battles of 'Authenticity': Replicas and Research in the [End Page 949] 1930s," Brandt looks at how Mount Vernon's image as an example of domestic architecture spread more widely and continued to be a popular symbolic structure at fairs in the United States and abroad. At the same time, the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association began to turn to male "preservation 'professionals'" with academic credentials to make the presentation of Mount Vernon's history more accurate (p. 151). Whether expansively sharing Mount Vernon as a cultural inspiration or carefully researching its details, these seemingly contradictory undertakings, Brandt argues, both emphasized the importance of the site. The final chapter looks at another dualism in the presentation of public history, the rise of social history and the increase in roadside attractions inspired by Mount Vernon, as well as Mount Vernon's rise as a popular tourist destination. In chapter 5, "'In This Changing and Troubled World': Social History and the American Roadside, 1950s–1980s," the author oscillates between analyzing the presentation of slavery at Mount Vernon—something readers have been expecting throughout her chapters addressing Mount Vernon as a racialized symbol of the Old South—and how Mount Vernon served as an inspiration for Howard Johnson's restaurants and for funeral homes across the United States. Readers may wish to hear more about Brandt's research and thoughtful analysis of the interpretation of slavery at Mount Vernon beyond the point she successfully makes, that "Exploring the history of slavery at Mount Vernon added another layer to Washington's humanity" (p. 198). This extremely clear and engaging book could be profitably assigned to upper-level undergraduates or graduate students in history, architectural history, material culture, popular culture, American studies, and museum studies. It would offer students an exciting opportunity to think through some of the expansive and untapped research possibilities involved in studying built environments in American...

What Good Is a Bear to Society?

AbstractArising out of fieldwork in the Canadian Rockies, this paper analyzes the role of bears in the conservation culture of Canadian national parks. Why is the presence of this large predator tolerated and even celebrated by some? And why do others fear and even despise this animal, whom they see as a danger and a menace, and resent its continued preservation? Bears may act as a token charismatic species in conservation mythology; they may be anthropomorphized into a cuddly roadside attraction evoking childhood nostalgia; or they may play the part of wrathful Nature guarding against human incursion into the wilderness. Tourists in Banff National Park take great pains to see bears, while local hikers and campers expend almost equal energy avoiding an ursine encounter. This paper explores what human reactions to bears reveal about social attitudes toward the natural world, particularly in areas like the Canadian Rockies where human and bear territory overlap.

Like a Horse and Carriage: (Non)Normativity in Hollywood Romance

Like a Horse and Carriage: (Non)Normativity in Hollywood Romance

A Drive-In Dreamland

A Drive-In Dreamland Zoe Beloff (bio) To say that Albert Grass was no business man might seem self-evident in hindsight, as his list of achievements amount to no more than pitching one ill-fated scheme after the next. But the visionary founder of the Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society always believed it was only a matter of time before psychoanalysis would set fire to the popular imagination, that he would spearhead this movement and ride the tide of its success. And in fact he was correct: Freud's theories did find their way into popular culture. Unfortunately, each of his ventures was followed quite rapidly by a competitor's similar plan that succeeded where he had failed. His most ambitious idea was undoubtedly to launch a new Dreamland amusement park at Coney Island in the early 1930s. It was to be a great Freudian theme park that explicated Freud's theories of dream formation. Although it seems that Depression-era Brooklyn was not ready for a fifty-foot-high Libido in the shape of a prepubescent girl, it was only a few years later Salvador Dali would open his Dream of Venus pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair, with topless "liquid ladies" surfacing from the depths of the Spaniard's unconscious. Similarly Grass's dream journal presented in the form of a comic book Adventures of a Dreamer failed to find a publisher in the late 1930's. Little more than ten years later in 1952, Jack Kirby of Captain America fame would publish the series The Strange World of Your Dreams in which reader-submitted dreams that were turned into comics. And in 1955 EC Comics launched another series titled, People Searching for Peace of Mind Through Psychoanalysis. Until a year ago, nothing was known about Grass's activities after the outbreak of World War II. However a small trove of papers uncovered last [End Page 191] year in Los Angeles bears the unmistakable imprint of Grass's hand. They are plans for what appears to be a roadside attraction, a structure in the form of a curvaceous young woman that would house a refreshment stand and an office for psychoanalytic sessions. Grass's notes indicated that he had selected a site located at 1250 North Main Street, which in 1943 was not far from downtown Los Angeles. It was a vacant lot surrounded by small factories that remains empty to this day. This essay contains some preliminary reflections on the discovery of these papers. Coming from the amusement park industry in Coney Island, it is not surprising that Grass would have been attracted to the Programmatic architecture that flourished in Southern California in the 1930s and 40s. Programmatic buildings take on the shape of fanciful objects, a hot dog stand in the shape of a giant puppy dog, or an ice-cream parlor in the shape of a cone. The Brown Derby and Graumann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles are two of the most famous and enduring examples of this vernacular genre. The starting point for Grass's architectural vision was clearly the Libido (Fig.1) that was to have been the centerpiece of his Dreamland amusement park. However ten years later in Los Angeles his concept had changed. Although this structure is more modest in scale, more importantly, the little girl in the original design has grown up. Now she is quite unashamedly a naked woman with full breasts and a contemporary 1940s hairstyle. Though this design might seem quite shocking today, set in a strip mall in the rapidly expanding Los Angeles of the 1940s it would not have been any more strange or overtly erotic than, for example, the thirty-foot-high lady's leg advertising Sanderson's Stockings at 11711 West Olympic Boulevard that was erected in 1948. (Fig. 2) It appears that like many Programmatic buildings, Grass's structure was to have been in part a fast food outlet. Instead of serving burgers or ice cream, the menu would have consisted only of coffee and madeleines. Whether Grass himself had read Proust or whether he had just heard about the memory-awakening powers of these little cakes is not...

Narrative Function of Deafness and Deaf Characters in Film

Narrative Function of Deafness and Deaf Characters in Film

APPLIED ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY AT AN AMERICAN ROADSIDE ATTRACTION: ANIMAL BEHAVIOR ENTERPRISES AND THE IQ ZOO OF HOT SPRINGS, ARKANSAS

Keller and Marian Breland worked with B. F. Skinner on top-secret behavioral technology during World War II. They later applied that behavioral technology in postwar business ventures that included a roadside attraction called the IQ Zoo. It attracted motorists from across the United States and, like other roadside attractions of the period, was depicted in postcards available for purchase. While conducting research associated with the business, the Brelands discovered the phenomenon of instinctive drift, which significantly advanced subsequent theoretical accounts of the biological factors that influence learning.

Searching for a New Brand: Reimagining a More Diverse Orlando

Searching for a New BrandReimagining a More Diverse Orlando Kevin Archer (bio) and Kris Bezdecny (bio) Introduction It is now well-documented that, in these increasingly globalizing and post-industrial times, urban authorities must pay close attention to the images their cities project in order to attract increasingly footloose capital and highly-educated professionals (Amen et al. 2006; Florida 2003). Constructing a positive image is a crucial part of packaging the city as a place to be consumed. In this context, Orlando, Florida (Figure 1) seemingly has led a charmed life since the arrival of Disney company in the early 1970s, as the overwhelming image projected by this place-partner is one fitted to the needs of post-industrial firms and professionals alike (Bartling 2007; Foglesong 2001). The Disney image of good, clean, down-home fun and ultimate safe escape from the vicissitudes of normal street-life provided the growing metropolis of Orlando just what was needed as advanced economies began restructuring toward increasingly post-industrial pursuits. This sanitized image of Orlando was reinforced by the city's own history. A small agricultural and transportation crossroads town in the middle of a wide swath of equally agricultural central Florida, Orlando had not experienced the growth of industry and the rapid urbanization that this generally entails by the time Disney arrived. As a result, there was no built or social sediment of industrialism that needed to be re-imagineered for the new post-industrial times. This has proven to be a distinct advantage. Neighboring Tampa, for example, has had a difficult time attempting to smother a previous built and social past of manufacturing, heavy industrial port facilities, working class neighborhoods of color, and other industrial remainders in order to project an image more suited to the times (Archer 1996). Indeed, Tampa's trouble in doing this—most recently exemplified by the unevenly successful attempt to bury the city of Tampa within the more blanched, leisurely evoked image of "Tampa Bay" which includes coastal St. Petersburg and Clearwater—serves to underscore Orlando's post-industrial advantage. Orlando, in this respect, can be considered a thoroughly post-industrial metropolitan area arising, as it has, on a virtually featureless pre-industrial plain. This, in itself, would be a reason for urbanists to study Orlando closely. In this piece, we will focus specifically on emerging problems maintaining the hitherto successful Disneyesque image of the place. The metropolitan area has grown extremely [End Page 185] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Orlando and central Florida. [End Page 186] rapidly in the last four decades as a result of this success, taking up a much larger swath of central Florida territory in its wake (Archer 2006; Hiaasen 1998). With this rapid growth, however, has come the problem of extending the Disney veneer over an increasingly un-Disney-like built and social environment. It is not just the territorial spread of ever-more kitchy, non-Disney roadside attractions that is cracking this veneer, but also the rapid growth in the numbers of the very people who help construct and maintain it or otherwise live and work beneath its hegemonic surface. As Disney has greatly expanded its own attractions within its vast territory, and as it has been joined in the area by many other tourist attractions both major (like Sea World and Universal Studios) and minor (all the various other "worlds" dotting the metropolitan area), there has been an explosion of mostly low-wage tourist-related jobs both at the attractions themselves and in the myriad hotels and restaurants that cater to visitors. As discussed below, while it might have been relatively simple early on—in what one commentator has called the marriage between Orlando and "the Mouse"—to imagineer (a Disney term meaning the combination of imagination and engineering) a safe, delightful image of the metropolitan area, this is no longer possible precisely because of this early success (Foglesong 2001). Indeed, as the metropolitan population has exploded and ethnically diversified it has become increasingly impossible for local authorities, both public and private, simply to "engineer" such a Disneyesque "image" of the place. Overall, the increasing commodification of city-space has resulted in vigorous...

Chicago 10. Dir. by Brett Morgen. Prod. by Graydon Carter and Brett Morgen. Participant Productions and River Road Entertainment, 2007. 100 mins. (Roadside Attractions, http://www.roadsideattractions.com)

Chicago 10. Dir. by Brett Morgen. Prod. by Graydon Carter and Brett Morgen. Participant Productions and River Road Entertainment, 2007. 100 mins. (Roadside Attractions, http://www.roadsideattractions.com)

T-Rex in Wonderland: Kentucky’s 27-million-dollar Creation Museum Turns One

One year ago, when I covered the opening of the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky (Slack 2007), I asked preacher Ken Ham, Answers in Genesis’ rugged-faced CEO and president, why the age of the Earth matters so much to his followers. “If any word of the Bible is false,” he said, “then all of it can be called into question.” From Ham’s point of view, the authority of the entire Bible rides on every word in it. If Genesis is wrong, then the Ten Commandments might as well be, too. And it is the Ten Commandments and other moral pronouncements in the Bible that are important to Ham, not really, in themselves, the age of the Earth or the method by which it was populated. The real concern and target of creationism is not evolution, it is moral relativism. The Creation Museum is no little roadside attraction. It’s a polished, 27-million-dollar, 60,000-square-foot “natural history” museum just about 20 miles southwest of Cincinnati and within easy driving distance of millions of people. In the 12 months since its opening, according to the museum’s website, more than 360,000 people have visited its halls. Answers in Genesis (AiG), the nonprofit ministry devoted to what it calls Biblical apologetics, or “the reasoned defense of the Bible,” is projecting at least as many in the year to come. It is remarkable that AiG was able to raise nearly 30 million dollars to build the museum and fill it with exhibits, but more astounding still is the fact that so many Americans will come here and say, “Finally, a decent science museum for me!” In fact, I heard that sentiment repeated time and again from museum visitors. A 2007 Newsweek poll found that 48% of Americans hold that “God created humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so.” (Newsweek Poll 2007). That means about half of Americans would feel perfectly at home at the Creation Museum. That’s a higher percentage than accept the view of the world portrayed in mainstream science museums. In the same poll, only 43% answered affirmatively to the assertion that “Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.” Ham is explicit about the museum’s purpose. He hoped, he said, that it would undo “the damage done 82 years ago when Clarence Darrow put William Jennings Bryan on the stand” in the famous Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee. “Bryan was asked questions about the Book of Genesis that he couldn’t answer,” said Ham. “It was the first time the Bible was ridiculed by the media in America, and that was a downward turning point for Christendom.” In the decades that followed, Ham said, the Bible’s values were replaced by a tolerance for homosexuality, divorce, sexual promiscuity, porn, and the banning of God from schools and courts. “We are going to undo all of that here at the Creation Museum,” said Ham. “We are going to answer the questions Bryan wasn’t prepared to, and show that belief in every word of the Bible can be defended by modern science.” I am an evolutionist, not religious, and not an advocate of creationism in any of its forms. But wherever you stand on the evolution–creation debate, this museum has a lot to Evo Edu Outreach (2008) 1:342–345 DOI 10.1007/s12052-008-0063-6

Looking beyond the highway: Dixie roads and culture

Looking beyond the Highway is an examination of road history and roadside attractions specific to the South. Focused in part on numerous aspects of thematerial culture landscape of the Dixie Highway, the essays consider the politics of roadbuilding, roadside entertainment, the buildings and businesses one might encounter along the road, and regional adaptations to the needs and desires of northern tourists. Following the Dixie Highway from southern Illinois to Florida with sidetrips down other southern roads, the essays cover a wide variety of subjects, many of which will resonate with anyone who has ever lived in or vacationed in the South: Harrison Mayes's Get Right With God signs; the park-and-pray craze of outdoor drive-in church services; the rise and demise of brick highways; the fierce political battle over the route of the Dixie Highway; beach music and the evolution of motel architecture in Myrtle Beach; Florida's early tourist towers; and the commercial development of Tennessee caves as tourist attractions. Covering a landscape that includes Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Indiana, Virginia, Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama, and Illinois, the anthology shows that there was and still is a distinctive southern culture and how roads have influenced that culture. As lively as they are diverse, thearticles provide a solid background for understanding roadside ephemera that have disappeared or are quickly disappearing. Ranging from the serious to the light-hearted and including descriptions of American road and roadside icons to kitsch, the book will appeal to anyone with an interest in road history and roadside architecture.

Midwest Marvels: Roadside Attractions Across Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wisconsin by Eric Dregni

Midwest Marvels: Roadside Attractions Across Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wisconsin by Eric Dregni

Another Roadside Attraction? Preserving the Cultural Heritage of Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Nuclear tourism is rapidly becoming a popular industry that attracts a diverse international audience with interests in history, militarism, and anti-war activism. In some sites, nuclear tourism emphasizes the devastation of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while, at others, it draws on the past to present a future of environmental stewardship, technological achievement and scientific mastery of the earth's energy. In so doing, nuclear tourism becomes a well crafted strategy to stimulate sentiments of nationalism and civic pride, while authenticating a particular perspective of history, science and identity. This article discusses efforts to use cultural heritage of the Manhattan Project both as a marketing strategy to bring tourist dollars to the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and as a way to celebrate the community's past as a 'Secret City' and its central role in the development of the atomic bomb. This construction of cultural heritage, however, may disregard cultural rights in respect to environmental justice, health and human rights, and serve to authenticate the history of the atomic bomb as having a single moral imperative, divorced from the international arena in which nuclear science is currently being developed and debated.