It’s Art Or It’s an Ad
“…a giant lizard is handing out free vitamin waters.”
In New York, if something is really weird on an institutional level, it’s either Art or it’s an Advertisement. Movie starring Tilda Swinton and Donald Sutherland projected onto side of building? Art. Giant orange fabric things all over Central Park? Art. Person in a lizard costume handing out free vitamin water? Ad. There are exceptions of course. That person in the bear costume leisurely strolling near Bryant Park. The 3-story tall inflatable rat that strikers use when picketing.
Generally on the subway, Art happens as an event: kids breakdancing for money or a group of guerilla artists without pants getting on one at every stop or everyone agrees to take over a car of the L train. So, when I stepped onto the Shuttle from Times Square to Grand Central and the walls and seats of the subway car were covered with fake wood paneling, log cabin style I knew it had to be an Ad. Sure enough, there were pictures of Swiffers on the ceiling at the tops of the poles and the copy that repeated along the top was something like “So fresh. So clean. You’ll want your floors all around you.”
Okay, OutKast allusions aside, it was a fairly clever campaign and it certainly got one’s attention. Here’s why I find people so fucking irritating: a couple gets on the train. I hope to god they were tourists because otherwise they are too stupid to roam free on the streets. One of them says, “Wow, the subways look really different. I guess it’s been a while since I’ve ridden them.”
Yes, the City of New York decided to make all subway car interiors look like log cabins because Mayor Bloomberg is a huge Twin Peaks fan. No, dumb ass, it’s an ad. And if you couldn’t infer that with common sense alone, how about noticing the giant Swiffer ads running along the top?
Oh no, it’s too difficult to open your eyes, see things and deduce a logical explanation. Never mind that entire buses are driving about wrapped in Pepsi graphics or that a giant lizard is handing out free vitamin waters. “Gee, New Yorkers have gotten a lot more reptilian (and generous). I guess I haven’t seen any for a while.”
The thing I’ve come to realize about intelligence is that there is so much I take for granted. I see something and a dozen explanations occur to me almost simultaneously and my mind chooses the most likely. For some people, the world is way more of a wildly unpredictable, bewildering enigma than it is for the rest of us. I could not imagine trying to sort through all the stimulus of this city without the ability to quickly assess and decide.
It’s like the dimwits who get on the subway and stop short in the middle because it somehow takes them ten minutes to enter, find a seat and sit in it. By the time they’ve meandered over to sit down, all the other seats have been taken by the nimble and the quick. In the time it took for this one person to actualize her dream of sitting down, fifteen people found seats. I am frequently dumbstruck by how slowly people move. It takes immense effort for me to move that slowly without stopping altogether.
Subway Car Control Subject
Subway Car Test Subject (Twin Peaks-ified)
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