variations on a theme
Category: fake plants
Jesus, nailed to a tree. . .
I’ve never been to a Rainforest Cafe, but it sure calls out to me. It’s a nexus of fake nature, wildvertising, greenwashing, and crapitalism. It could be my happy place.
in a sad little corner in the Target in Tucson, the outdoors is on sale. . . Lots of clay pots and plastic chairs and gardening implements. I guess this is what outdoors means these days.
Visited the Wishing Tree at the Venetian. The branches were bronze. The leaves were gold plated. Glass birds dotted the branches. Fake chirping was piped in. And I had to log into Instagram to make my wish. I like my chances!
The Bellagio has this steam-punky, fake-nature conservatory that gets revamped every season. I didn’t even know that Vegas had seasons? Other than hot and miserably hot? Anyway, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have casinos redesigning nature. These conservators are very dangerous people.
Cool display explaining how fake nature is made. . . the entire operation was managed by the beaver.
We stopped at a vegan restaurant in Granada. What is it with vegan restaurants and these huge displays of plastic plants? Pretty awesome, don’t get me wrong.
There is this palace in Granada, Spain called the Alhambra. It’s a bucket list place. Everybody is supposed to go there. It’s like the Taj Mahal or Angkor Wat or the Louvre. How could one possibly travel across Southern Spain and miss it?
We tried, I swear. But like those other mega-tourist attractions, the Alhambra has a complex process of entry with multiple websites and exclusive tickets and tour packages and language-specific guides and Disney-like fast passes, etc. Everything was sold out months in advance. We had just been biking in Portugal and had no idea that we’d reach Granada. So anyway, we ended up doing something far better (IMO), which I’ll post next.
The photo above is from the public area of the Alhambra where they send the scruffy ill-prepared foreigners like ourselves. I assume it’s a pine cone, but I didn’t have a guide to tell me.
Lousy photo of an entire wall of weird plastic molded fake rocks (which were actually pretty cool) and cut-out trees at the railroad museum. . . Photos like this make me question my sanity. I seriously have no clue what I was pointing my camera at.