the website of Mark S Bailen. . . writer, illustrator, and fake-nature photographer
Here is the hotel where we stayed on our third night in NZ, a place called Bag End. It was kind of dump, to be honest. I kept hitting my head and the bed was too short. Then we had an infestation of dwarves.
The oak tree above Bag End is actually fake! Apparently the original died between Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, so Peter Jackson had it recreated out of fiberglass, using silk for the leaves and wiring them to the branches. Love it!
maybe I’m weird, but sometimes I enjoy the airports just as much as the destinations. . .
Even a fake-nature photographer knows that it’s fun to shoot tall skinny trees from a worm’s eye view. The tree on the left is a real ponderosa pine that I shot a few months back at Mt. Lemmon. And the one on the right is a fake pine tree in the Seoul airport. Pretty awesome, Korea!
The motto of Rainforest Cafe was A WILD PLACE TO SHOP AND EAT. No argument there. The gift shop was bigger than the restaurant. While waiting for our drinks, I came up with some other mottos:
Lousy photo of the Arbol de la Vida (the Tree of Life). . . who knew it was in a Mexican Restaurant in Denver?
variations on a theme
Jesus, nailed to a tree. . .
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!
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.
My wife visited NYC and strolled down the High Line, so I thought I’d show her pics.
First, I LOVE THE HIGH LINE. It may be my favorite park in the universe. The High Line isn’t just an urban park. Nor is it an attempt at rewilding. Nor is it simply a simulacrum. It’s fake nature at its finest. Building a park on an abandoned train platform alleviates all kinds of concerns. You don’t have to sculpt the surroundings to appear more embedded in “nature.” There’s no native wildlife that you have to protect. There’s no worry about invasive species. You can have fake pink trees! In one section they artfully reassembled train tracks to remember the park’s grimy past, and why not? And I love the signs telling people to be “mindful.” Visitors should be aware that the High Line is a meditative, restorative, faux nature experience. Bravo!