I’ve recently decided that I desperately need to alter my relaxation to stress ratio in favor of the more positive of the two aspects. Decisions like “I really need find more ways to relax” tend to change the way you look at things, activities, the cost and complication of acquiring things and of participating in activities. It also can change the places that you LOOK for relaxation and methods for achieving the effect in general.
I personally feel that starting with the easiest, most readily available method of relaxation is the best way to free up thought-space to better enable the “creative” conjuring of relaxing ideas. For me, that means reading or in extreme cases of distress, not even something that mentally involved. There are occasions where if I even have the energy to be conscious (read: anything beyond constant sleeping), I have only enough consciousness at my disposal as to make watching television as challenging of a task as I can handle outside of necessary function. At that point, I can’t even watch movies unless I didn’t have to make the choice of which one to watch in the first place. This is a VERY bad place to find one’s self.
UNLESS…the boob-tube proves to actually be informative for a change. We know that’s rare but even more rare that a commercial — that capitalist trap of eye-candy — is for a product that can legitimately make me drop my jaw in awe, envy and excitement. When suddenly you see the very PRODUCT which could virtually CURE you of all of your stress and tension and woes with just a mere purchase…it’s a day to chock up as an “amazing TV” day.
Enter, THE VIBRACOUSTIC (by Kohler). The currently most BAD ASS bathtub I have ever seen.
After seeing the commercial that made my palms sweat with wondrous anticipation, I immediately thought two things: #1, I bet you have to use JUST the crap they pre-program the thing with like those stupid “white noise”/”spa” sound machines and #2, I bet that thing costs as much as a small car.
Well….as it turns out, it’s a good thing I don’t waste my time in casinos or playing Lotto because I was wrong AND right… The sound system on this awesome tub does come with specific, pre-loaded tracks which are designed to utilize acoustics in a fashion that morphs music into hydro-massage-therapy. Additionally, you CAN load your own music into the system for a customized experience. SCORE!
On the down side, the part I WAS right about sucks pretty badly. According to KOHLER’S pricing on their website, these tubs range from $5, 670.00 to $7,770.00. OUCH.
Can’t they have a heart?!? The common folk are in DIRE need of this sort of relaxation due to added job stress (layoffs: fear of being laid off and/or the added burden of picking up the work that was left behind when OTHERS were laid off), economic stress (even IF someone still has a job these days, almost no one is getting a raise any time soon and that’s given that they didn’t already LOSE money under the guises of “saving jobs” by cutting a percentage of all employees’ salaries). We working folk desperately need some way to avoid the cardiologist!!
Keep in mind, I hate tourist industries. I hate tourist traps. I freaking hate TOURISTS (enough so that when I travel, I try DESPERATELY HARD to not behave like one). I was born and spent the first several years of my life in a state whose economy was and still is centered around tourism. Although Florida wasn’t the founding foothold for the Disney empire, it was the space where old Walt put his left foot down after planting the right firmly in California… I have gotten a HEARTY dose of theme/amusement park exposure as a result.
Thanks to my youthful trips to good old Disney WORLD (LAND is in CA folks, for the record), I’ve had plenty of time to think about the fantastic elements of the whole thing, the mechanics of the machine that is the Disney brand and seen plenty of the pretty and the dirty media pats and stabs at the expense of that industry. Some of it nauseates me because of the aggressive nature of the marketing and all that jazz. The whole IDEAL of it though, I’ve always kind of had a fondness for (even if the characters make me want to retch most of the time because they’re just SOOO damned SWEET).
You have to wonder though…what on EARTH could have motivated a mind to conjure such a MASSIVE world of surrealism for people to visit year round??? Well, much as this NYTimes article discusses and reminded me, Walt Disney was a man before he was an industry. As we all know, if he was a man, he was also a child.
I am clearly a fan of magical realism, fiction, etc. I also love well written work. Just be patient though. If you’ve been reading my blog since I recently started it, you should know I have a method and it’s about the journey and the interesting bits you learn along the way to the destination.
This brings me to my connection between California and Chicago as odd as that may seem. With the article about then new Walt Disney Family Museum going up in one of my favorite American cities (San Francisco), I recalled what I inadvertently learned about Mr. Disney in reading a book call The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson (one of THE best MOSTLY non-fiction books I’ve read in my LIFE) about The 1893 Wold’s Fair and the serial killer, H.H. Holmes. In this book, Larson manages to work in EXPANSIVE amounts of amazingly random and yet coincidental facts regarding some of America’s most face-changing inventions, facts and inspiration in such a graceful, arresting way…you won’t even know you’re learning anything from reading it.
One of the fascinating facts that I learned reading this book was also one that was like a light bulb of ‘duh’ for me. As it turns out, one of the carpenters and furniture-makers who made the wonder that was the Chicago World’s Fair happen was one Elias Disney — Walt Disney’s father. After seeing the few photos of what that fair looked like, it is evident that the nickname it acquired was apt: The White City. It was a spectacle like nothing I’ve ever seen with my own two eyes. It is the single one thing that has ever made me earnestly wish that I could have been alive during that time — that I feel cheated for not having gotten to experience the splendor and wonder and surrealism for myself.
If Walt Disney saw THAT as a child…is it any WONDER that he felt compelled to create something inspired by the degree of magnificence that was on display in Chicago that year. Who gives a shit if he made an industry off of it, really? The concept and vision were and still are pretty outstanding and my point is…I won’t deny that fact. The man is definitely worthy of some solid credit for his vision and considering the argument that his daughter makes in the NYTimes article about the family’s museum, family influence, creativity and resulting exposure was the inspiration for the empire anyway. Pretty awesome by my standards, even if every family has its flaws.
Also, if you haven’t already read The Devil in the White City… READ IT!
NOTE:
Devil in the White City: Disney references — Page 153 and 373.
