Orlando Declared Best and Worst
Everything Good and Bad About Western Culture in One City
Everything Good and Bad About Western Culture in One City
taste,
announcing, “Everything you like or hate is probably right here.”
In a narrow run-off with Las Vegas, the Council declared Orlando “the
epitome of all we call ‘America’.” In a globally e-mailed news release, the organization carefully sidestepped the question of whether the award is a compliment or an insult. “Orlando is an innovative miracle or an environmental menace,” the release reads, “depending on whether you think central Florida should belong to poison snakes and disease carrying mosquitoes or to corpulent tourists and their ice-cream smeared children.”
Predictably, the announcement sparked instant debate. Within hours, Internet chat rooms filled with exchanges like these ones:
•“One visit to Orlando and al Qaeda suddenly makes sense.” Vs. “Al Qaeda would dissolve in a minute if members could ride the
Magic
Kingdom’s Astro Orbiter.” •“Orlando is an amusement park of fat butts, slow wits, and the fast food that feeds both.” Vs. “Orlando is the result of hard work and Yankee ingenuity that feeds the world.”
•“Orlando is a sound stage squandering precious natural resources to support a plastic habitat nature abhors.” Vs. “Orlando drained swamps to build jobs and transformed useless bog into an economic miracle.”
•“Orlando attracts people who love to giggle but hate to think.” Vs. “People who love to think but hate to giggle should visit German stand-up comedy night.”
•
Orlando is corporate Soilant Green for a doomed society cannibalizing its
soul.” Vs. “That’s actually my favorite ride after the Big
Thunder Mountain Railroad.” •“Orlando personifies banal U.S. culture and its gluttonous consumerism.” Vs. “I’d hate to miss out on all that thrilling elite culture and its exciting asceticism.”
•“Orlando is a ghastly joke.” Vs. “So go somewhere else.”
Council members say in coming months they plan to announce the 21st century answer to the 20th century question: Just how American is apple pie – and is that a good thing?
