The New Frankenstein

A couple weekends ago, Statler drags me out to The Cheesecake Factory at Southpoint Mall in Durham (not literally, of course, I'm being dramatic). In the hour and fifteen minutes we waited for a table, I got the opportunity to inspect the place pretty closely.

I've only been to one location of The Cheesecake Factory before and that was in Georgetown, Washington, D.C.. We went only for cheesecake, which I do not remember as being very good or very bad so that must mean it was the usual chain restaurant fare that is just tasty and timely enough for the customer to think they're happy, pay, and leave without actually being a memorable experience. I don't remember the location as standing out to me in any distinct way, granted this was ten years ago before I really thought about anything outside my own inner angst, but it blended in with all the other historic storefronts of houses and mom and pop stores that had morphed into Gaps and Banana Republics while somehow still floating under the guise of historic preservation.

Anyway, back to The Cheesecake Factory in Durham, which at first struck me as a horrific but grew on me as a garish, mockable delight. First, let me explain that Southpoint mall at Durham is apparently one of those malls designed to look like a city street, because for whatever reason suburbanites are seen as wanting a city shopping experience without having to leave the suburbs and actually visit a city (maybe city street shopping is more "authentic" or maybe it's the idea of being outdoors while not actually having to be in nature?). But the whole effect of these neighborhood malls is somewhat farcical in that they purport to be separate buildings, unique, individual, authentic, special, and unto themselves, but, as a consumer, I just end up feeling patronized. I guess I'm not supposed to notice the shoddy construction that is present in all buildings, the moldings that overlap much too far onto the adjacent buildings, the bricks that are all aligned or sometimes too perfectly staggared, a plastic lamp post painted to look like iron but really only looking like poorly painted plastic the closer you get to it, and the fact that this is in no way a city street. Ah, the simulacrum.

The Cheesecake Factory was made up red brick with a cafe style outcropping carefully surrounded by a metal (supposedly ironwork) rail common in American cafes where people want the experience of sitting outside and eating on the "street" without actually being part of that street (such careful distinctions must be made). The building had art deco windows and doors but the doors were surrounded by roman "columns" and the columns, in turn, were surrounded by Aegean tile. Inside, it was an absolute clusterfuck. There were large Egyptian columns with supposedly Egyptian faces painted on them that were carefully balanced to be not so exotic that I feel transported to somewhere else but odd enough that I couldn't help but notice them. There were Sistine Chapel style murals painted into the ceiling over plastic wicker chairs and floral print chintz booths that should only be found in diners or large, inexpensive chain hotel bars (personal opinion, of course). And to top off that dimly lit, charmingly uncomfortable ambiance was the nondescript music playing so loudly that Statler and I had to shout across the table at each other to be heard; and when the waitress told us the specials, I didn't have the heart to tell her that I hadn't heard a word she'd said.

The survey of the interior was finished off by our being handed menus that were spiral bound, glossy paged notebooks. The appetizer list alone was two pages long! The menu covered everything from Thai lettuce wraps, to quesadillas, to pasta in wine sauce. There was so much on it and so many different kinds of items on it, it was impossible to determine what might be their specialty. Well, of course their specialty is cheesecake, but why stop there! The place is the best evidence I've yet seen that supports my suspicion of an American cultural and culinary identity crisis.

My food was good. Not great. There was, in typical American fashion, about three meals worth of food on a single plate. Everything was so odd and also so nondescript at the same time; it was carefully crafted to be forgettable and overpriced-- a carefully contrived balance of getting top dollar for a meal and an experience that was "okay." I do think, though, that it was all worth it. The Cheesecake Factory had managed to capture a sort of abominable, frightening charm...somewhat like Frankenstein. I mean, I sort of rooted for Frankenstein, ya know? It wasn't his fault, really. More Victor Frankenstein, the creator, that was truly the monster.

So who creates places like The Cheesecake Factory? And more importantly, why do we go? Well, the first question goes back to the mall itself and beyond-- it's the same ubiquitous "they" that we use to refer to the masterminds behind government, business, marketing and other conspiracies.

The problem is that "they" is apt. It's not one person or one group: it's architects, interior designers, chefs, culinary experts, document designers, scientists studying why people make the choices they do, market researchers, advertisers, menu designers. On their own, they create the space. Together, through the long chain, the space takes on a life of its own. It becomes not the object of design being labeled and molded. Instead, it blurs the space between subject and object, the space begins to label those that create it, those that detest it, those that find solace in it, and those that have never been. Instead of telling it what sort of place it should be, the space begins to tell us what sort of consumers we should be, what foods we should like, what music creates dinner ambiance, where to walk, what food is popular, what design schemes are popular, how to sit, when to leave.

But it's an inanimate object you say? Yes and no. In the postmodern breakdown of signs is it really possible to believe still that the object has no power, only the subject? We create the space. Us. The consumers. Yet it defines us as much as we define it. I speak places like The Cheesecake Factory while it speaks me. I am now someone who eats at The Cheesecake Factory. This defines me as a middle-class professional with some spare money to blow (at least on that day), who likes options, who never eats alone so the menu choices have to be broad in order for us to all agree to go to one place and find something we want while usually suffering from a decision-making phobia at the same time, where the music is loud enough that we don't have to have a meaningful conversation with one another if we don't want to, and the seating uncomfortable enough that we don't feel obligated to linger in each others' company. We are the Dr. Frankensteins and the Frankenstein monster and the villagers running in terror.

While the sign over the door reads "The Cheesecake Factory," there is an underlying subtext that says "Welcome to the paradox of hypermodernity."

Mysteries of the Sphynx

What's that cat thinking? How does it feel? Cranky? Delighted? Giddy? Sleepy? Is it hungry? Bloated? Maybe it's high on catnip. Maybe it's plotting an escape. Or thinking of a sweater to knit. Or maybe they're just taking it all in.


Ikea released 100 cats in one of their stores to film a commercial. I took this screen grab from the footage. The commercial is pretty visually interesting, and for some reason this was my favorite scene. There's something really dreamy and whimsical about that sphynx in front of all those bare, starry-like light bulbs. I could look at that cat looking at those bulbs all day. Check out the commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCB7RqGS684

DVR ate the video star

The VMAs came on tonight, (duh) and while I was watching, I kept thinking about how hilariously bad they are and how Luann and I had talked about watching together, but she ended up going out of town. She did, however, record it. Which got me thinking--remember back before DVR, in the dinosaur days of VHS, how if you wanted to watch a TV show but you were going to be out, or if some other show was on at the same time, you had to record it using your VCR? And then DVDs and DVRs came along and VHS became extinct, like all outdated technology eventually does. This got me wondering if VCRs and VHS nostalgia will start popping up everywhere. Kinda like how cassette tapes or records or SLR cameras are all over clothes and jewelry and other goods. Can't you see little VHS tape rings and pouches all over the place?

Maybe VHS tapes are just too boring looking, or maybe they just aren't outdated enough, or don't inspire that same sort of nostalgic feeling that cassette tapes do. But just like I made mixed tapes (by recording songs off the radio, naturally), I made mixed VHS tapes of shows and movies that I loved. Need some old, grainy, poorly spliced together Fraggle Rock episodes featuring the HBO opening credits? Or maybe a compilation of Christmas movies including a Muppet Family Christmas, The Christmas Toy, Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer, Frosty, and a California Raisins Claymation Christmas special complete with the commercials? I've got 'em. Of course you can find that stuff on youtube, unless they've been taken down due to copyright. But there still is something sort of quaint about VHS itself that would seem to lend itself to that sort of nostalgic consumption.

If you do an Etsy search for VHS, there are some upcycled goods and art for sale, and some of them are pretty cool. So who knows, maybe we will see more VHS themed goods in the future. Or maybe VHS will go the way of Betamax and A-track tapes. Maybe we will laugh at them like we do the VMAs, how they once seemed so cool and relevant, and now seem so lame and pointless. Maybe some things are better left in the past.

This chicken's favorite movie is Labyrinth

see more Celeb Look-A-Likes

More like this chicken looks like Bowie. I'm pretty sure this chicken has spandex pants on.

(Coolest chicken EVER.)

I love that this exists

Saw this at the library Friday...
I mean really, what's not to love? It's by R.L. Stine (because of course it is), the title is Calling All Creeps!, and as the cover depicts, it's about a kid that gets prank called by raptors.

Apparently it was creep day, because I also found this shoved in the back of another book:

In case you can't read that, these are the lyrics to "Zombie Dance Party." And the lyrics are:

Hear that sound, it's getting close,
A thousand shuffling feet?
The walking dead have come to town
For a Zombie Dance Party!

All we need are brains, sweet brains
And we're coming after yours.
You can try to run, that's half the fun
Of the Zombie Dance Party!

We're not very fast, or very smart
Be [Typo?] we've got a big head start.

So look out world, it's time to eat,
You call 'em "brains"--we call it "meat"!

It's a Zombie Dance Party!
A Zombie Dance Party!

It's a little "Thriller" mixed with The Cramps "Zombie Dance," but for kids! Never has the threat of death by zombie sounded so fun and festive. What's really funny about this is that I just watched my new favorite movie, Zombieland, on Tuesday. The only thing that would've made that movie better was if this song was included.

(By the way: does anyone else wonder why he didn't do sorta a pen name and go by "R.L. Stein?" Like Frankenstein? But how random is it that his name IS Stine, and he is "The Stephen King of children's literature?" Hmm...)

Pack-Rat Arts and Crafts

Several years ago I got a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. When I moved out of my parents house I never bothered to change the address, so mom would just pile them up on my nightstand. Whenever I came home I'd throw the stack in a bag, thinking I'd get around to reading them. I never really did. Old habits really do die hard because I still let them pile up. Recently I was skimming through one from like, July (I mean, seriously--JULY? In the world of pop-culture and the internet, that is OLD. Like, I might as well be reading newspapers from 1923 on microfilm at the library.) and saw a review of mine and Luann's favorite guilty pleasure, Pretty Little Liars. Accompanying the review was a picture of Shay Mitchell, who plays Emily, who just so happens to be Luann's favorite. The picture was the perfect bookmark size, so I cut, glued it on a note card and adorned it.


I might have gotten a little overzealous with the glitter, (you can kind of see that the marker smeared a bit) but I wanted it to look like a collage that a teenager would make; covered in stickers and glitter and made with love on a boring afternoon.

The other side has a lyric from the theme song. The sticker in the right hand corner is a TV that says "TURN ME ON" underneath. (Totally unrelated, but for some reason that made me think of that Goldfrapp song "Oh La La." Probably because one of the lyrics is "turn me on.") Anyway, Luann seemed to like it, so MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Late Night Rants

As sent to the Professor via facebook message:

So I'm just flipping through the channels, looking for something dumb to watch before bed and "On the Road with Austin and Santino" caught my eye. Background: Austin and Santino are fashion designers that where once on Project Runway and now have their own show where they go to different towns and make a lucky someone a dress or whatever. This week they are making a wedding dress for a woman that had to have a quickie wedding before her boyfriend got shipped to Iraq, so now they are "going to have the wedding they never got to have."

Now, I know I'm not a wedding person, and a wedding might really mean something to this couple, and that's great. It's wonderful they have the time and resources to have not one, but two weddings. Especially considering the men making this woman's wedding dress are gay and therefore don't have the option to get married once, let alone twice. They might not even care; for all I know Austin and Santino aren't wedding people either. But it's just really bugging me! She said, "I just never thought I'd get to have my dream wedding" when she's already MARRIED. Why isn't being married to the person you love enough? I just...ugh. Whatever. I don't even know why I let it get to me.

Not to mention that Austin and Santino look like her little gay fairy godmothers, making sure Cinderella gets to the heteronormative ball.