A Visit to Disneyland
We passed through the entrance to the Park the other day, just in front of the turnstiles to go in. I had heard of cheap train tickets to the south from Marne La Vallée, the detention centre for Disneyland.So here we were, looking at the edifice from the safety of a station cafe. I was amazed at the depravity of it all, not least the over-distressed Hollywood Tower Hotel which looked as if it had been shot-at and burned. The Y and the W of the name panel were made to look as if they were falling off. Such artifice made me dwell on the culture of American Imperialism for rather too long, from the charade of the Wild West plywood main street made for a promotion video, to the bunker of a hotel in Disneyland. The water-tower with Mickey Mouse ears is one thing, an improvisation on what already exists, but the constructed imitation dereliction of the Hollywood Tower Hotel is another. They could probably have done it cheaper in Beirut or Baghdad, but they were only a dry-run for Disneyland. SC
notes from an urban hibernation 