6 March 2010

Bath

6 March 2010 07:29 pm
timpeltje: (Default)

‘Tourism is the great sopoforic. It’s a huge confidence trick and gives people the dangerous idea that there’s something interesting in their lives. It’s musical chairs in reverse. Every time the muzak stops, people stand up and dance around the world, and more chairs are added to the circle, more marinas and more Marriott hotels, so everyone thinks they’re winning.’
‘But it’s another con?’
‘Complete. Today’s tourist goes nowhere.’ (...) ‘All the upgrades in existence lead to the same airports and resort hotels; the same pina colada bullshit. The tourists smile at their tans and their shiny teeth and think they’re happy. But the suntans hide who they really are – salary slaves, with heads full of American rubbish. Travel is the last fantasy of the 20th Century left us, the delusion that going somewhere helps you reinvent yourself.’

JG Ballard, Millennium People



BATH

In th middle of the picturesque city of Bath lies a great big... errr... bath, a pool of water the Romans used for bathing and spa-ing. Nowadays you have to pay 10 pounds to see the baths, but you’re not allowed to touch the water (I’m sure they add sulfuric acid to punish those tempted to do just that anyway). For the 10 pounds you get an audio guide – a Dutch one even, irritating and obnoxious at no extra cost. I found myself telling the device “Who cares?” or “Shut the FUCK up!” a lot of times but since devices don’t have souls, the Dutch couple kept on blabbering. An example of their brilliance: “This room didn’t used to look like this!”
-REALLY? It didn’t used to look like a pile of bricks with plasma TV’s scattered around with little 3D animations about how life *might* have been like.
“Look at those steps, they have eroded so much. Can you imagina how many pilgrims came here for these stones to get so eroded?”
-I’m sure the 1500 years or so of neglect of the site had no influence on the erosion of that particular stone.
Stones. That’s the problem with the place. What remained were basically just ruins, not an almost intact collosseum, but just a heap of stones.
I was wondering about this when walking around there. What is the point of building these fake constructions around some old stones and take away the use of the original building itself? We are perhaps the first society to look at ruins and say “I know! Let’s build a gift shop next to it!” We think it’s important that these now useless old things are preserved. The Baths one cannot bathe in are but one example. Wouldn’t it be better to tear the whole place down or rebuild it the way it was and use it like it was used? The audio guide said: “It must have looked spectacular!” (while looking at a piece of the roof they found, now on display). The emphasis is on MUST HAVE. I saw a tombstone sculpture of how a dead old Roman wanted to be remembered. A stern look and holding some scrolls, he must have been a well-read man. But he is not remembered. His tombstone is placed next to an area where badly costumed actors pretending to be Romans entertain children. Best proof that nobody should want to be remembered after death.
Unless you’re Cleopatra of course...