:Vocalo.org

We went to Minnesota for a wedding a few weekends ago. There was one little thing that irked me more than it probably should. Other than being in a city which claims the Mall of America as the number one tourist attraction in the country. I hope that's not backed up by real numbers... 'cause that's just sad. But I'm getting more and more annoyed at the omnipresence of advertising. There were huge stretches of forest we drove through. Large hills rising up, rolling the landscape around for fun and sport. And rising up out of the middle were billboards upped to some preposterous scale so that you could still read them at what had to be a mile or more off. Even the cards for the hotel room doors had ad space sold out on them. Never mind that I have to be a bit beyond starving to actually order Dominos Pizza. I'd rather get a frozen one at some scary convenience store (not that we had a scary convenience store encounter on that trip...). But, come on. Do we need every square inch of our lives leased out for advertising? They had a couple of sports stadiums... with corporate sponsor names. I can't decide which movie I'm reminded of more: Vanilla Sky, or They Live. I drive to work and see the billboards lined up along the expressway like predatorial mile markers. Every now and then there's a missed spot with open sky. And I have to imagine that somewhere there's an ad or sales exec bemoaning that lost advertising space... Brian Howard www.thefictionrealm.com