Malled/Malltopia/It's a Mall World After All

So work on the mini-comic is progressing smoothly. Malls are intriguing little worlds to study, if you think about it. Whole social hierarchies exist within the confines of those massive shoppingplexes. And everyone goes there – the early morning mall walkers, the teenage girls, the moms with twelve million children in tow, the couples. You could spend the whole day there, dining on greasy food court fair, relaxing by the obligatory wishing fountain, and still not experience everything a mall has to offer. Just ask the customer service guys. They should know. Really, they should – it’s sort of their job.

Random thoughts:

• The mall cops have less authority than the campus police and the ones at Marketplace mall look like Canadian Mounties stripped of their horses and dignity.
• I miss Natural Wonders. Anyone else know what I’m talking about? I was so sad to see that store go!
• Orange Julius and Auntie Anne’s Pretzels make up the two essential stops along the outer ring of any respectable food court. Also, I have the recipe for both signatures items. Damn, I need to have a mall party…the next time I feel like spending three hours on those pretzels.
• Parodying well-known stores is fun. But sometimes, the real names are even better: Perfumania, Deck the Walls, Alpaca Connection, Relax-a-daisical, Gizmo Pods, Jean Madeline Salon/Aveda Environmental Lifestyle, Hat Shark, Paradise Pen, etc. I mean, come on, those last two sound like someone just threw a couple of words together randomly on a sign and started hocking their wares – like a garage sale of unused things. And Gizmo Pods has got to be the best kiosk ever, just based on that name.
• The mall I grew up with: St.Claire Square

back from break

So I made through roughly a chapter of Stuck Rubber Baby over spring break (chapter 15 to be exact, with a total of seven people streaming by asking random questions to people in my room or getting ready to go sleep). Finishing it in the quiet of my own room was weird last night, but I did it and I harbor the sleep deprived glossy stare to prove it.
I loved the book. The only part that caught me by surprise, though, was the ending with Orley. I may or may not have cried a bit. The rest of the stuff had such thick foreshadowing prior to every event that I spent more time desperately wanting to be wrong than being blindsided by accidents, deaths, and the pregnancy (spoiler alert?).
The ridiculous chipmunk faces still bother me, though I've gotten surprisingly used to them and that worries me.

Also, aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh minicomic!

southward bound

Throughout the novel I keep hoping something will develop between Toland and Sammy. I’m seriously crossing my fingers. On the flipside, I’m constantly worried for all the characters. It’s becoming a real page turner, and I’m actually saying that seriously.

I’m headed down south this next week (really south, not just Southern Illinois) with this rich, sordid background once again. I’ve found in roaming around Mississippi before that it’s mostly the older white people of the community that get kind of tense and defensive about everything. It’s generally obvious when you strike up a conversation with someone whether or not it’s safe to travel down that road.

This time I’m headed to New Orleans, where the past is even more complicated to begin with and has been made infinitely more messy by the can of worms Katrina opened up. I’m not sure what that’ll actually mean for my trip at all, but I find it ironic that this adventure falls right in the midst of this particular book.

stuck rubber baby

Fifty-five pages in, I still don’t quite understand the title, but I like the book. The whole world seems slightly caricaturized in both the artwork and development of any non-major character, though not quite. I like the character of the crazy town cop and the approach everyone has to him. It seems to be a kind of laid-back small town thing to keep people like that in power, even when they’re an embarrassment to your town. The way he’s used to draw in media attention is fantastic. In the tiny town where my dad teaches/is semi-retired from teaching in, there’s a guy on the school board named Cricket (I went a whole year thinking that was a nickname, but it’s not), who got there purely because his dad’s some city official and who seems only to formulate terrible ideas. He reminds me of Chopper. He got some local press during the teacher strike a few years back, though gaining local press never means much. Prize chickens garner local press coverage on slow days. I have actually heard groups of teachers talking about what “that ‘ole Cricket’s up to now” on crowded back porches over venison hors d’oeuvres. What he’s actually up to at this point is anyone’s guess. I think he might’ve gotten arrested for something inane, but don’t quote me on that.

nutty

As a kid, I was always curious about the peanut brittle man, but sort of scared. I never worked up the courage to offer much more than a quiet “hello”. Certain groups of older Centralians bought from him sometimes, exchanging money over that old bike of his like it was some sort of illicit drug deal. At other times they’d just stop to chat, offering excuses for why they couldn’t purchase any more at the moment.

He showed up at Priced Right, National, IGA, Dobb’s Bargain City, the dollar store strip mall, K-Mart, Big Lots, Woolworth’s, making his rounds more efficiently and comprehensively than even the Salvation Army bell ringers. One by one the stores changed hands or simply folded to the competition (Wal-Mart), but the peanut brittle man hung around.

Signs began to crop up in the late nineties outside some of the stingier businesses: “No Soliciting – except the peanut brittle man”.

I don’t even know his name or how to go about obtaining that information. I googled him, but to no avail. And obviously some of the businesses don’t know either. It’s gotten to the point where when you open up your own store in Centralia, you’re automatically playing host to the peanut brittle man as well. Same red bike every time, same basket, same labels over plastic baggies of sugary peanut bliss telling the would-be consumer that all proceeds go to benefit some church I otherwise would never have heard of. For all I know, he’s the only member. It’s not a big town.

And that’s the story on that. The local paper did an article on him awhile back. I suppose if I really dug around back home I could find out more.

As far as the reading goes, I’m not finished with the last portrait (Milgaard) yet, but I’m getting there. In regard to the Easy E one, though, 1960’s mental institutions are totally cool in a creepy, haunting way. And for the record, the movie version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest does not even compare to the book. Just saying.

portraits

Portraits from Life is much more touching and thought provoking than I thought it would be.
I love how the characters portrayed are kooky pioneers and real, honest, rough-hewn people. None of them are perfect or even necessarily charming and pleasant to be around.
History forgets the oddballs just as soon as they fade from front page recognition – if they ever make it there at all.

So, in the spirit of Collier’s book, here are a few more interesting little-known people:

Byron LeRoy Godbersen transformed an entire town in Iowa into a medieval wonderland.

Tom Mix, a superstar in the world of early western movies, was killed by a suitcase in the Arizona desert (near a town called Florence which still has a plaque marking the spot where the accident occurred).

Maybe by Wednesday I'll have more of them or something more profound of my own to say. We'll see.