Escape from Kitsch Mountain
"Why you gotta be so mean?" — Taylor Swift (see last night)
This song includes, as part of the hook, the recurring phrase
"Someday I'll be livin' in a big ol' city."
From a big ol' city—
A Return to Kitsch Mountain
By AUSTIN CONSIDINE
Published in The New York Times on January 16, 2009
As my girlfriend, Larissa, and I approached Gatlinburg, Tenn., this fall, I did my best to prepare her. She hadn’t been to Gatlinburg before, but I had. I understood the town’s complicated reputation both as a gateway to some of the most beautiful country in the United States— the Great Smoky Mountains National Park— and as a flamboyant capital of kitsch….
… It turned out that by 8 or 9 p.m., it was way too late to find a dinner show. The next morning, we had the opposite problem. By the time we woke up and wandered into Gatlinburg, it was noon. All the pancake houses were closed, and I was desolate. I had been thinking about those pancakes since the night before. So we did a little more sightseeing on foot.
Looking at Gatlinburg’s strip with adult eyes, I wondered how much self-awareness was at work there. It would be easy for a city slicker to assume this place misses its own punch lines. In truth, I decided, it merely embraces that special brand of conscious kitsch that forms its own American kind of authenticity. With all its absurdities, Gatlinburg knows what it is and proclaims it loudly, from one flashing signboard to the next….
From Gatlinburg—
