on the road, again … (well, not exactly on the road, we needed catamaran to take us to one of the most beautiful places of an already beautiful Adriatic coast, the island of Brač)
the main reason for coming here is “palimpsest . . . re-touching”, an(other) exhibition of paintings by Davisi Boontharm, to be held in the Gallery of Small Formats in a beautiful (yes, I DO NOT EXEGERATE – a beautiful exhibition, in a beautiful gallery, in a beautiful town, on this beautiful island, in this beautiful sea) town of Bol
this long-anticipated event features on urbophilia@Substack separately, as 017 ON PALIMPSEST . . . re-touching
but, alas
our experience could not stay marked by adorable setting of this environmentally and historically rich stage of local life; the beauty (overwhelmingly present, as described above) was compromised by banality, by the banality of . . . I am really not sure how to name present summer realities of this and many other, until recently truly fascinating places; word “tourism” might still be a most commonly used, but ... this plague would be better described as an ultimate banality, as vulgarity ...
Barcelona is trying to stand up against it, so wish Venice, Amsterdam ... too; the situation is desperate; in places as small as Bol overload is palpable; this kind of “lifestyle” (sold in “packages”, as any consumption item, as many as possible of them) marks an ultimate demise of being
a nadir of the quality of being (t)here (any)where as if it is (some)where
holiday makers always are from somewhere else; going places is a legitimate, human desire; decent holidays should be one of the human rights
but this wave of vulgarisation of everything and everywhere by consumerism is total, the idea of holidays included; a description of what is going on would comfortably fit the TikTok word limit, a descent to the lowest common denominator (which, of course, is the lowest at this very moment; the “system”, the empowered consumers themselves, will soon find ways to leak even lower; perhaps even be rewarded by that, ie. become - “liked”!)
new words are not needed; the situation described above is simply another sad, illustration (which I often repeat) of the Situationist fascinating summary (Debord, 1988) that: “the spectacle has spread itself to the point where it (…) permeates all reality. It was easy to predict in theory (…) that the globalisation of the false was also the falsification of the globe”
authenticity of the setting, of this tiny yet fascinating town of Bol and its environmental context, only emphasises the ultimate vulgarity of our era
here I post only two photos, from beaches next to the famous Zlatni rat, which is a natural and logical part that beautiful town - on a beautiful island - in the beautiful sea - a place in Bol for which the all-knowing Wikipedia says that it “has been regularly listed as one of the top beaches in Europe and in the World. Its distinctive shape can be seen in many travel brochures, which made it one of the symbols of Croatian tourism ...”
[I resisted to take photos of the breakfast or dinner atmosphere in a buffet restaurant (where food indeed is excellent, served by very professional staff of this fine hotel in which we are staying these days); I simply could not stomach taking photos of gluttony … which what another machine, Google Search describes as: “verb. overeat or eat immodestly; make a pig of oneself. synonyms: binge, englut, engorge, glut, gorge, gormandise, gormandize, gourmandize, ingurgitate, overgorge, overindulge, pig out, satiate, scarf out, stuff”]
this morning, after official ending of the breakfast time, one of the guests loudly complained how there was ... “nothing left to eat.” Well, too many of his lookalikes were faster!
a disgusting spectacle]