The world is full of fake things—fake plants, fake smells, fake building façades… This fact is often talked about in negative terms because fakeness is the opposite of authenticity, and authentic (or natural) things are just better, right? It’s easy to get people to agree to this, but then, the moment we have some free time, we all love going off to Las Vegas or Disneyland—the epicenters of absurd, cartoonish fakeness.
It's worth wondering: why did the world become full of so many fake things? And if we all supposedly prefer authentic, real, or natural things, why are we so quick to wallow in fantasy worlds as soon as we get the chance?
I stumbled upon an intriguing answer to these questions while reading Crackpot, a collection of essays by John Waters. In the book, Waters writes two complementary essays, one about 101 things he hates, the other about 101 things he loves. Each essay recounts a day-in-the life of the great film director. The first essay begins, “I wake up on the wrong side of the bed and smoke my last three cigarettes. I know it’s going to be a bad day.” In this mood, everything he encounters is something he hates. These turn out to predominately be pretty mundane things, including: polyester sheets, a burnt-out lightbulb, an unattractive neighbor’s slobbering dog, taxes, yogurt, vegetarian restaurants, the phone company…
In contrast, when he writes his essay on 101 things he loves, he’s in a terrific mood. “I’m so thrilled to be alive that I awake exactly five seconds before my alarm clock is set to ring.” On this day, everything he encounters is goofy and wonderful: stomping around the house while using Kleenex boxes as slippers, LSD flashbacks, endlessly rearranging and sometimes kissing his favorite literary biographies, playing Duck-Duck-Goose with his collection of two-foot-high Farrah Fawcett dolls, browsing novelty items (stink bombs, squirting lapel flowers, wind-up hand buzzers) at the local joke shop…
John Waters is a one-of-a-kind madcap, but we can all relate to his general experience: when we’re in a bad mood, even the most trivial, mundane things can make us highly irritated. But on our good days, as a little mania sets in, trivial and mundane things have the potential to become magical—in John Waters’ case, Kleenex boxes magically become ballroom slippers.
This is what mania—the clinical condition—does, after all. It takes you to a state where reality becomes like a movie, a fantasy. Racing thoughts, grandiosity, and hallucinations are common symptoms. (Depression—the flipside of mania—also distorts reality in interesting ways and can play a role in creativity, although that’s a topic for another day.) But clinical conditions aside, being in a happy mood or having an extra good day is common to everyone.
It was certainly in this spirit that places like Disneyland and the Las Vegas Strip were conceived. First you see the mundane as magical, and then—if you happen to be an artist, architect, or developer—undoubtedly you wish to transform the world around you to conform to your vision.
Midway through his day of blissful mania, Waters describes his desire to build fakeness into his everyday reality:
"As I enter my building, I think about the only other apartment in the world I'd rather have—the one in Alfred Hitchcock's best film, Rope. That fake skyline of New York outside the window with the changing lighting is the most magical set in film history. Maybe when I'm rich I could hire Vince, my art director, to construct a similar Baltimore skyline to put outside my own window. My view is pretty good but a fake one would be even better. Come to think of it, I wish my whole life was trompe l'oeil."
This may sound absurd to someone in a lousy mood. But, really, is desiring a fake skyline really any different from desiring a ticket to Disneyland, or—for that matter—a ticket to a museum, a concert, a film, or a play? Isn’t all creative output “fake” in this same sense—the product of the human imagination brought into the real world?
So spray some fake scent (perfume or cologne), grab your faux-leather handbag or wallet, and head on down to the casino floor where you just might see some real life clowns or—even better—a madcap with a pencil mustache dancing in Kleenex boxes.