Weird - that's exactly the same impression I got in Atlanta the one time I was there. I drove there from Boston (beautiful trip) and upon entering Atlanta you get a nonstop repeating motif: strip malls and chain stores then tree-lined residential areas, then strip malls and chain stores then...well, I suppose it's like that in most places. It gave me the life-is-meaningless willies though. Shopping living shopping living then you know what comes next. Dying.
Art Directors are viewing these slackjawed with their red edit pens out, and Graphic Designers are simply laughing - or crying because they don't make the Leibovitz bucks. The Peter Pan one is unbearable (somewhere - find it). They don't even pass for campy tableau. They're simply mainstream plastic, and the mainstream is ready with their plastic > Add to Cart. I bet everyone at E!TV is going to have one in their office. I'm not bitter, I just know artifice and crap immediately. Damn, should've taken that "Business of Art" class years ago but instead chose to be creative.
I'm from Springfield, MA, same town as Dr. Seuss. One of my most poignant memories is from something that took place on Mulberry Street. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_to_Think_That_I_Saw_It_on_Mulberry_Street On the dusk of Halloween night about 15 years ago I was sitting with my mom in her broken down old car on the edge of the cemetery there, right beside the rickety curvy sidewalks that so inspired Dr. Seuss, before dropping me off for the train back to NYC so I could party in Greenwich Village that night. We were eating the rest of our homemade chocolate cake, savoring it amidst the gothic atmosphere, when suddenly about 500 black crows landed in unison on the tops of every bare tree branch around the entire cemetery. We were speechless. Then on our last bite of cake, as we were ready to go, every crow took off in unison and flew southward over the Connecticut river, and their Halloweeny silhouettes were unbelievable against the burning orange sunset. When my mother passes away I'll think of that electric night and smile, bittersweetly. It signified the pure realization of inevitable death. All souls, eat your cake now.
Pretty soon it will be transistor tattoos or skin implants that track us and keep us "always on". Foursquare will be right on it - human adbots live updateable without smartphones (phones and RFID will be so early 21st century).
Please have a bag nearby for the Alice in Wonderland one.