"To be a tourist is to escape accountability. Errors and
failings don’t cling to you the way they do back home. You’re able to
drift across continents and languages, suspending the operation of sound
thought. Tourism is the march of stupidity. You’re expected to be
stupid. The entire mechanism of the host country is geared to travelers
acting stupidly. You walk around dazed, squinting into fold-out maps.
You don’t know how to talk to people, how to get anywhere, what the
money means, what time it is, what to eat or how to eat it. Being stupid
is the pattern, the level and the norm. You can exist on this level for
weeks and months without reprimand or dire consequence. Together with
thousands, you are granted immunities and broad freedoms. You are an
army of fools, wearing bright polyesters, riding camels, taking pictures
of each other, haggard, dysenteric, thirsty. There is nothing to think
about but the next shapeless event." -- The Names
On the turntable: The Flying Burrito Brothers, "The Flying Burrito Brothers"
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