Deep-fried Romantic
7 Mile Fair is Dead. All Hail the New 7-Mile Fair!
It began as a flea market founded by a farmer in 1961 on an acre of his own land near the Racine and Milwaukee border along the I-94 corridor. Some might think of 7 Mile Fair as stuck in time, essentially unchanged in the 20 years since they last shopped there, but today’s active consumers and vendors there have fundamentally changed the dynamic, even though the set-up doesn’t look much different. It’s late Sunday morning in early April. The temps outside are still a little too cold for vendors to camp outside in the acre behind the market square and expo buildings – except for that one guy who has eternally camped out his southwest corner spot with permanent wares ranging from old vacuum cleaners to play sets. From a distance, shrouded under a hoodie, he looks like a hermit. I watch him while standing in the long line to get in the door. I have never waited in line during the off-season before. This semi-annual pilgrimage is not special; I just need to kill some time. And, like a true pilgrimage, I don’t fully comprehend the languages spoken around me. The new dynamic of 7 Mile Fair makes it a familiar and welcome gathering space for recent Wisconsin immigrants (Mexican, Puerto Rican, Honduran, Chinese, Korean, Hmong, Pakistani, Indian), who are often treated the same by the old immigrants (Dutch, Czech, Norwegian, Irish, French, Slovenian, German) elsewhere. The funny thing is: the ethnic shift hasn’t changed the makeup of how 7 Mile Fair works in the slightest. A cursory look across internet blogs often bemoans the loss of 7 Mile Fair’s original concept. It used to be a place to find fresh-off-the-farm eggs and vegetables. It used to be a place to find used goods, spare parts, oddities, antiques, shammies, cookware, toys and as-seen-on-TV items. It used to be a place you could haggle and wrangle. The only problem with this complaint: all of this can, of course, still be found there. But some time during the past 10 years, vendors found it profitable to not only reach an untapped market with ethnic wares, but to specifically market ethnic material not commonly found in retail stores. And beyond that, a mashed-up market of Americanized teens belonging to a race via family and neighborhood – who then create mashed-up American products – created an entirely new, ethnic-American flavor. This is how Bart Simpson-as-Latin-gangster t-shirts, full-sized slot machines with Chinese characters and Buddha desk lamps propagate. You can get a treat while you walk around, from homemade ices layered with fruit and lime juice to churros and even off-season corn-on-the-cob. The fruit stands have tomatoes and oranges. These don’t appear to be as fresh as the cacti and peppers, though. It might be a waste of time to complain about a decline in quality over the years. What was cheap and made overseas then is still being sold now. But what qualifies here as a low-culture beat is not the existences of foreign […]
Apr 9th, 2009 by Brian Jacobson
Discover ThisTV, even if by accident
It was a channel that remained in the ether and away from the ethos until many picked up a digital converter box. On Nov. 1, 2008, Time Warner Cable bumped a channel to make room for ThisTV (201 on cable and 58-3 on digital air in Milwaukee). Now audiences are discovering this quirky pre-programmed channel offered by Chicago-based Weigel Broadcasting and MGM to bolster sibling station WDJT CBS-58 and predecessor MeTV (58-2). In an age where most Americans have at least seen a cable channel (walking through an airport or bar) or, more likely, have several televisions programmed into a system in their home – the memory of what it was like to get four or five VHF channels and a handful of fuzzy UHF ones on a second dial is fading like a lost signal. But digital antenna programming is about to birth a new renaissance. At first, viewing habits were established around a channel hierarchy which was later weakened by the increasingly commonplace remote control. Cable and satellite programming went from being a luxury of the privileged to a necessity for all classes to stay informed and entertained. Now, in a strange back-sidestep, the strength of independent national broadcasting companies and alliances with multiple local stations have likely created a new form with a widespread marketing campaign and government subsidies proliferating the digital converter box before the new conversion deadline. Watching ThisTV, it certainly feels like a secret. While the rest of the world copes with a proliferating density of cable channels (which then split into additional HD versions and sub-categories i.e. Discovery for Kids, Investigate Discovery, Animal Planet, Discovery Health), the effort to get some piece of the pie with non-cable (ThisTV doesn’t appear to be on DirecTV locally) audiences emerges in a niche programming way. While MeTV plays old TV shows 24/7 similar to TV Land or WMLW, ThisTV mostly plays movies “from the classic age” – as one incessant interstitial ad likes to tout. Read: not classic movies, but from that era. After the overnight and early six hours are done showing old Patty Duke and Mister Ed episodes, the rest of the day is programmed into blocks showing movies from MGM’s lesser-known library. While a few these films’ production dates stray into the new millennium, most are from the 1950s to 1980s – excluding a range of films which were sold and still under control of other companies. Theme days are built around a performer, like the recent Vincent Price set (The Abominable Dr. Phibes, From a Whisper to a Scream) or famous directors (Stanley Kubrick’s Killers Kiss, Brian DePalma’s Blow Out). All the films on ThisTV may be considered B-Movies or second-run features; nothing on the roster ever reaches into AFI’s or imdb.com’s “Top 100” anything. However, there’s a peculiar grace and quietly assuming nature to these films that make them low culture reborn as fresh entertainment. When I worked in video stores, there were always rows of VHS boxes bleached on one […]
Apr 1st, 2009 by Brian Jacobson
Now in glorious 3-D!!!
Before it ever became a fond figment of Americana (akin to drive-ins), 3D movies were an effective means of getting people in seats. Studios and distributors alike have a long history of using primal urges and emotional selling points to get your business, from the first sale of popcorn, Cinerama, and Smell-o-vision to today’s shilling of ultra-combos, IMAX and THX sound. But using 3D is a trick of the brain; the device makes a user feel something more than what is there. Objects and actions on a screen appear, surreally, somehow more vivid than what one could experience in real life. It activates nerve receptors that stay locked in fascination until the gimmick wears off and common sense returns. 3D movies therefore offer something hyper-real that tricks us into finding more emotion, drama, suspense or comedy in the story than is really there. This weekend marks the unofficial and incredulous early opening of the big-budget summer movie season with the premiere of DreamWorks’ Monsters vs. Aliens (in 3-D). One could argue that this posited leap-start to the season happened weeks ago with the splashy release of Watchmen, but that opening was to a much smaller niche audience. Opening a kids’ movie in general requires a special finesse and a whole lot of chutzpah marketing. These days, family movies can be sure-fire money makers and a hard-sell item paradox. Parents want to allow their kids entertainment treats by taking them to High-School Musical 3, but don’t want to sit through Tales of Desperaux or Jonas Brothers in Concert (in 3-D!). Kids want to buy memorabilia and t-shirts from their new favorite movie, but if the story isn’t emotionally solid enough, no one buys the Happy Meal toy. Movie producers and distributors can’t sell more tickets than there are people, but want more money. So how do you generate excitement and anticipation for a blockbuster family film when the market is glutted with offerings? Enter 3D or ‘Real D’ technology, for which all of DreamWorks Animation’s movies will now be adapted. Disney made the same point two months prior by showing the first visually-stunning all stop-motion movie Coraline in Disney Digital 3D, which uses the same technology. There is a slate of almost a dozen movies coming out this way in 2009, and lots more on the way next year. This new technological format was first introduced four years ago, but it wasn’t in widespread use until many theater chains agreed to put the requisite projectors in their multiplexes. With the agreement came a host of planned 3D movies with 2D versions at adjoining theaters. You’ll pay as much as $3 per ticket extra for the 3D screening, an upgrade that comes with hard plastic glasses that allows the magic to happen. The catch? You have to give them back. It’s a head-scratcher both in logic and purpose. At the end of your 3D experience, ushers wait with open hands ready to confiscate your “rental”. While theater owners are desperate to get seats […]
Mar 26th, 2009 by Brian Jacobson
$3 Wine Test-Drive
There is no better placebo for depression and anxiety than to wander the aisles of a Wal-Mart or Target superstore. It is comforting on many levels: to know that in case of Armageddonic survival there is one place that has it all. To know that there is a product out there which should salve some need in your life. To know that someone is inventing new ways to contain or dispense a beloved product. To know that you can afford something beyond your means - even if it will only last a year before breaking.
Mar 19th, 2009 by Brian Jacobson
