Monday, October 8, 2012

Opryland, Tennessee


I need GPS just walking out the door of the hotel room to navigate my way to the first conference session, given the complexities of the convention resort with its regions: The Magnolia, the Delta, the Garden Conservatory and the Cascades with color coded carpet, keys, and maps.

One million square feet, 3,000 guest rooms, 16 restaurants with chardonnay and merlot, a river with riverboat, an island, waterfalls, palm trees and orchids under one glass dome (so like The Truman Show). A world for conventions and conferences, and even some people's ideal vacation. Climate controlled “outdoor” cafés. “Nature” in rivers, streams, an island, tropical gardens, waterfalls streaming over Tennessee rock formations harvested and transplanted into this giant terrarium. It doesn’t matter that palm trees don’t grow on these stones in the wild, or that orchids do not hang from their beautiful striated layers. No alumroot, bluestem or loblolly pine anywhere here.

A gardener tidies dirt with a broom around perfectly spaced and blooming echeveria. I see a wheeled cart full of replacement plants for those that have stopped blooming. Standing, mouth open, inside this attempt to sweep and contain an environment to resemble the [disorderly] miracle of nature, I ask, Is it alive? Is it anything but a Hallmark illustration, a facsimile of light and life, like a painting by Thomas Kincade?

Too bad I can't navigate to a hillbilly porch, where the Grand Ole Opry is streaming on a transistor radio, the Smoky Mountains awaking through light slowly burning off the mist. A jug of moonshine. An old woman whistling through her tooth-gap, both of us rocking on our blooming rheumatiz. Now that would be a conference.

13 comments:

  1. Smile.
    Yes, a Disneyland setting, to lull you into Fantasyland.

    Wait a minute. This is to help you work better and smarter in the world of education that is slowly falling apart, with hardly any state or local funds to stop the precipice it is bound for?

    Ah, yes, a beautiful glass to mask the administration of poison.

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    1. Rosaria, although I wasn't thinking of that aspect when I wrote this, it is a very good point you make. Besides the costs of educational conferences like this, for which funding does not seem to be a problem, the simple fact that they may only provide a couple of tips worth harvesting for daily work is reason enough not to offer them if you ask me. After attending a conference my first year in this job eleven years ago, I decided I would never go to another. This year I was honored with an award, and so it was important to go. I admit it was nice being pampered, but the venue was bizarre to say the least.

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  2. Hey, I'll join you for that last-paragraph conference! Or perhaps it should be called simply a get-together. At one time I was attending over a month's worth of sales conferences a year. And, do you know, I can hardly remember an hour's worth of them.

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    1. Robert, you are welcome to join us on the porch; pretty soon it will be a ho-down!

      I suppose there must be some benefit in conferences. Maybe they promote relationships and inspire people to do better at their jobs. But I really wonder if they are worth a fraction of their costs. On the other hand, what would happen to the threadbare economies of our cities and towns if conferences and tourism were eliminated!

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  3. Re. the bonding, the potential for inspiration, the economic benefits — all undeniably good points, Ruth.

    From a purely personal aspect, however, because I attended so, so many over the years, the gloss wore off after a while, and I had a kind of burn-out — from selling, from marketing, from role-playing, from saying yes when I knew I should be saying no, from flattery and hypocrisy and manipulation, from the whole damn charade.

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    1. I so understand, though not from personal experience myself, as I have only attended a handful in my whole life. It does sound incredibly soul-numbing, and it's no wonder you shun it!

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  4. i, too, have wandered through such seeming monstrosities as this - hermetically sealed geodesic domes in which humans are captured, insect-like, scuttling about in a faux world. in some parts of the globe, like dallas in july, i am grateful to be shielded from the 110 degree outside. but it does leave you with such a sense of disconnect......much rather inhabit the world of smoky mountains, rocking chairs and gaptoothed hootch brewers - what an image you paint!

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    1. Amanda, my colleague and I found the place bizarre. It reminded me of the Marina Towers in Chicago. I was little when they were completed in 1964, and I remember so well riding by them on the Dan Ryan and someone telling me that you could live your whole life in there and never leave, as they had all that you needed: a theatre, gym, swimming pool, ice rink, bowling alley, several stores and restaurants, and, of course, a marina. Apparently the Marina Towers were built to reverse the pattern of white flight from urban Chicago.

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  5. You find yourself immersed in a facade. The facade is real yet it feels unreal. You who walk meadows know what is real.

    It is understandable that you are put off by what intends to allure you. You are right, there are far better places to explore, far deeper mysteries to ponder.

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  6. Thank you, Nelson. I agree with you and appreciate your reflections.

    I've asked myself, if I have to go to a conference, what would I want the facilities to be like? That is one question. Another is, Who wants this kind of environment, and why is it so successful? If all 100% of the attendees were surveyed, what percentage would say they liked it, and not, and why? Of course we are unique individuals, and vive la difference! YET, I ponder what it means culturally that such a place exists, thrives, serves and is chosen for events, especially in this economic climate.

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  7. From your photos I thought it was a beautiful place but putting it in this perspective it is odd indeed. It does seem strange that so many people enjoy the make believe worlds of Disneylande and Las Vegas...but now it seems many vacation destinations have been "Disneyfied" doesn't it?

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  8. I have been there and know of which you speak, Ruth. It really is an over-the-top place...not unlike some parts of Vegas, to be honest. I was glad to see it but am amazed I had totally forgotten about it till you mentioned it for this trip. I guess that tells you everything!?!

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  9. We all need a hillbilly porch to sit and rock on I think at least once... with a jug of moonshine, though? Ha, you are so enjoyably funny.

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All responses are welcome.