2004-06-23 - 10:45 a.m.

(part one is here)

while b and c shopped for more souvenirs to bring back to brooklyn, m and i discussed the simulacrum of dollywood. as i mentioned, i'm from orange county, birthplace of mickey mouse, and i'm no stranger to elaborate facades. but something about fake tarpaper shacks and rusted farm equipment and moonshine stills was really beginning to grate on me, especially since we'd driven past actual tarpaper shacks and rusted farm equipment and moonshine stills (as well as a lot of rotting camaros) on the twenty-minute drive to dollywood from powder mill.

just when i thought i'd had my fill of fake, we took in the show at the heartsong theater. b wondered jokingly where we might get a quick restorative nap, and c told her matter-of-factly that the heartsong theater was the perfect place to do it. i think she would have been right on target if not for the fake rainstorm. the heartsong theater show is a multimedia movie presentation about dolly parton's childhood in rural smoky mountain tennessee. dolly herself narrates and appears in the movie, and when leaves fall on screen as she describes the autumns of her youth, paper leaves fall in sympathy from the theater ceiling. fake birds call from the rafters during the springtime segment, and actual water is sprayed on us as dolly belts out a gospel song in a thunderstorm onscreen. i was already soaking wet from the water slide ride and did not enjoy getting doused again. the movie is about 30 minutes long and is full of squeaky-clean actors working for scale harvesting pumpkins, whittling, quilting, going on hay rides, and squaredancing. it's like 'little house on the prairie', except about 100 times more saccharine. i decided right then and there that if i heard 'america the beautiful' one more time in the next 48 hours, i was going to have to hurt someone.

if you've never had a deep-fried twinkie, wouldn't you want to try it at least once? i was running out of steam but b and c were hellbent on squeezing every last amusement out of dollywood. while they browsed the christian-themed gift shop ('inspirations') i ordered the aforementioned delicacy. the woman behind the counter took my order, got out a box of twinkies, unwrapped one, stuck it on a stick, dipped it in a blenderful of cake batter, and threw it in a deep fat fryer. after a few minutes had passed, she shook powdered sugar on it and handed it to me on a paper plate. i took a bite and got a steaming mouthful of various forms of sugar melting together. even the creamy center was hot and melty. to say that it was sweet would be a gross understatement, it was more like having my mouth held open forcibly while someone poured a sack of sugar on my tongue. i couldn't finish it and gave my half-eaten twinkie to m and c. b ordered one and couldn't finish hers either.

the final simulacrum we were subjected to was a simulation within a simulation, a movie/ride where a room full of people sit in moveable seats in front of a huge projection screen. a movie is shown, and the seats move and shake and roll with the action on the screen, hopefully producing a suspension of disbelief. the loose premise of the movie at dollywood is that a nutty inventor (dolly's fictional cousin clovis) has created a flying machine to cart tourists around the beautiful natural settings of the smoky mountains.

the signs outside promised 'one hilarious adventure after another', but we found it unhilarious and kind of disruptive. the seats seemed to be just constantly shaking violently without any relationship to the footage of dolly and clovis and the smoky mountains. i caught b sitting next to me holding her breasts to her chest and grimacing in pain. she later told me that she saw no way dolly herself would go on that ride.

finally, c called her dad to bring the minivan around and collect us. we did the self-guided tour of dolly's museum; browsing her hairstyles, sequined gowns, gold records and other artifacts of her remarkably resilient career. i've always liked dolly parton and the story spelled out at 'chasing rainbows' made me like her even more; despite the deep fried twinkies, chicken-hucking strangers, and the fact that my clothes were still soaked.

next chapter: party hut! photos on my fotolog