March 2nd, 1996

Dear Alan,

It’s amazing how being at McDonalds becomes like a small plane ticket
home. Everything that is anything is the same here. The sights and smells
And general sounds are all the same. McDonalds is an international constant.
The pace is the same. Here and there, both deny relaxation and
contemplation about eating. They both spur one to chew, to devour what is
in the paper box or in the field of vision. The music, even though here it has
a clearly Japanese poppy-traditional feel, is relentless. It never pauses or
alters its sense to get to the next point, to start the next melodic phrase,
to get you to the next fry. And this is perhaps a result more of the science of
acoustics that is going on in all McDonalds. The acoustics seem to increase
the amount of murmur, seem to remove any intimacy and make each
conversation at any table part of the larger background rumble. It is as
though McDonalds makes a contemplative thought or exchange of ideas
impossible, as though it turns communion into serving blabber up piping hot
with a smile you can buy for free from the menu. (And, actually, here they
have smiles listed on the menu for ¥0. I one time ordered 1 smile with my
coffee, but the woman didn’t give it to me. She maybe didn’t understand
what I was asking for, even though it was on the electric hum of menu that
hovered over her like an illuminated law, floated like some sort of periphery
looming halo of price tags. Maybe she felt threatened or just sick of
smart asses as I would have felt. For that possibility, I didn’t push the
matter. I felt she and I actually had more in common in our mutual tinge of
hostility than we would have had had she acquiesced. Besides, an honest
sharp punch is usually better than a fake store sold smile. At least it is more
memorable.) It is interesting to me that as I look around here it is so easy to
find people chewing. Any talking that goes on takes place either with
people’s mouths full or during the times of flurryous gestures when they are
reaching for more food. This crucial relationship between the people and
their food, this almost primal concentration of feeding, reminds me of every
caveman film I remember seeing. The cavemans and cavewomans hover
over their food with an atmosphere that it was hard won, that it might be
stolen by a neighbor at any moment. Their energy on eating is directed and
brutally clear. Shoulders are hunched and hands are bloody in the
architecture of bite marks accumulating on the wads of food that are
clenched in their fists. Their grip and focus are clear. I might go so far as to
say “keen,” as in the sense of honed instincts. And McDonalds is a treasure
trove of all that. Everyone looks out at each other with wary eyes, with
Cro-Magnon jaws working like a poetry, gnawing in a lyric rhythm. A “jya,
jya,jya,jya,jya…”

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