How not to placecast

Let's set audio aside for today and enjoy some recent gems of video placecasting:



(h/t Matt Weston)
And from my own backyard:



While these videos may fall short when it comes to interpretation, they nonetheless capture a genuine sense of place.

It's a good reminder that people's impression of place is rarely dictated by tourism bureaus. In fact, overly-polished place-propeganda can backfire against communities that aren't being honest about their true nature.  Irony, disappointment and surprise are all a part of the way we experience the world around us.  

I think to properly interpret a place to people in that place you have to recognize what they're really seeing, really hearing and maybe what they're really smelling.  Then you have to help them understand WHY their experience includes those things. 

For example, I'd love to make a walking tour of International Falls, Minnesota someday.  And the first item on the tour would be, "What's that smell?"  Not to insult the town, but to recognize the first question that is logically on every visitor's mind.  Once that's out of the way, the tour can proceed without distraction.  (The answer, by the way, has to do with two paper mills in town and the holding ponds where they store wet pulp.  But go to International Falls anyway, it's a great little town right next to Voyeageurs National Park.)