ABSTRACT
Addressed to ‘current resident’, I recently received a mail-order catalog inviting me to acquire an assorted set of trendy American middle-class kitsch. Amid the plethora of procurable objects, which included audio cassettes of ‘Classic Bob and Ray’, Sterling Silver Teddy Bear Earrings with Matching Necklace, a book entitled The Best of the Old Farmer’s Almanac, and my choice of three different M.C. Escher Silk Neckties, was a T-shirt on which appears a picture of a fifteenth-century sailing ship and the inscription ‘How could Columbus have discovered America when Native Americans were already here?’ Accompanying the catalog image was the following text: This shirt poses an intriguing question —and reminds us all that our continent’s heritage goes back a lot further than 1492.’ The counter-commemoration1 has clearly not eluded commodification.
