Take a wild ride to Disney World!
by BUKAMERICA
Is it the happiest place on earth or pilgrimage site for a pagan cult? Get the down low on Disney World in this account of a visit to the realm of the Mouse by MacArthur “Genius” Award-winning critic Dave Hickey.

“Disney is a freaking pagan cult . . . promoting a primitive, animist religion dedicated to investing everything with life, to animating everything from teacups to trees, from carpets to houses, from ducks to mice, with the pulse of human aspiration. . . . The adults, with kids as their passports, could be born again into the cult, and Disney was getting away with this outrageous activity, I decided, because, if you suppress explicit sexuality, you can get away with anything in America, even if the sexuality is only suppressed, even if every luminous, skintight, cuddly, curvy, shiny surface is redolent of eros. This romantic conceit—that I was witnessing a pagan ritual in a Florida swamp—sexed up my assignment a lot. I felt like Boy in one of those Tarzan movies, creeping into a torchlit cave full of spear-waving Africans chanting crazily at some Mesoamerican idol overseen by a wild-eyed swami in a turban.”

Mickey Mouse by Andy Warhol

Excerpted from BüK #26
Buy Dave Hickey’s complete essay, “Expedition to Dreamland,” for only $1.49 from BukAmerica at www.bukamerica.com
A BüK is an inexpensive art pamphlet just $1.49, containing one provocative essay, short story, portfolio of pictures, collection of poems, or other surprising entertainment, readable in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.