Magickal Realism

Scoring a Treasury on Etsy is akin to scoring current-season Manolo Blahnics in the clearance bin at Barney’s on the day after US Thanksgiving. It can happen, but unless you’re a veteran of a type war unique to Etsy, it doesn’t very often. That said, I must have tripped a land mine or something this morning, because lookie what I got:

Believe me, it’s much prettier and more visible on the actual page.

So, since this small miracle happened, allow me to elucidate why getting in a treasury or scoring one matters.

1. Anything that gets you positive Etsy exposure off your Etsy site is good news.

2. A Treasury essentially nominates you for the front page. The front page listings are always pulled from the treasury pages these days, and they change every hour. If someone has included your item in a treasury, they are saying that you are front page worthy.

3. The more hits an individual treasury gets, the more likely it is to appear on a front page.

So what does this mean to you, especially if you’re in one or you root for someone who made one?

It means it’s time to tag team. If you’re in a treasury or if you make one, it’s a good idea to promote it.

How?

1. For treasury owners, we’re now allowed to convo people who are in treasuries and let them know. The spam edict has been lifted (do NOT try to take advantage of this and sell something while you’re at it.)

2. For treasury featured and for owners, the process is the same:

Twitter it

Myspace bulletin it

Add a screenshot to your flickr and to related flickr groups.

Add a note to your facebook profile.

Post it on your blog and/or livejournal.

Ask friends to click, or to retweet, or to reblog.

If it makes the front page - 1. GET A SCREENSHOT and 2. Make a big deal all over again. The front page is a very big deal.

And of course, you can do some promos on Etsy - search for treasury threads, and blog threads after you blog about it. Make sure you post. Etsy keeps you to grassroots marketing, and grassroots really is what makes it all happen.

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I should mention that on my way to my destination I had to wander through the mall, and the whole mall had its obstacles and strangeness. Along with the unfortunates hired at mall kiosks to hawk at passerby and suck them in aggressively was the hologram from Best Buy.

Somehow he’s just not as interesting as the Cheshire Cat or the Caterpillar, but thank the gods he didn’t call me MaryAnn.

What you need to know about Underwater World is that its publicity belies its nature. The advertising is cheesier than a Bronko’s pizza¹ or cheesier than a super deluxe cheese special at Luce’² There’s the mascot Sharkie that runs around the mall and submits to getting pawed by everyone; there’s all this toy crap, the T-shirts, and the advertising campaign. It’s very much aimed for kids and tourists and does nothing to appeal to locals at all.

But once you get past the first set of down escalators and get the pep talk about making sure you use both flash and non-flash photography, the experience changes. First, their use of music is genius. The closer you get to the actual aquarium, the more soothing and trancey the music. As you leave, you get exposed to brighter colors and more up-tempo beats. By the time you see sharks swimming over your head, you’re too calm to get worried that they might be considering you for lunch.

Oddly enough, the gator here’s eyes glowed red before I snapped the picture, I think. It seemed that way at least.

At one point the voice told me to snap some shots of an egg incubation project. I’m to give it away, to it will be in my flickr stream as Creative Commons and I’ll see if I can upload them to Wikimedia Commons. It is a reasonable payment for what I’ve taken.

As I descended the pathway, I learned two things: turtles are obnoxiously fast, and sharks are camera shy. I could swear I caught a telepathic blip that translated to Goddamn paparazzi. I also now believe the guy that told me his pet turtle ran away. Yes, it is quite possible that they could outrun a human being. I also saw a few stuffed mammals - disturbingly, the wolves were trapped in their taxidermied bodies as was the fox. I hope I released them.³

It wasn’t in an overt way, but there was an interaction between the humans and the fish. The fish and reptiles knew you were there, and had opinions of you.

There was one turtle in particular who captured my attention. A hulking old thing, it told me tales of carrying the world on its back and how I keep bulking weight thinking I need to carry the world on mine when it’s not my job, it’s his, and he’ll worry about that. We were rudely interrupted by a silly girl in a sweatshirt who flashed her camera right in Wise Old Man’s eye. Ancient as he was, even he smarts from such rudeness. But it was such a comforting tale that I’d like to go back, have a few more conversations with Wise Old Man. He has so much to say to me, but trips to Underwater World are really not cheap.

Also, probably in honor of the RNC, there was a glass sharks art display for all 50 states that I saw on the way out. I kept trying to get pictures, but these stupid men kept wandering into my shot and then glaring at me for having a camera. RNC tourists. There were a lot of them, and they were just irritating.

However, I found plenty of opportunities to pause and tune into the total relaxation around me. Everyone else rushed around like a tourist, but I was there for a cultural exchange. I’m not sure how it will come out in my art, but I felt like there were definitely some acts of mutual influence.

I ended my tour with an accidental self portrait, and I have to admit as I came up from my journey, I felt ever-so-gently altered.

THE CROCODILE

by: Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)

• OW doth the little crocodile

  Improve his shining tail,

  And pour the waters of the Nile

  On every golden scale!

  How cheerfully he seems to grin!

  How neatly spread his claws,

  And welcomes little fishes in

  With gently smiling jaws!

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1. for the Indiana folks [↩]
2. for the Minnnesota folks. [↩]
3. I’ve seen this before in Mankato. It wasn’t pretty. [↩]