Essay - A Visit to Seaworld Might Not Seem Very Adventurous. It...

A visit to Seaworld might not seem very adventurous. It might not seem to mean ***** much of anything at all except for a rel*****ively pleasant - if rather expensive - way ***** spend an afternoon.

However, part ***** both the appeal and the marketability of going to a place like Seaworld is that it speaks ***** something inside ***** us that longs for adventure. Very few of us will ever get to swim with dolphins in the ocean or to see puffins in *****ir native nesting grounds. What a place like Seaw*****ld does is to *****ten us the sense that we have gotten ***** travel to distant places.

We feel like explorers, like ethnographers, as we set off through the gates of Seaworld. We feel that we are going where, ***** not perhaps where no one has gone before than at least where ***** ourselves have never gone *****. We are *****t engaged in the petty business of capitalism, but in ***** gre***** project of f*****ding *****.

This may simply ********** like overblown ad rhetoric from a Se*****world television spot, but in fact it comes authentically from my own recent experiences of visiting Seaworld and ***** individuals that I talked to when I was there. To help analyze what it is about Seaworld that makes it such a fascinating place ***** v*****it, the following description of my visit ***** be useful.

***** should be noted first of all that everything at Seaworld is perfectly choreographed. There is nothing th***** ***** ei*****er left to chance or that it left ***** nature. This does not surprise me as I enter the *****, pay f***** my ticket, get ***** h***** stamped even wit*****out being asked if ***** wish to leave ***** park and then return before my ticket ***** expired. (The assumption here *****, of course, that no one would ***** want to return, ***** *****t ***** to spend as long as is possible in the wonders of Seaworld.)

***** *****icular style of hyper-manicurism will be immediately familiar to anyone who has ever been to any theme *****. There is just enough nature to make one feel that ***** ***** indeed left the usual constraints of the urban world and entered some other, more exotic, ***** enticing sphere. And yet this nature is kept beaut*****ully tidy. There ***** no weeds **********. I keep a look out for them *****ll day but fail to find any at all. Even the dirt seems clean, ***** because it is sprinkled ***** with little flecks ***** white.

***** am not quite sure wh***** these ***** white flecks are made of but I do not believe ***** they ***** organic. They come in little potted plants that one buys from nurseries. ***** are not the native sort of ***** ***** you see along ***** roadside as ***** are driving into the park. This might not seem to be important, but in fact it is because it is ***** ***** details, once one begins to *****ice them that