Motel of the mysteries
An arch and witty tale purporting to be the dissertation of some future archeologists' discovery and exploration of the "Toot and C'mon Motel" (any resemblance to a Holiday Inn and the Egyptian pharaoh is entirely intentional.) In the process, they get just about every detail wrong, surmising it to be a necropolis - does the "Plant That Would Not Die" symbolize eternal life or… wait a minute, isn't that just the ubiquitous plastic philodendron in every room? - and along the way cast doubt on what we really think we "know" about ancient Egypt. It's all enhanced by Macaulay's detailed and meticulous pen-and-ink sketches. Hilarious and memorable.
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63% recommend37% neutral
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- And Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay, published in 1979. I read it as a child and recall enjoying it.
- You might enjoy “Motel of the Mysteries” then, a large format illustrated paperback that I grew up with, which showed some hilarious conclusions about 1980s ‘culture’ by some future-millennia archaeologists. They conclude for instance that the TV box is an object of worship because all the architecture in the motel is designed around or points toward it!
- Motel of the Mysteries, David Macauley's satire of then-modern America intertwixed with a satire of archaeology and historical and academic understanding, masquerading as a picture book. A remarkable work I still think about today.
https://www.vox.com/22753080/motel-mysteries-book-david-maca...
- You may enjoy Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay which pokes fun at what you’ve mentioned.
>”It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber.
Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.”
- You would probably find "motel of the mysteries" a fun read :-)
- See: "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay
> "that the toilet seat is a sacred collar one must wear before shouting, down the hole, to the gods below"
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/162247/humorous-st...
