I'm sitting in the Cafe Royale aboard the MS Scotia Prince, registered in Panama, captained by Hartmut Rathje, and wondering about who really buys t-shirts and keychains. There's a gift-shop below me, duty-free (read: no taxes), which sells, besides lots and lots of booze: tshirts, keychains, anoraks, mini puzzles, and more assorted kitsch than one could reasonably fit in a fullsize pickup truck. Everytime the Scotia Prince makes a slighly larger than normal rocking motion, every glass bottle in the place makes a faint clinking noise against its neighbors. Most of the kitsch has the name "Scotia Prince" emblazoned on it somewhere in an attempt to make it look special, or at least specialized. It works about as well as Publishers' Clearing House has you convinced that Your Name may already be a winner. I've personally seen the same kitsch in four different New England cities, and in all of them I could purchase a t-shirt informing the world that "Someone in Your City Name" loves me, that I've been "Lost in Your City Name," and that a popeyed gaggle of lobsters peering out from a trap are all "Stuck in Your City Name." So unless we accept the theory that all the merchandise in these four heavily tourist populated agorae came from one giant and monumentally unsuccessful printing run, we're left hypothesizing the existence (much like the early theories on the existence of the neutrino) of an unseen mass of people which makes its presences known only by the continued viability of a company with the ability to print Your Name on everything from cuttingboards to homilies relating sand dollars to Jesus. Even more intriguingly, this Hypothetical Consumer Mass irrefutably reveals its presence by the behavior it induces, black-hole-like, in the bodies in motion around it, e.g. providing anoraks, "round 'tuits," and stacks of sticky notes. These supplies logically must be disappearing from time to time, like cookies left out for Santa, in exchange for gifts of money. (In this case, 35% more Canadian money than $US, but that's a thought for another time.) Now, we've all picked up souvenirs from places we'd like to remember, whether pre-made ones like postcards or keychains, or spontaneous ones like rocks, pictures, or diseases. Asserting that we're substantially different from the HCM would be profoundly hypocritical, to say the least. Locations different from our homes are inherently interesting; human beings are inherently forgetful. It's a natural exercise to want to retain some piece of one's trip. The gift shop aboard the M/S Scotia Prince (I've now also seen it written as the M-S Scotia Prince, the MS SCOTIA PRINCE, and perhaps most confusingly as the Ms. Scotia Prince) though, would seem to assert that not only is the M/S SP a means of travel *between* interesting places, which I figured when I ponied up US$83 to take it from Yarmouth to Portland, but that it's also a destination in its own right, worthy of remembrance, a fond recollection, and perhaps, a wistful smile every time new houseguests chortle over the Round Tuit one acquired while on the ship. The ticket vendors for "Prince of Fundy Cruises" certainly didn't mention the Laser Karaoke, Trivia Game, or "Rockin' in the USA" musical medley (which I believe I performed in middle-school show choir, a sequined and cassette-provided melange of musical memories not a one of us performing the piece had ever had ourselves -- an age bracket I believe the performers on the ship fell squarely into as well. The problems inherent in trying to induce nostalgia in an audience while being too young to posess it one's self are both non-trivial and probably something to be discussed elsewhere) nor the casino (which had that weird look of any place primarily meant to appeal at night exposed to bright sunlight, something like a vampire not only being surprised in its grave by heroes during daylight hours, but having a hangover and bed-head as well) nor the linen-swathed dining room, nor the smiling "You've Made It Here At Last" posters on the walls. "Interesting destinations seem to lure the HCM," one can imagine the cruiseline's officers saying, "so why not make a piece of transportation a destination in its own right?" So they go about strewing the ship with Destination-specific material, clearly signifying themselves as a giant mobile Destination, worthy of the aforementioned remembrances, chuckles, and purchases. An Ouroborous in reverse, constantly regurgitating kitsch in order to make itself that much more worthy of souvenirs later. A reassuring homily about footprints in the sand, printed on a piece of 3/16" fibreboard for Your Ship Name. It's a journey *and* the first step, travel and arrival, all in one.

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