* * * * *
                                        
              “Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to be Xanadu”
                                        
> Too big to fail one more time? How about too ugly or redundant to succeed?
> The long-languishing, and design-challenged Xanadu project sparks such
> thoughts.
> 
> Rebranded “American Dream@Meadowlands,” Xanadu is highly visible, and abuts
> an ecological treasure. Perhaps I can offer a comparative context. The Twin
> Cities' Mall of America is another mammoth retail complex that Triple Five
> co-developed. It, too, received substantial public funding— mainly for such
> infrastructure as access roads and parking ramps. In 1993, it was the
> country's largest mall.
> 

Via Impudence [1], “The Era of Big Malls Is Over - Room for Debate -
NYTimes.com [2]”

What is is about failure with projects named “Xanadu?”

There's Samuel Coleridge's [3] poem, unfinished because he was interrupted by
Dirk Gently [4], also known as the person from Porlock [5] (okay, okay, the
poem's actual name is “Kubla Khan [6]”, but it's one of the most, if not the
only, famous literary reference to Xanadu).

Then there were the Xanadu houses [7], all since gone [8].

There is (or was?) Ted Nelson's [9] Project: Xanadu [10] (named after the
poem), the precusor to the World Wide Web and never fully realized (it being
“six months from being done [11]” for over thirty years).

And lest we forget the movie [12], which sucked [13]. Big time. Enought for
it to be Gene Kelly's [14] last movie.

The verdict?

Don't name anything “Xanadu” if you want it to succeed.

[1] http://violetimpudence.tumblr.com/post/5160146752/is-the-era-of-big-
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/05/01/is-new-jerseys-xanadu-
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirk_Gently
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_from_Porlock
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanadu_Houses
[8] http://wikimapia.org/8005704/Site-of-Xanadu-
[9] http://ted.hyperland.com/
[10] http://www.xanadu.com/
[11] http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.06/xanadu.html
[12] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081777/
[13] http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/xanadu/
[14] http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000037/

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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