Into the Mystic with Peter Lamborn Wilson

The exotic desires uncorked by travel make for a messy romance, blending recognition and projection -- a crush on the Other. Muzaffarabad, Zamboanga, Babdaroon -- for Westerners, can these fail to seduce? (Okay, Babdaroon is from Lord Dunsany). Unfortunately, for the last half millennium, Westerners have courted travel in empire's brothel. Today the recognition of this imperialist imagination has led to a refreshing political deconstruction of exoticism, whether of the "primitive" or the Orient. But in some corners, this has...