TEMPORAL BLURRING

Walk around the Graceland Plaza; you'll notice an Elvis impersonator and his family. Nothing so unusual about seeing an Elvis impersonator. In fact you CAN'T WALK THREE FEET WITHOUT SEEING AN ELVIS IMPERSONATOR during International Elvis Tribute Week. Perhaps one particular impersonator will draw your attention because of his "odd" appearance. He'll have "Vegas years" hair (circa 1972), definitely a "Last Days" body (1977), and an "Early years" pink lame jacket and black and white saddle oxfords (1955). He will be MIXING THE ESTABLISHED TEMPORAL DEMARCATIONS OF ELVIS. This temporal blurring is the major rhetorical effect of shopping at Graceland Plaza.

The more YOU walk around the more you'll notice other instances of this mixing of temporal representations:

*"Priscilla years" furniture in the living room (1968)

*photos of Elvis and Nixon (1972) beside photos of Elvis in the Army (late 50's)

*biographies by various authors, each claiming to tell the real story of Elvis

*snippets of conversations of people telling each other about Elvis as if he were still alive

*the "early years" song, "Young and Beautiful," played in one part of the pavilion and within earshot the "latter days" song, "In the Ghetto," can be heard from somewhere else.

The Elvis Presley Automobile Museum
(Adults $4.50, Children 4-12 $2.75)

Like no car museum you've ever seen! It's all indoors, but you walk down a landscaped, curbed, tree-lined "highway", past colorful
exhibits of vehicles owned and enjoyed by Elvis--his famous 1955 pink Cadillac, 1956 purple Cadillac convertible, 1956 Continental
Mark II, 1971 and 1973 Stutz Blackhawks, Harley Davidson motorcycles, three-wheeled supercycles, and more. Along with
these 20 or more vehicles are personal items like his leather cycle jackets, gasoline credit cards, driver's license, and more. The
centerpiece of the museum is a recreation of an old-time drive-in movie, where you sit in authentic 1957 Chevy seats and watch a
specially produced 9-minute film, with the sound coming from real drive-in speaker boxes. The tour is self-guided and self-paced. The auto museum is located at the south end of the visitor center plaza. (Elvis Presley's Graceland 1992)

AS YOU LEAVE THE MUSEUM, YOU ENTER A GIFT SHOP.



Candlelight Vigil

The most beautiful and moving of all events of Elvis Week. Evening of August 15 at Graceland. The gates of Graceland Mansion will open at 10:00 PM for anyone who wishes to walk up the driveway to Elvis' grave site and back, carrying a candle in quiet, respectful tribute. The gates will remain open until all who wish to participate have done so. A brief opening ceremony produced by the Elvis Country Fan Club will be presented at the gates at the start of the vigil. No admission charge. Please check at the Graceland visitor center for important guidelines and information regarding the vigil (Elvis Week '92, 1992).





If you don't like the official performances offered at Graceland Plaza, try one of your own:

One of the commonest practices of the consumer is window shopping, a consumption of images, an imaginative if not imaginary use of the language of commodities that may or may not turn into the purchase of actual commodities. . . . Looking is as much a means of social control as speaking. . . . Looking makes meanings; it is therefore a means of entering social relations, of inserting onself into the social order in general, and of controlling one's immediate social relations in particular (Fiske 1989, 34-35). 

 
  
where YOUR memories live again

My dad used to look like Elvis.
I guess that's why I've always loved Elvis. 
Every little girl thinks her dad is a king, 
but Elvis was the real one.
My earliest memory of Elvis
is when I was four, pretending my piano bench
was a horse and listening to Elvis sing 
"Lonesome Cowboy." 
After that I remember watching the
Aloha From Hawaii special. 
My whole family
gathered around to watch.
I was seven at the time. . . .
My next memory 
is of August 16, 1977. 
Most people remember where they were 
when JFK was shot; 
I remember losing Elvis.
I was eleven years old and spending
the night at a friend's house. 
I walked by their tv and saw a picture of
Elvis in the top right corner.
Then the newsman said that Elvis was dead.
I had to go home because 
I couldn't stop crying. 
For the next two weeks
all I did was cry whenever I thought of Elvis.
It was like having my Daddy
die.
I remember watching the funeral. . . .
After that, I gathered all of my Elvis
things and put them in a box 
to save with all the memories of him. . . .
Since then, I've started collecting anything
to do with Elvis. I even went
to Memphis last summer to visit Graceland. 
It was wonderful and very peaceful.
And, yes, I cried as I put a rose
on Elvis' grave and I signed his
front wall.

Deanna Shapire
Huntington Beach, CA
(Fall 1993, 40)
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