Riffing on something from Richard Lanham's The Economics of Attention I spliced together some soundscapes and images (2.7mb) from a recent vacation. Lanham suggests that tourism "has lost its reality, it's genuine substance. It has become an attention structure" (2). Our three days on Captiva Island made me think of the quote. The island is small so the influx of 3,000 tourists amplifies the juxtaposition between the tourist experience and the infrastructure supporting it. The trash truck, for instance, arrives at 3:30 am--there is no way to get around on the island at any other time. Trucks haul in the goods and then haul out garbage under cover of darkness. At the tables of the restaurants water sparkles in glasses and in the alleys out back dumpster lids clang and ice machines crank. Listening to the two soundscapes brings either attention structure into focus.