Artist in Person Even though Japanese society is the most media-addled, technologically saturated on the face of the globe, I'd bet Elvis lives there. Why? Because Japan has a feverish preoccupation with fifties American pop culture that dates back to the occupation of Japanese soil by U.S. troops. Bay Area-based artist Chip Lord's video essay The Aroma of Enchantment investigates this wild attraction to a bygone era and how it has influenced the Idea of America for sundry Japanese. Lord's meditation combines his own bemusement over the many displaced icons of American culture-from rockabilly bands in the park to dream car showrooms-with historical anecdotes about General MacArthur's reign and stories told by "practitioners of Americanization": a jazz vocalist who sings Billy Holiday and Tom Waits, a publisher of books about advertisements from Life magazine, a car dealer specializing in vintage Cadillacs, and others. By turns humorous, ingenuous, and melancholy, The Aroma of Enchantment pointedly notes how America represented the "abundance of democracy" for a country decimated by war. Unable to revise or reject these anachronistic images, Japan is ironically stuck with empty Elvis in a time of plenty. -Steve Seid