I’m pretty strongly against most of the ideas in Mel Brooks movies becoming reality, but this one seems like a winner: canned air from cities like New York, Paris, Berlin, and Singapore. Photographer Kirill Rudenko makes them, and they’re available in his Etsy shop for people who are nostalgic for their city’s smells, or who just worry that their planet will run out of air.
I get a lot of funny looks from Grist people when I make Spaceballs references, but screw you, I love this movie.
Canned air costs $9.99 before shipping (from Prague), and Rudenko says it “relieves stress, cures homesickness and helps fighting nostalgia.” Each can has a list of ingredients — New York, for instance contains:
20% Empire State Building
10% Grand Central Terminal
10% Chrysler Building
20% Statue of Liberty
10% Little Italy, Chinatown
10% Brooklyn Bridge
10% Times Square
10% Central Park
plus possible traces of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. The Paris air bears the cautionary note “may contain traces of liberté, égalité and fraternité,” and the Singapore air warns against opening it in public places, as this carries a $25,000 fine.
I have no idea if Rudenko actually travels to collect his air, and I suspect not, as that would be insane. (Who knows with artists, though.) He promises that it’s 100 percent organic, but says nothing about it being 100 percent authentic. But when the planet loses all its oxygen, will you really give a shit whether the can you’re cracking open comes from Paris or Prague?
