Beyond Feng Shui

Thanks to the better flow of positive energy around Hollywood, which is due solely to the ministrations of feng shui experts, box-office revenues are up. But too many high-priced movies still bomb. The next step? Feng che.

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Recent visitors to Los Angeles have been puzzled by the appearance of gleaming stainless-steel globes on street corners in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills. They are also baffled by the sight of Mercedeses and BMWs with tiny fish tanks attached to the rear windows, and by the colorful banners that seem to furl forth from every third car antenna in the late-afternoon breeze. But most of all, they are bewildered by the new highway signs reading:

Residents of Los Angeles take all this for granted. They know that the globes and banners and fish tanks and highway signs are part and parcel of the latest lifestyle craze to hit Southern California: feng che.

Feng che (the words literally mean "wind" and "vehicle") is a variation on feng shui, the ancient Chinese philosophy that seeks to put human beings in harmonious balance with their surroundings. Several years ago, feng shui took Los Angeles by storm. From Pasadena to Santa Monica, a groundswell of Angelenos suddenly began rearranging their furniture and positioning mirrors and wind chimes in strategic locales to maximize the flow of positive ch'i (natural energy) into their personal space. Businesses, too, took on the ch'i challenge. Feng shui consultants, some earning as much as $750 an hour, were recruited from Hong Kong and Taiwan to redesign entire buildings and, where necessary, install structures that could ward oft negative energy surreptitiously infiltrating a room or edifice.

Nowhere did feng shui gain a more dramatic foothold than in the entertainment industry. Showbiz proponents of feng shui enthusiastically proselytized for this mysterious innovation from the inscrutable Last, declaring that the reconfiguration of their work and living spaces was leading directly to a more productive psychic environment and resulting in better deals, better scripts, better performances, better movies, and in some cases, better marriages. By positioning a small fountain or an aquarium in the southeast corner of one's living room, it was said, one could generate sufficient positive energy to significantly enhance one's percentage of the gross in a low-budget action film with only one or two big names attached to the project. Conversely, by placing a small statue of the Three-Legged Toad God of Wealth near the medicine cabinet and making sure that the toilet seat was always down, it was possible to prevent positive ch'i from being flushed into the sewage system. By all indications, the advent of feng shui was making movie industry people smarter, more efficient and happier.

Then came Meet Joe Black, Sonic of the key figures involved in the making and distribution of this Brad Pin bomb were inhabiting pristine feng shui-ed offices and domiciles and had been energetically seeking to lead lives according to venerable principles established more than 4,000 years ago in the wilds of rural China. And yet the movie was a complete disaster. What went wrong? Who was to blame? Were feng shui consultants now unmasked as the proverbial emperors having no clothes?

In retrospect, it is apparent that the lifestyle-enhancing powers of feng shui were seriously oversold from the very beginning. By removing sharp angles from buildings, by positioning radiant mirrors and glistening pools of water in such a way that they would deflect negative energy, and by introducing bold, topographically adventurous elements into contemporary garden design, feng shui practitioners had been able to transform defective work and living spaces into spiritually cohesive sanctuaries in which it was possible for entertainment industry luminaries to work to the best of their abilities. But as anyone who has ever visited Los Angeles is well aware, an enormous amount of deal-making is transacted on car phones while executives and stars are navigating some of the worst traffic in North America. Until recently, most of those people were riding in vehicles that had the wrong colors, the wrong interiors, the wrong positioning of mirrors and, most calamitously, the wrong accessories. Worse than that, industry movers and shakers were driving to work without paying the slightest attention to the direction from which positive or negative ch'i was flowing into their Mercedeses, BMWs or Range Rovers during their lengthy commutes.

The time for feng che had arrived.

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