The Ad Council and the US Forest Service evidently could not find a single charismatic native species with which to advertize the Southern Appalachians forests, so they imported Belgian cartoon characters and released them into the woods near Chattanooga. They photographed the results of this reckless transplant and, for the edification of us all, hoisted their snapshots onto a billboard. Walking in the strip mall, we cast our eyes to the heavens and are exhorted to get out and see some Nature-Sony. (The woods are now co-branded with Sony pictures, where movie ads are PSAs.)

Without a hefty dose of smurfshrooms, people are gonna be disappointed. Thankfully, anti-semitic, misogynistic, blue commune-dwellers are rare creatures in the forest.

But asinine illusions scrawled on billboards? Ah, there’s an American species that our institutions can get behind.

A sound: Ed Abbey snorts from his grave.

A dream: vultures on the billboard; a stucco of guano.