After making a name for himself as a writer, filmmaker, actor, visual artist, fashion model and camp counselor, John Waters has taken on a new role: fortune teller.
Waters is telling fortunes on the second level of Nordstrom’s flagship department store at 225 West 57th Street in Manhattan. That’s where he stars as Pigeonthia, a fortune-telling pigeon who greets shoppers at the top of the escalator, near the women’s shoes department.
The ultimate multi-tasker, Waters hasn’t abandoned his other lines of work, and he isn’t sitting in the store all day gazing demurely into a crystal ball. He provides the voice of the giant department store bird, as shoppers line up and press a button in an oversized egg to learn what’s in the future.
“I am Pigeonthia, the Pigeon Oracle of 57th Street,” Waters says in a booming voice. “What kind of year will you have? Press the egg and find out.“
Once the egg is pressed, Waters’ pigeon reveals an answer: “Kindness. Well, isn’t that nice? Take your little token and have fun being a kind, kind soul all year. Sounds like a lobotomy to me.”
Another fortune: ”Prudence. Prudey, prude, prude, prudey, prudence. Rolls off the tongue like a mouthful of p-p-p-p-pennies.”
Or Courage: “To be frank I find the quality overrated,” he says. “But maybe you’ll have a good time with it.”
Other fortunes include Glamour, Chaos and Friendship. If a shopper balks at interacting, Waters ‘eggs’ them on:
“Press the egg. Don’t be shy,” he insists. “It’s not like it’s part of my reproductive process or anything.”
After each fortune-reading, shoppers receive a coin-sized token with a pigeon on it. Waters-as-Pigeonthia tells the shoppers to take their tokens to his friend The Wonder Ring on the fifth floor for a souvenir. “She’s a little obsessed with herself, but she’ll get you sorted real nice.”
Pigeonthia is one of the inflatable characters in “Wonder All The Way,” an ‘immersive experience’ that Nordstrom created to draw shoppers to its New York flagship during the holidays.
The cartoon-like figures have been placed throughout the store in a pop-up installation the retailer calls “The Blizz on 57th Street.” They seem to be a cross between the blow-up decorations that people put on their lawns, the willowy stick figures found outside car dealerships, the Pillsbury Doughboy and miniature versions of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters.” They’re covered with a shiny Mylar material that compresses like a pillow when shoppers touch them, but doesn’t pop like a balloon.
To bring the figures to life for shoppers, Nordstrom brought in two well-known celebrities who provided their voices. In addition to Waters, who’s known for his movies, books and rapid-fire spoken-word shows, they enlisted Fran Drescher, the actress well known for playing Fran Fine in the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny,” which she co-created and executive produced, and for her off-screen role as president of the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA).
Besides the fortune-telling pigeon, Waters portrays Fritz the Friendly Pretzel, a big softy who stays away from salt and pays compliments to everyone who walks by, and Drizzle the Anxious Umbrella, a grouch who complains to anyone who will listen. Drescher plays Carla the Carrot, who’s preparing for her first acting gig as a snowman’s nose; Fifi the Foulard, a forgotten scarf who doesn’t remember anything, and The Wonder Ring, a lost engagement ring that presides over a section of the store where shoppers can get a souvenir.
In some cases, the two celebrities are paired. Dimmy (Waters) and Quasar (Drescher) are sleepy stars who just want to chill. Rose (Waters) and Ruby and Violet (Drescher) are chatty lipsticks who hang out and gossip by the makeup counter. Connor (Waters) and Connie (Drescher) are humble department store traffic cones worried that someone might slip or step in the wrong place. Smolder (Waters) and Schmutzy (Drescher) are New York smokestacks out on the sidewalk.
Though Waters and Drescher are never seen, their distinctive voices can be heard throughout the store, running on loops that shoppers can hear as they pass the figures.
“They talk to you when you walk by,” Waters said, explaining that he and Drescher read from scripts provided by the Nordstrom team.
Essentially, “it’s voiceover work,” he said. “I do that all the time. It’s Fran and myself. We did it separately.”
Nordstrom’s campaign is a twist on the traditional way department stores attract shoppers for the holidays – decorating their street-level display windows. In Nordstrom’s case, the inflatable characters are visible not only outside the building but inside as well. Though they debuted just before Thanksgiving and stayed up past Christmas, they aren’t tied to any particular holiday. If anything, their biggest connection is to New York City – a pretzel to evoke the ones street vendors sell, an umbrella that pops up on rainy days, pigeons everywhere. Casting Waters and Drescher was a key to the campaign because their voices draw attention to inanimate objects that shoppers might otherwise overlook.
Most of the figures are on the first level, with the smokestacks and Mr. Blizz at the entrance and Drizzle the umbrella, the lipstick trio and Carla the Carrot inside. The sleepy stars and prescient pigeon are on the second level. The department store cones are on the third level, the scarf and another star are on the fourth floor, and the pretzel and Wonder Ring are on level five. The voices come from speakers located near each figure. Nordstrom doesn’t seem to have motion detectors; the figures keep talking whether anyone is walking by or not. It can take an hour or more to see them all.
Waters’ pigeon is the star of the show. He’s bigger, shinier and more elaborate than the other inflatables, and flanked by two other pigeons. Shoppers can’t walk up to the head pigeon by themselves. He’s behind movie theater-type stanchions with a retractable belt that separates him from the rest of the sales floor, and he’s accompanied by a store employee who wears a sort of usher uniform and stands guard nearby.
The attendant opens the retractable belt and leads shoppers to a point where they can push the egg and hear their fortunes. Afterwards, he gives them a token that they can take to the store’s fifth floor. That’s where they encounter Drescher’s Wonder Ring and insert the token into one of six gumball-style coin machines to get a souvenir – a ring with a pigeon on it, color-coded to remind them of their fortunes.
Part of the fun is hearing what Waters and Drescher say and how they say it. Each character is fleshed out with its own backstory and personality, which comes through in the dialogue. The actors’ voices convey the characters’ different moods and attitudes, even if shoppers don’t listen to the whole loop. The scripts take advantage of Waters’ and Drescher’s sense of humor.
Waters’ pigeon can be snarky and a bit confrontational in the way he reads his fortunes. He’s the wisecracker of the bunch – not unlike the way Waters is during his spoken-word shows.
“Chaos is my favorite” fortune, he tells shoppers. “Have you ever met a neat and orderly sooth-saying pigeon? Never mind, you hectic little shamble. Go poop on someone’s head!”
The tubes of lipstick are catty, critiquing shoppers who walk by.
“Look at her over there,” says Waters as Rose the Lipstick. “That shade doesn’t suit her at all.”
“That’s the Hindenburg of shades,” agrees Drescher as Ruby the Lipstick. “Some people just don’t understand real panache like we do.”
Drizzle the Umbrella is a sad-sack hypochondriac.
“I think I’m coming down with something. Can you touch my forehead?” he asks. “My doctor says I was born with weak ribs and that I should stay out of the wind and, ironically, even the rain.”
Do you have any hand sanitizer? Drizzle asks shoppers. “I don’t bump handles with strangers with all these super-bugs going around.”
Carla the Carrot is full of pep.
“Bring it on world, things are coming up Carla!” she says. “Woo-hoo, let’s go! Carla, Carla!”
Drescher’s lost scarf is utterly confused.
“Where am I?” she asks. “Have you seen my owner?”
She can’t remember if her owner is a man or a woman, tall or short. “They definitely have a neck, that I know.”
The department store has added a scavenger hunt aspect to the campaign. It printed treasure maps that show where all the figures are in the store, and shoppers are invited to follow the map to find them all. If they locate every one, they can win a prize.
It’s all a not-so-subtle way to get customers to spend more time in the store and visit every floor. It doesn’t always work. Some shoppers are oblivious to the figures and walk right past them. Others seem startled when they hear the voices. Still others take selfies with the pigeons and chat with the attendant.
Nordstrom’s campaign was conceived by a collective led by Thom Bettridge, editor-in-chief of i-D Magazine; Matthew Mazzuca, former creative director of Barney’s New York; illustrator and animator Anthony Ferrara; artist and production designer Desi Santigo; and Gian Gisiger, the longtime graphic designer behind Balenciaga. They were brought together by Justinian Kfoury of Total Management. Olivia Kim is Nordstrom’s Senior Vice President of Creative Merchandising.
‘Wonder All The Way’ is one of two campaigns that Waters participated in for big-name retailers this winter. The other was ‘As Time Goes By,’ a series of short films for the Paris fashion house Saint Laurent. In that project, Waters was one of several celebrities who appeared in short films inspired by Marcel Proust’s seven-volume novel, “In Search of Lost Time,” also known as “Remembrance of Things Past.” Other participants include Charlotte Gainsbourg; Chloe Sevigny; Addison Rae; Joey King; Travis Bennett; and Cooper Koch, who played one of the Menendez brothers in Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series. Their short films can be seen on Saint Laurent’s website and on social media – Proust for the TikTok era.
Waters, 78, credits his voiceover work to his childhood days as a puppeteer, when he performed up to three shows a week during birthday parties and other occasions, for $25 per show. That experience “made me able to do voiceover work for cartoons and stuff because I had to do all the voices of the puppets,” he said. “I had 50 voices for the puppets when I was a kid.”
Nordstrom’s “Blizz on 57th Street” campaign runs through Jan. 5.
