Claire L. Evans examines the classic Seinfeld episode “The Parking Garage” as a “specifically Ballardian nightmare: the pornography of infinity, somehow contained within a New Jersey mall.”
Like the Unidentified Space Station (in this JG Ballard short story), which conceals, from the outside, its magnificent vastness, The Parking Garage becomes its own world, a replacement—literally, since they broke the apartment set down to build the mirror-garage—for the comfortable parameters of Jerry Seinfeld’s ordinary world. It seems to have its own mores; Elaine, desperately seeking a stranger to drive them around the lot and help find the car, only comes into contact with indifference and aggression. No one will help, because on some level no one here is real.
“The Parking Garage” (Thanks, Chris Arkenberg!)