Wow – I haven’t felt this amazing in ages and I don’t know what it is – acutally I do:
1) New Douglas Coupland – its called The Gum Thie f and its amazing – he’s literally my favorite author, along with David Mitchell, with whom he shares a bunch of literary techniques that I don’t know the name of. Each chapter is from the perspective of a different character and there are books within the actual book with characters that reference other characters in the book – its kind of like the literary equivalent of being in a hurricane – somehow whilst you’re reading chapter 1, chapter 6 is floating upside your head and chapters 3 and 4 are round by your shoulder. My favorite thing is that rather than a normal linear story, they paint a picture, rather like those wack yoda posters that are made up of hundreds of screen grabs of yoda and star wars – they build one amazing story through loads of other stories that all reference and self reference – its so po mo it hurts. Anyway I’ve just finished it and I love it.
2) Went to a chat between Neil Boorman (Bonfire Of The Brands) and Lucy Seigle (ethical lifestyle writer for the Guardian etc) last night – sooo good – realised a couple of things:
a) always ask questions – I always have loads of questions when I go to talks or readings but get the fear when it comes to quesiton time – anyway I had a killer quesiton last night but kept bailing and what happened – it was as if I’d dropped a piece of paper on the floor and three people had grabbed it, taken a third and then asked what was written on their scrap. anyway I finally did ask a question and I vow from here on in to always ask questions.
b) Boorman is on a quest to attack and control the amount of advertising we are subjected to – I’m on his side however I feel that a huge part of the problem is this culture of credit and debt – my parents have never been in debt, if you couldn’t afford it you didn’t get it – simple as that – nowadays if you fancy those Kurt Geiger shoes (ugh) you just put it on your credit card and worry about it later. this not having to worry about stuff manifests itself in different ways and one was the way in which people leave the house in the morning with nothing and don’t worry – if it rains you can buy an umbrella, if you’re thirsty you can buy a bottle of water and if you’re hungry at lunch there’s always Pret or Eat or some fuckery. Chatting to Neil after the talk about this we realised that by preparing a bottle of water, sandwiches, a flask of tea / coffee and maybe some fruit could save you at least £10 a day, thats like £300 a month! I need a bigger bag.
c) and then there was this whole idea about consumerism and mass consumerism being a product or result of people’s apathy or loss of faith in politics as a medium for change. You can vote but what good does it do, where are the tangible benefits? Left is right and right is left etc and blah. I do however have the choice to change who I am or how I am perceived at least through consumption. This led to the idea that brands and big business are the new parties or governments and whilst the idea of ‘big business’ being in control is not a new thing it’s still a worrying thought. Or is it? I’ve been working at Mother and Baby magazine for the past week and its really interesting – most of the news that they report on is based on surveys, commissioned research and the like that has been paid for or carried out by brands such as Comfort, Oral B or Mothercare – the idea of comapnies being in charge of this sort of thing worries people but what if they actually care? Mothercare are conducting a survey at the moment to find the most ‘Family Friendly’ resturants and holiday resorts in the UK – this isn’t directly going to help them sell more toys or whatever but the results of the survey will obviously be massively useful and important to familys. What if public consensus or pursuasion forced companies to have a ‘caring’ policy – much the same as everyone is now addressing the green / carbon issue – I dunno, I’m still riffing on this one but I think there could be something in it.
Recent Comments