Simulacra and Simulations – Mon 5th Jan

Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc. This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized and religious revelling in real America, in its delights and drawbacks. You park outside, queue up inside, and are totally abandoned at the exit. In this imaginary world the only phantasmagoria is in the inherent warmth and affection of the crowd, and in that sufficiently excessive number of gadgets used there to specifically maintain the multitudinous affect. The contrast with the absolute solitude of the parking lot – a veritable concentration camp – is total. Or rather: inside, a whole range of gadgets magnetize the crowd into direct flows; outside, solitude is directed onto a single gadget: the automobile. By an extraordinary coincidence (one that undoubtedly belongs to the peculiar enchantment of this universe), this deep-frozen infantile world happens to have been conceived and realized by a man who is himself now cryogenized; Walt Disney, who awaits his resurrection at minus 180 degrees centigrade.

Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), p166

Green – Sun 4th Jan

Everyone’s heard of Santa and his little helpers, who work tirelessly throughout the year to make sure everyone has something to open on Christmas day (by the way, on that subject, everyone really does get something from Santa. The myth about naughty children going without is exactly that, a myth. Santa’s ways are far more subtle, if you’ve been bad he just makes sure you get something you can’t even get rid of on ebay). Anyway, so, we all know how Christmas is prepared for, but what about the aftermath? Well today I found out when I met one of the cleanup fairies pulping abandoned Christmas trees in the crescent round the corner from me. They do this job in secret, assuming no one is about because we are all at the January sales. Consequently he was a bit surprised when I walked over to him, but was reassured by my confession that I hadn’t got any film in the camera (well I haven’t, it’s digital). He let me watch him at his work for a bit and then we had a chat. Apparently all the wood-pulp is collected and flown by reindeer back to the north pole where, because Santas workshop now has injection moulding facilities, the pulp is turned into next years presents. Smart eh?

He also told me the equipment logo stands for: JENSEN – January Elf (North) Sanitising Everything back to Normal.

In future posts I will tell you more about the tooth fairy, the hangover fairy (she’s the one that comes in the night and carefully coats your tongue in off-white goo that tastes like the bottom of a parrot cage) and the office party photocopier fairy. However I will not be revealing anything about the Sandman as his case is still sub-judicae.

Ozymandias – Sat 3rd Jan

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

P. B. Shelley

The last of 2014 – Dec 31st

It was a bit of a rush taking yesterdays photos but I wanted to get something out to mark the end of the year. Almost too hung over to do a post today, but how could I not put out an image of the last sunset of 2014, or for that matter, half naked action men in what looks suspiciously like fetish-wear (only in Brighton) and by contrast, chairs dressed in party frocks for their big night out? Plus of course (and after several impassioned pleas following their absence in yesterdays St Ives special) the last stone of the day for the year that’s now gone.

So, 2014 is done. File away the bad bits like old bills and tax returns. Treasure the best and be sure you make room for more of the good stuff in 2015. Happy new year!

Different Shores – Christmas 2014

Allright I admit it. I was totally seduced by St Ives (where I’ve just spent Christmas) and have been a complete tourist there. Having said that, the project is about being a tourist, so here’s a Cornish contact sheet taken over the week.

Normal service will be resumed after new years day, but in the meantime, here’s a transcript of one of the conversations I had there, illustrating one of the pitfalls of travelling to somewhere with a very different kind of beach to the one you’re used to:

“Excuse me? The man in the cafe downstairs said it might be possible to use your toilet?”
“Are you Sandy?”
“Um no, my name is Chris. Did he phone up to let you know I was popping up?”
“Actually there’s a public toilet just up the road but as he said you could come up its fine but I wanted to know if you were Sandy?”
“Like I said, my name is Chris, maybe you got me confused with someone else? What’s your name?”
“I’m Margaret. It’s lovely to meet you but I’ve just done the floors see and you can’t come in if you’re sandy because I don’t want to have to do them all again.”
“No, no, I told you, my name is Chris and, oh, I see what you mean. No, really, I’m not sandy at all. Can I come in?”

12 tips for Christmas – Weds 17th Dec

With Christmas only a few days away now, I have been giving some thought to one of the pitfalls we can be presented with on the morning itself; that of the exchange of gifts. Sometimes the overwhelming joy of receiving these tokens of love can leave us, quite literally, speechless with delight, and this silence can be misinterpreted as a lack of enthusiasm. To help you avoid this happening I’ve prepared twelve useful phrases to memorise and use upon unwrapping your gifts:

  1. Gosh it must have taken you ages to find something like that!
  2. How original!
  3. You’re so clever!
  4. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it!
  5. What an unusual colour!
  6. Does it do something?
  7. How thoughtful, I had an identical one a few years ago but it fell apart after a couple of hours!
  8. Is this bit supposed to move?
  9. Is it part of a pair?
  10. I remember when these first came out!
  11. Oh darling you know I like these, I gave you one exactly like it last year!
  12. That’s lovely dear.

Finally, if you simply can’t find the right words, a prolonged glassy smile while gazing directly into the eyes of the giver usually works a treat.

Hopefully that should cover most gift-opening situations. If you do use any of the above, please let me know how you got on. I am always happy to receive messages of gratitude. And if you find anyone saying some of these things to you, just reply: ‘What a useful website Umbrellage is! It’s such a shame Chris is away now till 28th December’.

Good Luck!

Glossary – Tues 16th Dec

When I think of the word ‘pebble’ the words that come to mind are: shiny, smooth, polished, round, wet… But the word ‘stone’ conjures much more. In addition to the preceding, I might also think of: rough, lumpen, angular, pitted, sharp… and then there are also stones so important we have added names to them: hearth stone, lode-stone, philosophers stone, millstone, whet stone, altar stone, headstone… Some even have their own gods.

All pebbles are stones, not all stones are pebbles.

Finding treasure – Sun 14th Dec

Over the last few weeks I’ve been on the beach most days looking for interesting stones. I’ve found quite a few now, enough to realise that, to my surprise, I’ve come across all the best ones close to the path next to the beach, or around cafés. According to probability they should be spread pretty evenly across the shore, so this observation has given me pause for thought. There could be several reasons for this happening:

  1. I’m too lazy to go more than a few feet from the nearest cafe or pathway. Actually, that hypothesis is easily dismissed; I have looked all over the beach. Otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed the tendency. I merely note it to show i’ve considered the possibility.
  2. Small children, known for their creativity, openness and inquisitive nature find it impossible to resist collecting interesting examples on their visits to the seashore. However, later when it’s time to go home, their parents, dismayed at the piles of accumulated treasure being lugged up the beach would tell their offspring to leave them behind as they are ‘only stones’ or ‘oh darling we haven’t got room for any more of them’ or ‘what do you want those things for?’ This particular moment of parting would, most likely, happen near the path or, possibly, as a result of the tears caused by this particular separation trauma, near a café, directly as a result of having to console their tender charges with distractions of ice cream.
  3. Brighton is full of poets. Like children they are well known to have extraordinary powers of sensitivity and imagination, and would have no problem spotting these jewels. However everyone also knows that poets are easily distracted, tend to lose things and their pockets are always full of holes (which is why they never have any money). This would cause a higher concentration nearer any pathway. Furthermore, poets spend a lot of time in cafés.
  4. The above could also be true of Jazz musicians.
  5. The stones themselves really are magic. Over millions of years, the most powerful have evolved to be more attractive to humans and, during these same aeons, have slowly worked themselves up the beach to areas where people are more likely to pass by. In short, they want to be found.
  6. Every night, mermaids come out of the sea to look for interesting stones. However, because they have tails instead of legs they can only make it a few yards inland before having to return to the water. This means that the stones nearest the path escape their notice. It is also widely known that mermaids hate coffee – it isn’t salty enough for their liking.

I think this last reason is the most likely as it also explains the cuttlefish mystery (see entry for Mon 10th Nov) and why it is harder to find interesting stones after it’s been raining, or when there has been a high tide.