Unreliably Witnessed
August 2009
67 posts
Jackson death ruled as homicide →
news.bbc.co.uk
Here we go again. Hold tight for another spin on the celebrity death conspiracy merry-go-round - which could potentially be powered for years, even decades, by the adoring public’s inability to accept that famous and/or beautiful people die just like anyone else. Often in sad, lonely or grisly circumstances, just like anyone else.
We don’t make nearly such a fuss about drug-addled junkies dying in decaying council blocks, and claim that they were killed by the government, do we?
So for the record, Princess Diana died in a car crash. Her chauffeur-driven car was not run off the road by a maniacally laughing Prince Philip in a plot masterminded by MI5 and conceived in a bid to safeguard the future of the British monarchy against the ‘Queen of Hearts’ growing popularity.
Marilyn Monroe died from an overdose of barbiturates. She was not murdered by the CIA, the FBI (or indeed the MFI) because she knew secrets about the Kennedy clan.
And Michael Jackson? He was a screwed-up, paranoid, (allegedly) paedophile superstar who spent his time living in an unreal world, who was massively in debt and desperately trying to make a comeback when he could no longer cut it at performing, and who was clearly addicted to an entire pharmacy worth of prescription medication. It wasn’t murder. It wasn’t even manslaughter. It wasn’t anything else but a run of the mill death, largely brought about through his own foolishness.
Case closed. If only it was.
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“All that’s really lacking is a name for this new wave of writers who, in publishing their shopping lists, Gmail chats, chapbooks and poems about vegan food, come across as a literary extension of Vice magazine and have gained a small army of readers as a result. I’d be inclined to call it Generation Yawn on account of the dangerously high levels of ennui on display, Generation Zzz, Generation Tweet or perhaps more appropriately, Generation :(”
—
Ben Myers, writing in The Guardian, attempts to come up with a name for the writers and various po-faced twentysomethings in the circle of wannabes and hangers-on surrounding Tao Lin. I get the feeling that he’s not exactly a fan. Good.
Shopping lists, Gmail chats and poems about vegan food, eh? It’s hard to contain one’s excitement. Really, it is. Perhaps I should try publishing my shopping lists, just to see what reaction they get. They might make me into a cult sensation - or else people will just wonder why I buy so much cheese and Tesco own brand sugar-free caffeine drink.
Also, a small but nonetheless very important point: ‘ennui’ is merely a slightly more poetic (i.e. French) way of expressing boredom and lack of interest. Boring. Uninteresting. I think this is significant, don’t you?
I ‘look forward’ to more chapbooks about boredom. I ‘love’ boredom. ‘Please’ send me your chapbooks by express post. [Note: the Tao-esque quote marks are entirely necessary in this statement, because I really do mean to be ironic, unlike the examples such writers usually employ in their prose.]
“Don’t spend more than three days in the shower writing your novel. If you find you can’t write novels in the shower then don’t write them in the shower.”
—Krammer Abrahams: Writing Tip #4
"Like a monkey with a miniature cymbal" →
open.spotify.com
It is sunny. Ish. Hazy sun, at least. It is too warm. You should be in the park, getting skin cancer and feeding ducks. But you’re not. No, you’re in the office, tapping absentmindedly at your keyboard and having your brain numbed by overpowering air conditioning, while wondering where everyone else is. They’re on holiday, stupid. Because it’s summer. Nobody - nobody with any sense, at least - works in summer.
So what you need is a Spotify playlist of Late Summer Laziness I created. Just for you. And for you. And for you, too. But not for you, because you’re showing too much flesh.
“The people who engage in media ‘multitasking’ are those least able to do so well, according to researchers.”
—
Multitaskers bad at multitasking
That’s me shafted, then.
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