IDK

“ So there is no “what happened”? Not in any sense that we can grasp, with our puny minds. Because our minds… our minds get in the way. Looking at something changes it. They call it the “Uncertainty Principle”. Sure, it sounds screwy, but even Einstein says the guy’s on to something.”

Last weekend we watched three films, or more like two films and three quarters of Magnolia which left us both depressed and gloomy just as we were going into the 3rd hour and decided to quit it. The other two were The Time Traveller’s Wife (I know) and A Serious Man.

A Serious Man had intrigued me since the trailer and some posters and this weekend was the weekend.

Just so I don’t ruin the film completely, it’s a film about a man in 67-60’s America and his life falling apart in front of him without him even realising;

I’d take some time and watch it again, and here are a few reasons why, better than I could say them:

Throughout the film, [he] gets other clues that life and narrative are incompatible. He gets glimpses into the lives of his neighbours: a woman who sunbathes nude within a tiny cubicle of fence; a  crew-cut man who cuts his lawn over the property line and takes his son out of school to go hunting. We get no context for their actions – no back story, and no sense of narrative thrust – and yet we understand that they are not without meaning.

Life doesn’t work the way stories do. Biography is not narrative.

Because here’s what it boils down to: Stories end. Lives just stop.

Mere surmise, sir

I think this is where my dissertation starts to make some sense; our own narratives can’t be ours if we imagine ourselves in someone else’s picture.

It all goes back to when we were small (us girls) watching Disney cartoons about princes and princesses, till we grew up and realised that Disney ruined our lives by giving us unreal expectations of men. It was a tragic day but the moment you realise that narratives of others don’t help you make sense of your own life, and don’t fit into yours, you become somewhat more enlightened. It’s sad but sadness is the origin of consciousness. Burdened by the reality of an evil world and all that.

Miserable Gloss

The tabloid magazine is a slightly glossier extension of the tabloid newpaper; technically the same stuff governed by the same miserable rules that govern news reports in this country. “A source that wishes to remain anonymous“. The bottom line is it’s all garbage. Garbage in, garbage out and it’s only the really stupid believe this stuff & take it seriously. Normal, well-adjusted individuals don’t want to read trash about other people’s lives but there’s no shame or tragedy in reading celeb mags to stay sane. I read the superficial and while I don’t care for most of the characters & their sad lives, the satire makes it worth it. In a world that always wants to keep up with the Joneses, reading trash about celebrities has sparked two sort of theories:

• trash about others makes you feel good about yourself; your life is fine compared to theirs so we can point and laugh at others
• trash about others makes you feel bad about yourself; they may be unhappy but they’re rich, beautiful and unhappy and always seem to bounce back, which you can’t;

To me it’s mostly trash because:

a) the headlines are on a sort of cycle; Week 1 Angelina Jolie, Week 2 Jordan did something, Week 3 Cheryl Cole, Week 4 Angelina Jolie again or maybe Victoria Beckham; seasoned and spiced with some Kerry Katona and others of local interest; if you bother to check them in any WHSmith Travel or queuing in M&S, that is;

b) the rumours are always the same, on that particular schedule. All of the above celebrities might be splitting or have some dietary disorder; Angelina and Victoria are too thin, Jordan and Katona are too fat;

c) because they’ve all been splitting for a year now;

d) unless your tabloid magazines are your bible, life outside them carries on. Yet everyone reads them thoroughly and with an avid interest;

 

I dearly hope that the internet evolves; I do hope that it will be given credibility where and when it’s due. I hope it might teach people that there are consequences for saying things you have no proof for; I hope that I will live to kill one of these concepts and make sure it dies a slow, painful death. Did you know that female serial killers choose poisoning over stabbing their victims?

Good Times

I may be writing my dissertation and panicking about job issues and other things at the moment. Life may not be all roses and peaches but I’m going through some really good times and part of the things that I’ve learnt over Christmas are that I need to be less moody and doing your own thing helps most of the time.

Seeing someone who’s not in the same town is hard sometimes – getting on a train is annoying. Spending two hours sitting still if you’re me (not tired) is even worse. But there’s always a possibility of doing something good; like some donuts after a long Friday at work. Which may get you fat but no one can say no to a sugar rush. And £5 is a small price to pay for a couple of nice donuts each, a sit down and a cup of tea. As they say, life is complicated. Sport is simple. Being good is just as simple, it takes a bit of a stretch of your imagination sometimes.

“Nous sommes pas de poney qui mangent des arc-en-ciels et fait caca papillon.”

 

The Great Divide – Make-up

Thoughts on these boring girly things have been adding up in my notebook for a while now. I don’t think I’ve reached an actual conclusion but more like a semi-conclusion from what I do and what I gather other girls do. 

First off, let’s agree to disagree if you want: clothing is like make-up; if it covers something, you’re cheating.

There are men who like ‘the natural look’ – they often end up with the women who feel naked without their foundation; 

There are men who want the fake and revel in it: they suggest and sometimes even pay for boob jobs and other surgery; the woman is a strange creature. It extends into an analogy with domestic abuse; the man asking you to change who you are can’t be all that bad. The moment you fell in love with him, you out-rule the possibility of any dark or obscure sides to him. If I get hurt once, it can’t be that I fell in love with a violent person, can it? The ball is now in the ‘victim’s’ court. Was I the one who triggered this reaction? Shouldn’t I be the one changing something about myself? And if I do, will that prove to him that I’m loyal? It sounds as familiar as “If I get my nose/bum/boobs/lips done, won’t he stay with me? Will he love me more?”

And then there are all the other men, the ones who get annoyed when you’re late 15 minutes, who don’t know why you have to powder your nose, the men who smell and try every product in your bathroom cabinet when you’re not looking. The ‘me, I don’t get this nonsense’ ones and the cautious curious types who all end up sniffing and snooping but would never tell you. And that’s fine. In our world of make-up and perfumes, women do what they want and boys do what they can (get away with). 

Fashion has nothing to do with style, nor does make-up. You can’t be fashionable and stylish at the same time because fashion is always about invention or reinvention while style is about innovation. The art of the trench is not fashionable, it’s stylish. The understatement is not fashion, it’s style. 

They both work under the same principle: the exclusive, members-only club. 

• The good spas and bars work by recommendation from members only. 
• There is no worse feeling in the world than knowing you’re not in on the good stuff. When you’re 14 and you can’t sign up to Facebook because you have to be older. When your train is packed, you feel envious of first class. 
• The good products are not cheap and/or they are not mass market either; the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. “Cheap and cheerful” is the excuse we make for trying to deflect the sadness felt at not being ‘eligible’ for the ‘other’ group: a more expensive mascara, a Rimmel lipstick, not a YSL one, a more expensive cream, a salon product. With advertising make-up, the best thing about it is that no one wants to be a satisficer, even if they’re with that guy who doesn’t like make-up. The lights in shops come from 12 o’clock because they’re the least flattering and bring out the dark circles, pores and make us buy more things- such is life;
• The moment you look for your products outside the drugstore you know what’s hype and what’s a real deal. You only have to try a L’Oreal nail polish against a China Glaze* once to tell the difference. The latter doesn’t shout, but then again it doesn’t need to. The real deals sell out. And again, you have to know when the real deal is on and be in on it. The most desired perfumes, cars, colours are the discontinued ones. Vintage Chanel is worth more than today’s Chanel. Women live in a world of cues that works just like class principles do; if you have to shop for your Chanel today instead of having inherited it, that says something. If you buy your furniture rather than inherit it, that also says something. 

I suppose most of my thoughts lead to luxury products; but then again for me understanding one means understanding the other one too. After all, weren’t we all led to believe that beauty is the promise of happiness?

There are other thoughts but I haven’t found the easy way to think about them, let alone say them. And it will all be easy then.

*random examples

It’s Dissertation Write-up Time

(dennisdorance.com)

I’d rather think about what dress and shoes I will wear to my graduation ceremony;

I’d rather think about dress and shoes for graduation prom; 

I’d rather think about my imagined holiday afterwards; it’s a goal now so I have to do it! Of course, I will not be thinking about where and for whom I’ll be working, but whether anyone keeps a tab on cocktails;

I’m thinking about an entire day at the scarlet

I wonder if you can get food poisoning from Pot Noodle (I’ve never had any in my life);

I’m dreaming about that haircut, which is something that hasn’t been invented yet but is totally not what I have right now;

I pretend I need the loo when we have a lecture with someone who calls himself a social media expert or guru or evangelist;

My make-up brushes require more thought than the ontology section;

I’d rather think about what my stance is in the Chanel vs. Hermes discussion.

 

If by the 19th March I am still alive, I’ll explain how I’ve managed to stitch together a dissertation on ghd and transmedia storytelling as I might not believe it myself!

Walking the Walk

 

“Umm…can I have a Coke?”

“Is Pepsi ok?”

“I dunno…is monopoly money ok?”

 

 

Resolutions, Take 2

via flickr.com

I haven’t had any New Year’s Resolutions but this is mostly my own fault; I tend to have day or week or month resolutions; coming up with a bunch of them on New Year I’d need a chart to remind me of them.
And I’m terrible with remembering the things I have to – very good at remembering useless things.

I didn’t have any last year but I set myself 6 because they’re easy to achieve, they’re not 5 which sounds limiting and not 10 which means too many. Seven would be one for every day of the week or something while 6 means I could try one every two months. Give or take anything else on the way.

In no particular order:

• Tick off: Nikon D90/27″ iMac/Car – if I manage two, I’ll celebrate with cake

Get a job: Me and everyone else. I like the 9 to 5 grind. True love is handbag shaped – otherwise why do we all work so hard? Actually, my first grown-up handbag will have to wait as I still plan on donating £200 from my first salary to Cancer Research UK/Macmillan as cancer has made me sad twice in 3 years and while it might not make others happy, it could help for a little while.

Travel after my graduation ceremony: I don’t care where I’m going, I just want to be gone for a week. Not to Portoroz. And not to Cannes either.

Handle a bird of prey: I’d have liked to be able to say the whole hunting experience but I doubt I can get myself to kill anything; however I think I’d very much like to see these birds in action considering I grew up not knowing what a fox looks like in real life (or a Yorkshire pudding till I was 20)

Go away one weekend on a complete whim: Because we keep saying that ‘we’ll do something interesting one weekend’ and lie in instead. One day…one day!

Volunteer for a charity: Because I don’t know what I can do, but the least I can do is paint a fence. Or learn. And someone might need that, somewhere.

That’s about all I can think of now. I had slightly different ones at first but on further reflection they sounded a bit unrealistic – this is more like it!

Evil, Evil Plastic

Straight from Manchester UK we are trialling new I.D. Cards with fingerprint recognition and all that crazy stuff that’s making everyone go nuts over the money spent, the surveillance, putting their data into government hands and so on. In theory I’m eligible for one but there is one very small reason why I’ll never want a British Passport or I.D. unless my travel visa depended on it or someone coerced me into buying it: it’s an overpriced document (£80 or £30 for plastic) with no real use anywhere outside the country. Or in the country..sometimes. The passport maybe, the I.D. not at all – just because a handful of people saw one in Manchester doesn’t mean anyone else in Europe has any idea what it looks like. First day I used my own ID card to travel I was stopped for 20 minutes at MAN airport because it was an alien piece of plastic no one thought was real. Where do you hail from, creature? They use plastic? (This was about a year ago as I usually travel with a passport) If you’re looking for cheap thrills and airport staff asking you to ‘walk this way’ or go with them ‘for a second’ then you can, of course, travel with a UK ID card. 

by maz dot nu

On the other hand, my main gripe is that the radio/Spotify adverts are shockingly bad for C.O.I. as it sounds like the bottom line of their brief was to tell people they can have a swiss army knife of a document that’s cheap and lasts you 10 years. The very clever insight must have been that people would be afraid of spending £30 if it didn’t last that long. It’s a hard comms challenge to introduce another official document and get people at least interested if not excited but a lot of money seems to be going in the wrong direction. 

If you did start a whole ID scheme, the best thing thought you could have all day would be to realise that people only think of their travel documents when it’s too late, both before and after travel: many people don’t know that you can’t travel if you’re in your last 6 months of validity and even less think that it takes (really) up to 5 months to get a new passport, depending on when you call. When I called for mine, they let me know about ‘6 because they’re really, really busy’ and that you can’t make travel arrangements as they hold all your other documents.

If I had no passport and you told me my ID would be ready in 24 hours, then owning an ID card is totally different to using one. That’s rather dirty, but you’d have one for 10 years. Engaging with it is another story, for some other time. But as for now..don’t you all scream at once for your new document.

 

(Then the other end of the stick: when you lose your passport. If I had an ID card actually worth anything outside travelling with it or proving I’m old, I wouldn’t worry about identity fraud knowing no one else has my fingerprint (even though you could go to great lengths to recreate it). It would be a solid document. Right now though no one else is ID-ing you with fingerprints so losing it wouldn’t make me feel any safer. It doesn’t let me queue jump at the airport, does it?)

Non-user Friendly

When I said that I keep noticing all these small things in the world, I didn’t mean just ibuprofen packaging and the fact that they’re actually a clever piece of design – as far as medicine tablets go. They may not be Help (I Need Help) packs but they are doing it for what it’s worth. 

So my second thing on the list of things that make others look are benches. Benches are probably among the few items on this planet intended not to be user friendly. Benches are evil; they’re certainly not there to help you.

Benches are nice because they help you sit down when you’d rather stand – correct.

Benches aren’t nice because they don’t help you sit down comfortably when you’d rather not stand up straight;

One nasty, uncomfortable bench says one thing; no bench at all says another:

This is in Paris mid day in Spring; the tube has just passed but the 2 small benches are the only ones you will see. There will be no sitting down.

And then the Louvre itself:

Not a bench in sight. “You didn’t come to the Louvre to sit down now, did you? What would it be like if everyone sat down?”

Back to Manchester at Langley Road, close to Fallowfield where on busy days at least 200 students wait in the same bus stop: two stops totalling about 10 seats, narrow and yellow, about 50×20cm with dividers in between. You could barely sit down although you do wait a lot sometimes. 

• Whenever you start noticing benches and waiting rooms, they are meant to tell you two things:
• We don’t have any because here you don’t have to wait (we are fast);

Be happy there is a bench when there can be none;

And last but not least, the most ignored reason of them all to account for all these uncomfortable items from hell, every city council on this planet is making them as unfriendly as possible. The moment they do, the homeless have found a new bed to sleep on. 

The Elusive iPad or Just Another Thought

The Internet seems to be full of opinions for and against this new tablet that everyone hoped would be anything but its actual name. I’m not here to talk about them or something I’ve never tried, but of something else that’s had me thinking.

People have been talking and speculating about (tick any)

• It’s a bigger iPod/iPhone;
• It will kill books/it will kill magazines/it will kill the Kindle;
• It will kill the notebook/it will kill the desktop PC;
• It will be really expensive;
• It doesn’t have a camera/it doesn’t have Flash/it doesn’t multitask;
• It’s a natural evolution from the iPhone that will make people bow at the altar of Apple;
• Not even Apple know what it’s for, in fact they don’t care. They invented the iPhone..have you heard of it? (v. Fake Steve Jobs)
• It’s an Orwellian device from hell that Apple controls, you can’t tinker with and all you get are their clean & safe apps;
• It will revolutionise content…publishing..everything!

Bla bla bla bla…if you were bothered to follow all these thoughts you’re already really sick of them. 

“If you leave features in your application just because half a dozen people actually use them, you’ll end up with Microsoft Word.”

I don’t have any thoughts on a thing I haven’t even seen, but I remember someone talk about user experience design who mentioned that quote above.I even heard people say that in the olden days, they would take Windows apart to bits, rebuild it, edit it the way they wanted it and you can’t do the same with Apple things and it will end this hacking era that has been part of the last decade. We’ll all just get one device to “use” and that’s it, no one will ever be the same. 

Which is where I beg to differ;

Because I heard this ‘we won’t have any choice’ thing before. For all I care, I didn’t have any choice in school either when someone decided that we’d have windows installed on all our computers. When you go to work, you don’t decide if you’re going to work on a Mac or on a PC, someone else does it for you and you don’t have a say. If you do, tough life for you! I don’t ever recall any moment in my life when someone who was buying something for me to use in an academic or office environment asked. A sort of ‘if you don’t like the food, you’re not getting anything else’ and you get on with it. 

Now that we can choose, it seems to be a big problem for everyone. Deep down inside, people never really thought there was choice because Windows gave them so much stuff, they didn’t know what to do with it, therefore they didn’t know how they’d cope without this ’stuff’ either. “A smaller screen? For twice the price? Just because it says Apple on it? And it doesn’t do X/Y/Z that Windows does?”. 

Now that there’s choice, it scares everyone. And I think it’s good to be a bit scared of how things will look as everyone is analysing new technology through their own lens rather than the collective one. How does this help me? It’s scary that something might not help me, but someone else. 

Of course, there’s always the swagger to it as well, making it twice as scary for others.

(For what it’s worth, on a side note, I’d be happy if Flash died a horrible, slow death considering every computer I had would go into overdrive when playing a stupid video although it probably will linger on for as long as IE6 does, 1024×768 does and all the other evils like “page fold“)