There are some things that seem more true than other things.

There are some things that seem more true than other things.  Ok, on the face of it, this is not a great start to this week’s blog.  There are some things that seem more true, more of the time, than other things.

They are the things that regardless of how dissimilar the situation is, it can be pulled out and fit into a conversation.  So for example, in ‘White Noise’, Murray is talking about the World’s Most Photographed Barn, and he’s talking really excitedly about how we can’t see the barn and even though they’re watching the photographers, they’re still part of it, they’re part of the aura.

Move to my perspective drawings of Sol LeWitt’s Five Open Geometric Structures, that left in the station point which is the position of the viewer looking at the object.  In my head I called it ‘in the aura.’  I’ve also used it to talk about Richard Wilson, the sculptor and third-wave feminism.

And have you ever watched The Lost Boys?  In the film, there’s a bit where the grandfather is talking about the getting the TV guide, and when it arrives he said the address label might be sticking up a little, at the corner, and you’re going to want to peel it off, but don’t. 

This works for the danger of over finishing artwork, cooking and spots.

I wrote the rest of this blog in March and saved it as a draft but again the subject of this came up last night (the Plato, not the e-reader) in a larger conversation about cultural imperialism.  So it makes it relevant for this week. 

It started with that experience when you see something and for some reason it sticks in your head.  It has a resonance and then you see one everywhere you go?  In my case, it was an anvil that was brought by Wil E  Coyote, from the acme company, to drop on road runner’s head, with comic repercussions.  

I was fifteen or so at the time so it doesn’t have much significance except that it was the first time I remember it.  The latest thing that has caught in my head is the e-book readers, which can store up to 15,000 books.  The largest merit of this, I have repeatedly been told, is that you can get Great Expectations at the click of a button.  (I’m leaving that pun in).

Leaving aside the pertinent questions of how the advertisers decided that Dickens was the author to use for tempting the masses.  I suspect there’s a mori poll out there where lots of people admit to knowing the titles of lots of novels by Dickens without having read any of them, that’s me – Great Expectations, Nicholas Nickleby, The Tale of Two Cities and that’s not googling, but so far I’ve read none of them, but as I said, leaving it aside, this is where I begin to make dark and foreboding predictions.

The elitist view: Books are going to go the way of the music album.  People will start to download the chapter they heard on Newsnight Review.  Attention spans will shorten as authors adapt making shorter and shorter books.  Poets will become more smug.

The conspiracy theory: The end of large piles of burning books … just press delete

The Luddite view: It just won’t be the same.  Charlotte took my Chandler for about four days and when she returned it the spine was broken, the front cover was folded in at least four places and I think the cover itself was thinner. 

And In this blog alone I’ve googled stuff at least five times.  I don’t even think about it and I’ve only had it for a third of my life and when did that become a verb?  Where does this instant access to information take us.  What happens to the kids born hooked on this? 

For if men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. 

Ok, the last bit was Plato’s view, and that I googled but if you return to the start, you’ll see I’ve used it since.