"Those Who Lack Imagination Cannot Imagine What is Lacking."

Ideas improve. The meaning of words plays a role in that improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress depends on it. It sticks close to an author’s phrasing, exploits his expressions, deletes a false idea, replaces it with the right one. (GUY DEBORD)

In Situation (1)

by Didier Feldmann

 (VIMEO: http://vimeo.com/9820325 )



May 1968 Graffiti (http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/graffiti.htm)

Commute, work, commute, sleep...

It we only had enough time...

Live in the moment

The prospect of finding pleasure tomorrow will never compensate for today's boredom

Poetry is in the streets

Under the paving stones, the beach

Concrete breeds apathy

Coming soon to this location: charming ruins

The future will only contain what we put into it now



The Marital Contract

Bank holiday Friday – the 29^th April.

A beautiful day, London’s suburban streets were DEAD! Having just finished an essay on Night-walking, it was intriguing to find myself in such a situation mid-morning. A labyrinthine walk from Tooting Common to Northcote Road took me through some deserted, decorated walkways which embraced an odd air of eeriness and celebration. I was solitary and rarely came across another soul from one Victorian-housed street to the next. A cloned tremor blared from every building – a beautiful angelic chime of choir cherubs – nicely muffled by the windows. I could hear my footsteps, the water rushing under the roads, the enchanting bells of Westminster Abbey, authentically ringing out of television sets. I reached a point of wistful spiritual bliss, my serenity only occasionally mown down by the odd motor vehicle.



‘The category of sex is the product of a heterosexual society in which men appropriate themselves the reproduction and production of women and also their physical persons by means of a contract called the marital contract. Compare this contract with the contract that binds a worker to his employer.’ (Monique Wittig – The Category of Sex)



The Vortex - An Afterword

The Vortex (Written on 30th October 2010)


'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked. 'Oh you can't help that' said the cat. 'We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.' 'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice. 'You must be,' said the cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.' (Lewis Carroll)


I once joined an online group for people who were studying for a Masters degree – people claiming they used to be completely sane individuals before beginning their postgraduate studies. I hadn’t yet applied for any postgraduate courses at that time, though I had every intention of doing so and held somewhat romantic views on madness. Two years later, I finally commence! I enter the vortex of floating cells that are beyond the reach of comprehension. I find myself gathering molecules and putting them in a basket, where they slowly gel and merge into facets of recognition.


According to Pierre Bourdieu, it all comes down to a matter of taste (or rather the perception of taste). Those who grow up exposed to the right names and appropriate interpretations are destined to possess high taste, purity of judgement, and less primitive desires. The rest of us are sensual, vulgar, and unable to defer pleasure. I can therefore put my initial lack of recognition down to my pleasure-seeking vulgarity. It was interesting to hear, however, that economic success is not synonymous with cultural success. One needs only to visit Monaco to make the point more blatant.


After the painful teething period of a few weeks, the cells are producing knowledge, if yet beyond my ability to verbally articulate. I realise my privilege at having seminars in Virginia Woolf’s Bloomsbury home, at being reinstated into the coffee shop environment while perusing texts, at sitting in the Senate House Library among the antique furniture, the gothic-like howling winds while reading texts about cyborgs being plugged into microwave cuisine. I enjoy being reacquainted with parody and paradox.


The whole idea of continuing with studies was to enter academia permanently. I’m no longer sure whether this will take the form of PhD’s and Doctor status (I may have to remain ms). It could equally lead to the title of critic or editor, or freelance writer. Somehow it has to involve sitting in the ivory tower – pensive, playing parody style, putting words to paper. Academics reside in the ivory tower too, of course (and I’m not yet sure which office I’ll be assigned). They simply have better taste.


I have an upcoming deadline. It is the perfect opportunity to play, since it carries no weight. The question is which topic to focus on? Gender parody, cyber feminism, or the carnivalesque? They are all linked to each other in one vital way – the lunar meltdown of a nice, safe, restricting reality.


The carnivalesque can be observed in the cramped staff room of my day job. As I sit trying to make the passive tense interesting with activities from “Taboos and Issues,” a teacher enters the stage: ‘Does anyone know of a good novel to recommend to a pre-intermediate student?’ ‘The Kama Sutra!’ Visuals are always helpful. We are just a few seedy songs short of a Moulin Rouge. The owner of this delightful scene lives in Monaco. She reaches into the pocket of her fur coat and throws us a few peanuts once in a while.


Never has the madness of my existence been so coherent with the chaos of my mind. Perhaps a quote by Sylvia Plath is a suitably resonant way to summarise: ‘Perhaps someday I’ll crawl back home, beaten, defeated. But not as long as I can make stories out of my heartbreak, beauty out of sorrow.’


An Afterword (Written on 13th February 2011)

Written four months ago, The Vortex is an emblematic follow-up to the previous entry on the London newcomer. From meeting an unpleasantly surreal woman in the confusing maze of Liverpool Street station to finding myself too large for an interview wardrobe, my early experiences of London had left me in a stomach-wrenching descent down the rabbit hole. When I landed in the classroom, I needed to drink the liquid of academia to reach the key that would unlock the basket cupboard. I then started to gather those cells of academic lingo. Some have all their eggs in one basket and share their wisdom willingly; others proceed with indecision whilst gazing at signs that seem to point in all directions. I am the latter.

Finally, the carnivalesque job in the school was the result of that surprise test in the wardrobe. As a reward for sweating out a reasonable lesson plan, classifying a list of words, phonetically transcribing another list of words, and discussing interesting points of British culture, I was offered a class for three hours every morning. We must remember, however, that cultural success of not synonymous with economic success and this is the perfect example. People who work at this school all have Bachelor degrees, and several have a Masters degree. Yet the salary for teaching a three hour session is just, on average, £28. And that is NOT per hour. Neither does it include planning, administration time, test making time, marking time. One could argue that this is almost illegal, if you consider the national minimum wage important. Still, the owner lives in Monaco, and although she is living a tax-free existence, we mere plebs should not begrudge the woman her growing bank account whilst we calculate our budgets in an increasingly expensive circus with tired working eyes.

Jusdicia et al

These pictures tell a story...Taking inspiration from the film maker Alexander Kluge, I ask you to make your own interpretation. Feel free to leave a comment with your story:

The Selfish Giant

'"My own garden is my own garden," said the giant; "any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself." So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice board. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.  He was a very selfish giant.' (Oscar Wilde)

The Giant Tax Evaders

I’m Sorry for Any Inconvenience Caused

As I was saying my goodbyes to my good friend at the coach station, I said to him, upon joining the hoard, ‘now it’s time to go to the dog-eat-dog city.’ It didn’t exactly get off to a good start. On a strangely warm September day National Express had hired a coach from another company. There were no windows, the air conditioning didn’t work, but strangely enough, the heating was on full blast.  The full coach heard the usual British non-genuine, robotic repetition: ‘I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused,’ before continuing in the same blasé manner, ‘I know the coach is overheated, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll get you to London as soon as I can.’ So, if the traffic allows, passengers may not reach severe dehydration or people passing out as it could, in essence, take only three hours. Three hours of closed in, high level heating on a sunny day. Luckily, people did a non-British thing – they kicked up a fuss. We parked at the side of a motorway and waited for another coach when, miraculously, after a short phone call and the flick of a switch, the air conditioning started working. ‘I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused, but we will now be behind schedule.’

Perhaps if the coach had only air conditioning in the bleak depths of grey winter, passengers new to London would have been better acclimatised to the reception that would await them. We won’t look too closely at transport services at this point, but rather the experiences of new beginnings; those gruelling first few weeks, months, or sometimes years of life in London.

What makes London particularly tough for the newcomer? Aside from the great vastness and sensory bludgeoning of any large city, London’s prices are particularly high with average ‘working’ salaries failing to compare. Two immediate challenges facing the poundless beginner are finding affordable accommodation and securing a job. With increasing cuts, fewer jobs, and minimum wage at just £5.93 per hour (albeit with a few meagre pennies extra in London Weighting Allowance), alongside rising prices and crippling transport expenses, London reveals itself as a greedy, stressful, survival dystopia.

Still, with a good honours degree and international work experience, I arrived at Victoria coach station with optimistic hope. I was about to embark on what I saw as an exciting Masters degree, I had managed to find a room and had a couple of interviews on the horizon. I had saved up for two years to pay my fees, a deposit on a room, and one month’s worth of rent, basic food and travel costs. I now had several weeks to concentrate on job hunting.

My first interview was with a language school. Only hours after my National Express experience, I was taken to what can only be described as a wardrobe. The Director of Studies then asked me a few quick questions before enquiring whether she had emailed me the interview test paper. No! To my surprise, I was asked to immediately plan a lesson delivering definitive and non-definitive relative clauses to an upper intermediate class, then phonetically transcribe a list of words, then define another list of words – noun, adjective, adverb etc...All followed by a list of cultural questions regarding literature and geography.  ‘I’ll be back in half an hour,’ she said, before leaving me in the wardrobe with a few pencils and the acidic taste of stress.

The bitter blood of London’s burden tempted my veins several days later. I had an interview for an after-school tutoring position with a family. The ‘mother’, Melissa, had asked me to meet her at Liverpool Street station. At the appointed hour, I was greeted with perfectly manicured eyes that openly surveyed me from head to toe with a look of disdain. ‘Shall we go to a coffee shop?’ she asked in a monotone and no facial expression. She ordered two teas for us, and, as we waited by the till, it occurred to me I felt powerless, edgy, inferiorly nervous. I did not like this woman.  Was it too late to simply walk away? Civility got the better of me so I silently ordered myself to conjure up some self-respect. Still civility should not always be obeyed.

At the table, Melissa, a Texan, gave me an epic on the barbarity of leaving a teabag in a cup and the inadequacy of life outside Texas. She then told me of her life story – all in monotone – how she met her husband, a successful artist and the Jerwood Prize winner in 2002, how she had been writing a book but had to take a break because of health reasons (aha...), how she got married at 28 because that’s about the right age, and how getting into university in the UK is just not as rigorous as in the US. ‘Where is your daughter?’ I asked. That was definitely NOT the right question. ‘With my husband,’ murmured the murderous monotone, marching heavily beside the eyes of disdain.

Finally, her attention turned to my CV. She asked a few questions, got irritated with my responses, and then interrupted my smiles and fond recounting of my experiences teaching English to the Italian military. ‘Yes, is there anything you want to add it that? What I’m trying to get you to do is open up and tell me something interesting. Your CV is fantastic but I don’t see any of that in front of me.’ She looked agitated. ‘You are too calm, and, quite frankly, confused. Also, you are so unwashed.’ Unwashed? ‘Yes, you haven’t washed your face, you haven’t shampooed, you don’t take care of your clothes. I don’t want my daughter exposed to it.’  My heart was pounding hard. It wasn’t the kind of heat that makes it to the surface of your skin. I was shocked, not shamed. My facade became calmer. ‘Well, this is me and I’m clearly not the person you are looking for’, was all I could utter as I began to gather my things. Though it was a busy coffee shop in the middle of Liverpool Street station, I wasn’t aware of another soul. Melissa became increasingly fidgety. ‘Is there nothing you want to say to convince me you are as good as this CV?’ ‘No, I’m not the person you are looking for.’  Her face twisted, her breathing become irregular. ‘Oh...well....I guess I’ll have to keep looking...’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ready to leave the table, ‘good luck with that’ (with intonation). ‘Oh, I’m ALWAYS alright’ she added, disgusted.

I travelled home, shaken but composed, and ran a hot bath. As Sylvia Plath once told us, ‘there must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them.’ This soul saving ritual was accompanied with shampoo and wine. It is times like this I miss living with my family or house sharing with people I can talk openly with. This is London, and London is not always kind to the newcomer.

London Night Walks - A Man of the Crowd

'By far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied, business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way through the press. Their brows were knit, and their eyes rolled quickly; when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers they evinced no symptom of impatience, but adjusted their clothes and hurried on. Others, still a numerous class, were restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and talked and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in solitude on account of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded in their progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering; but redoubled their gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and overdone smile upon their lips, the course of the persons impeding them. If jostled, they bowed profusely to the jostlers, and appeared overwhelmed with confusion. There was nothing very distinctive about these two large classes beyond what I have noted. Their habiliments belonged to that order which is pointedly termed the decent. They were undoubtedly noblemen, merchants, attorneys, tradesmen, stock-jobbers-the Eupatrids and the common-places of society-men of leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their own-conducting business upon their own responsibility. They did not greatly excite my attention [...]

'There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I easily understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-pockets, with which all great cities are infested. I watched these gentry with much inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine how they should ever be mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen themselves. Their voluminousness of wristband, with an air of excessive frankness, should betray them at once [...]

'As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the scene; for not only did the general character of the crowd materially alter (its gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the more orderly portion of the people, and its harsher ones coming out into bolder relief, as the late hour brought forth every species of infamy from its den), but the rays of the gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the dying day, had now at length gained ascendancy, and threw over every thing a fitful and garish lustre. All was dark yet splendid-as that ebony to which has been likened the style of Tertullian.'

Edgar Allan Poe - A Man of the Crowd