01 March 2006

This Post Has No Title. Or Content.



I'm still here. Just struggling for material. Repeat after me; "The best material is no material". Keep repeating that until you believe it.

If pushed to come up with a feature exhibit at the Tate Modern, I would submit a piece of paper with a pencil on it, which I would call "Possibility". Either that or "The Reflected Brilliance of the World as Seen by a Blind Man wearing Red Shorts"; just to keep the Art bods happy1.

So, what do you write when there is nothing to write? What do you say when everything has been said? I should ask a tabloid journalist. However, I'm not content to supply the words for pictures of Jordan doing something purile. I could probably come up with suitable malapropisms, just to keep people "a-breast" of her situation, but I'd feel bad about having to do it. P.S. Did you see what I did there? Aren't I clever? Gary Bushell, eat your heart out.

So, if I'm not content with commenting on the nocturnal activities of people whose name I know but not what they do, then what do I talk about? I appear, in the sixty or so posts to date, to have tackled most of the spiky bits in my particular piece of mental lawn and I don't think there's any benefit mowing it again. The spiky bits will always be there; I just develop thicker skin so I can walk barefoot through my brain without stepping on Racism and Intolerance that even the most caustic weedkiller cannot eradicate.

Speaking of gardens, an allegory has arrived. Society has swept the Scythe of Justice over the world, believing that all errant blades of sedition and wrongdoing have been neatly trimmed and is putting all its efforts into chasing dodgy politicians and coming up with very specific legislation to prevent Mrs Betty Green of Newport Pagnell from letting her little yappy-type dog make little yappy barks between lunch and afternoon tea. While Mrs Green feels the full force of Justice, the blades of scum and villainy, who merely ducked while The Scythe passed overhead, are growing happily in the rich manure left in Society's wake.

The next source of material; what other people write about. I do make the effort to read what other people write in online newspapers and blogs, but only rarely do I find anything thought-provoking. More evidence that everything has been said. There are no new ideas; merely old ideas in a new hat. I could roll out some old ideas in new hats, but the intelligent people who read this blog would say "Oy, that's an old idea in a new hat" and I'd sigh and say, "Yes, but what a hat".

That's what new things are. The Internet is just the telephone with extra pockets, the airliner is just a bus with a big hat, a train is just some buses that all arrive at once2, genetic engineering just evolution with running shoes on. Romeo and Juliet is just the classic Boy Meets Girl, Boy Marries Girl, Boy and Girl Die in Tragic Love Pact, but with knobs on. Which is a downbeat way of looking at Man's achievements.

I guess, having dressed up core arguments in my own fancy dress up 'til now, I'm no longer happy doing that. I want people to be dressing up my ideas.

The Big Question: Do I have the mental furniture to come up with new ideas? Am I a philosophical fashion designer? Can I craft Fendi shoes and Gucci handbags, ideas that do not require dressing up? Can I arrive at the mental Little Black Dress?

Watch this space (but be prepared to wait).

1 I can't understand how Arty types see what they see when they look at Art. I guess its interpretation; they see waves breaking on a beach of shimmering amethyst, I see a brick.
2 So, just like buses then.

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