Vignette of the middle-class, 40-something, pan-cultural couple in the 21st century (The Gregg Jevin memorial blog post)

So Small Boo and I are having dinner in a French bistro in Bangkok (OK, but the oeuf en cocotte was a bit runny since you ask) and I’m describing to her my various disagreements on Wikipedia and Twitter about the precise status of Godzilla’s nationality and how it might be ascertained and she sighs a little but can’t really sigh too hard because she’s squinting into her iPhone to determine whether the 1970s frozen chocolate dessert called Lovely was produced by Birds Eye or Lyons Maid.

Triumph of the Will (Self)

I am in several minds on hearing the news that Will Self – bearer of the world’s most Nietzschean name – is to take up a post as professor of contemporary thought at Brunel University. First of all it’s a brave gesture of support towards the notion of what a university really should be, an earthy v-sign to the Gradgrindian, box-ticking notion that a degree is nothing more than a preordained step on the ladder between school and a job. As described, Self’s proposed role crosses disciplinary boundaries, trampling over that lazy, banal excuse for ignorance: “Oh, we haven’t done that.” At the same time, I’m pretty sure it’s something of an attention-grabbing gimmick on the part of the university, sprinkling a little celebrity glitter – erudite glitter, but celeb-flavoured nonetheless – over their next prospectus. 

But mostly, I’m just bloody jealous.

Eastern promise

(Image by Chris Coles.)

All the Colors, by Eric Fisher, is according to its subtitle “a novel about Thailand and the search for life beyond Corporate America”. From the Author’s Note:

I have deep respect and admiration for the people of Thailand and their magnificent culture. It’s been many years and many trips since my first sojourn there, yet I remain endlessly fascinated by its beauty. This novel explores only a small subset of Thailand’s diverse beliefs and regions. I encourage everyone to approach this wonderful country in the spirit of adventure and to let it shape its own unique place in your heart.

The first line of the novel itself:

There were two girls in the bed, but he’d only paid for one...

Not yet retro

 

If you’re not on Facebook you may not have encountered the above image or its many, many variations: essentially someone picks a job or a location and finds six pictures that illustrate six different perspectives on it. I think I first saw it on about Tuesday or Wednesday, and it was already getting tired by Thursday evening. If there’s a single phrase that seems to characterise modern society, it’s “easily bored”. Remember Benton/Fenton the out-of-control labrador? Within days of his arrival on YouTube the very mention of his name was enough to provoke guffaws from the audience of Radio4 comedy shows; a week later, he was utterly forgotten. If you go for a more-leisurely-than-normal poo, it seems, you’ll find you’ve missed seven flavours of the Zeitgeist by the time you’re finished. Actually, do they still have Zeitgeists?

And your point is?

I still buy books, you know. Remember them, those papery things that  usually ended up full of receipts and train tickets? Although sometimes I wish I didn’t.  Buy them, I mean. Trawling the discount tables in a Bangkok branch of Kinokuniya, I come across a copy of my Noughties book, reduced to 100 baht (about two quid in old money). Slightly more expensive (but then it is a hardback, I tell myself) is Padgett Powell’s The Interrogative Mood. The title gives the twist away: it’s composed entirely of questions, a structural gimmick to which such staples of fiction as plot and character are pretty much sacrificed. The subtitle – A Novel? – suggests that this is the whole point. It doesn’t particularly work as an overall piece, but there are some passing delights among the queries. For example: “If architecture is frozen music, do we not deserve a whole cookbook of such recipes?” Which almost seals up the puncture wound in my creative ego. Almost.

(O)bits of Whitney

So, after yesterday’s sad news, social media reminds us not just of what Whitney Houston did (which in many cases involved giving performances that were better than the songs merited) but what she meant. There are bits of Whitney (Whits? Bhitneys?) all over the cultural landscape, from the previously mentioned Serge Gainsbourg encounter via mash-ups that span the 80s and the 00s, to her status in the holy triumvirate alongside Genesis and Huey Lewis (and while we’re in the area, this exchange is priceless). Sexuality (as distinct from sexual intercourse) was pretty much invented in the 80s, whether overt (Madonna, Prince, Frankie Goes To Hollywood) or ambiguous (Michael Jackson, George Michael) so Whitney’s brand of sunny, gospel-flecked innocence and purity offered an open goal to anyone who fancied indulging in a bit of cheeky, postmodern defilement. The drugs and the reality TV were an afterthought.

But Whitney’s talent is restored with the overwhelming ‘The Greatest Love of All’, one of the best, most powerful songs ever written about self-preservation and dignity. Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

Kim Jong Un and Whitney Houston

Kim Jong Un, the newish leader of North Korea, died a few days ago, shot dead in his bedroom. And then he un-died, as it became apparent that this was just an internet rumour that began in China and was then amplified by Twitter.

It was just confirmed that Patrick Bateman’s favourite female singer Whitney Houston has died. But for a few minutes her death was a Twitter rumour, confirmed, denied, buffeted by scepticism. Social media has created a brief phase when all celebrities (Is KJU a sleb? I guess he must be.) are potential Schrödinger’s cats, at once dead and alive and all things in between.

PS: The Great Successor may have survived the virtual gunfire, but he never had Serge Gainsbourg make a pass at him, did he?

I’m looking over the Wall and they’re looking at me

Yesterday, Small Boo bought one of those sparky thingummybobs that you use to light a gas hob when the built-in ignition’s gone wrong and you don’t want to get someone to come in and fix it because they’ll see how mucky your oven is. It’s called a Robotron, and perusal of the packaging informs us that it was made in the GDR. Which ceased to exist in 1990. Everything was the future once, including this: