First, thanks to all of you who took part in the Coupland contest. It was very difficult picking a winner, especially because none of you gave the right answer. If you're the slightest bit interested, the odd one out, the Coupland-free zone, was "In the future, everybody will mime to the Backstreet Boys between ironic fingers on YouTube for 15 minutes." There, that was worth the wait, wasn't it?
While I'm here, something odd has happened. I don't normally do the personal diary type blogging. But here you go. About four years ago, around the time I came to Bangkok, I changed my e-mail address, because the old service provider suddenly decided it wanted to charge me for the privilege. I notified everyone in my address book, but my old details presumably stayed in various mailing lists, in particularly those kept by a number of small, interesting record companies, and the PR companies working on their behalf. (Before I moved continents, I used to write for a small, interesting music magazine, now sadly departed.)
In the last few days, for reasons that aren't immediately apparent, e-mails sent to the old address have started to pop up at my current address. I presume someone's been sending them since 2003, presuming all the time that I've been receiving them. Two responses: a look back at myself four years ago; and the feeling that a parallel reality has been going on, and I've been granted a fleeting glimpse of what might have happened in my life, had I made a few different choices, or if circumstances had gone another way. All those potential connections, disappearing into god-knows-where. I half expect a gaping hole to appear in the narrow membrane between what happened and what might have happened, and hundreds of messages to gush out.
Maybe I need to stop watching Torchwood. It's not that good, after all.
Today's post is dedicated to the memory of Magnus Magnusson. "Dum der-der dum... DER dum..."
9 comments:
... and my copy of Jpod won't turn up from Amazon for a couple of days yet.... (gesterngeist once again).
I was going to cheat and look through my jPod, but I wasn't sure I'd find all the others. Bah.
Blimey - what did these emails say, exactly? Were you offered an embedded post on Sandi Thom's tour bus? I think we need to know.
I had a similar experience, although on a much smaller scale.
I went back to work for a company about six months after a previous stint and realized I was still on some mailing lists.
I didn't have any parallel universe thoughts though. I just wondered why they weren't sick of getting 'Spinny doesn't work here anymore' messages.
Although I haven't actually gone anywhere.
Sadly, the most exciting thing I've had was the news that Sebadoh's back catalogue will be re-released in the coming year.
And I'm getting new and different spam.
Tim, have you seen Morrissey's doing Eurovision!
Sounds like the scenario for a Philip K. Dick novel ... I always suspect there is an alternative me in some other reality, living a life I might well have done ... and I bet the bugger's having a whale of a time.
Spin: Well, since he was voted the second greatest living Englishman or something (pipped by David Attenborough), he can clearly do no wrong. And at least he can get away with twirling the Union Jack.
Anthony: In fact, it felt more like this, one of the oddest films I've ever seen.
It put me more in mind of 'two woods diverged in a wood one day... I took the one less travelled by' etc.
The analogue SF.
Post a Comment