Donald Barthelme on Vote

"All right lad this is what we want with you.  
Your mission is this: to go out into the world and pull down all those election posters.  
We have decided to stop voting, so pull down the posters.  
Let's get all those ugly faces off our streets and out of our elective offices.  
We are not going to vote any more, no matter how often they come around with their sound trucks and statesmanlike gestures.  
Pull down the sound trucks.  Pull down the outstretched arms.  To hell with the whole business.  




Voting has turned out to be a damned impertinence.  They never do what we want them to do anyhow.  And when they do what we don't want them to do, they don't do it well.  To hell with them.  
We are going to save up all our votes for the next twenty years and spend them all at one time.  
Maybe by that day there will be som Ravelaisian figure worth spending them on.   
And so, raw youth, with your tentative air, go out and work out will on the physical world.  
We are going to go whole hog on this program, to a certain extent, and you are our chosen instrument.  
We are not particularly proud of you, but you exist, in some rough way, and that is enough, for our purposes.  
You are sub-attractive, Boble, and so are your peers there, but  here is the money, and there is the task.  
Get going.

DON'T YOU DARE TO HAVE BREAKFAST AT THE GHERKINS

On my return day from Venice which is 3 November, I went to London for a two-day trip.
I have always had this fantasy or imagination that the bullet building should be just by the south banks.
And that was saturday morning and I was starving, just got an sandwich (meal deal) from sainsbury which is everywhere.

I got lost a little bit, and after I arrived the Gherkin. I discovered that it was not by the south bank at all.  There was only concrets buildings, office people and a bunch of construction workers in doing some drilling job.
and I was tired and hungry, so I decided to just stand there and finish my breakfast, a package of fruits and a nice ham sandwich, and try to enjoy the urban landscape.
People were smoking next to me, they are white, they are in tracksuit or office costume.

There was one black security guy in front of it, he saw me, from eating my fruit until I start to eat my sandwichs. He didn't say anything.
As I proceed to my last half bit of sandwich, a white-security guard came over to a commercial board from a cafe close by and ask me "are you alright?" and then said something else but I didn't understand.

I happened to finish my sandwich, but it raised my curiosity about why would the security guy to come and check me out. I know ever since the bombing in London tube also the international brotherhood with America might effect a certain negative emotion towards UK. But why can't people just go there and enjoy a nice meal there?

Urban view is everywhere, why do people even bother to find a green place to look at and then destroy a thousand football play field comparable size of the rainforest in Brazil? Is architecture being create as a mean to alienate people? Why is the fact that I saw a guy's arm bleeding at 10pm in Dalston and then no body cares but somebody come to see me because I ate breakfast at 10am in the morning in front of the most common space in modern society?

      London is amazing, there are so many things happen in any hour, but _______________________.

It seems like there is a moral panic which is deeply inhabit in all the citizen's mind. Constantly searching for possible target to doubt, to suspect, to accuse. But somehow the folk devil is no long so easy to spot.  They are not as The Mods or Neds has particular dress code, nor has the specific working class background.  It is a state of mind that I imagine a solider would have when they are in the war zone.  Is the moral panic, or there is actually a traumatic effect rooted in all the British white collar (if this description still appropriate)'s mind. It is a constantly subtle fear towards life.
It's an rejection towards life and freedom, is the people in London actually live under a constant?
Such as concentration camp in a bigger genre, as the fear came from the uncertainty of the future?

View from the right hand side

View from the left hand side

Donald Barthelme Snow White

The commitment from Snow White

"... and if you let me stay, I will keep house for you, I will wash, sew, sweep, cook!"

Fashion photography as ART?

Just came across this fashion brand  Herr Von Eden.


Here are their campaign for 1/2 WILD 1/2 CHILD by Daniel Josefsohn