“I’m NOT an ANIMAL — And I Won’t BECOME One!”
“Not even a feminist person, but a simple human being!”
And some people wonder why, even as a twelve-year-old, I knew that Steve Englehart’s comics were different from the other things I read at the time.
More Than Meets The Eye
I got a spam email today, and the sender’s name was “Optimus Pop.” I love that as a name, as if the Transformers were made over by Warhol and turned into, I don’t know, some kind of enormous robotic commentary on the fickle nature of fame in today’s celebrity-obsessed society. It makes me wish that the Transformers was a franchise that could somehow grow past its original demographic, and branch out into all-new areas; I want to see Transformer rom-coms (Can Bumblebee win the heart of Amy Adams and defeat Starscream in a duel for the life of Buster Whitwicky?), Transformer documentaries (Michael Moore and a very sincere Optimus Prime talking about how dangerous fossil fuels are to the Earth, and why Energon Cubes are the way forward) and America’s Next Top Transformer, where contestants would be given makeovers that turned them into completely inanimate objects for Nigel to take photographs of. Hey, Michael Bay: If you’re looking for the next step for that movie franchise, you should totally call me.
What’re You Sad About? When You Smile, It Makes The Sun Come Out
The Charlatans were always one of those bands that you’d hear in the background somewhere, but never really listen to intentionally. Do you know the bands I’m talking about? The ones where you like them well enough, but you don’t love them, they’re agreeable and all, but you can’t imagine giving your heart to them. It’s bands like this that provide the real soundtrack to your life.
I remember the Charlatans first breaking through in the baggy period of the early 1990s, with songs like “The Only One I Know” sounding like a less ugly Inspiral Carpets, or a less interesting Stone Roses. That’s the kind of band they were to me, one that – early single “Weirdo” aside, which earned a special place in my heart because of the organ solo – I pretty much thought of in terms of other bands, if I thought of them at all. When they came back around the time Oasis was starting to break through, sounding like a band who’d been listening to a lot of Rolling Stones in the meantime, I wrote them off again: they’re just trying to be like other people, I thought, not realizing how common that was for most of the bands I had fallen for around then.
And yet, there was something about their songs from that time – things like “Can’t Get Out Of Bed” and “Jesus Hairdo” and “I Never Want An Easy Life If Me and He Were Ever To Get There” – that stood out, despite themselves; it was heart, in a weird way – There was something oddly friendly and uplifting and optimistic about the songs, somehow, despite the shrugs and sneers in the performances. You’d listen to the songs and feel oddly warmed, despite yourself.
This odd side-effect, a song that I didn’t actually like but one that made me happy every time I heard it, reached its zenith with “North Country Boy.” It was a single that came out in the year I was finishing up my bachelors degree show at the art school I was in, and I remember hearing it one day while working in the studio. It’s hard to explain just how it seemed to make me feel as if everything would be okay, somehow, and that all the stress I was feeling was just a temporary thing that would disappear in a matter of weeks without crushing me like a bug in the meantime. It was song as message, and the message was “It’s all going to be fine.”
(Of course, that was really just my subconsciousness telling me that, but still. It came because of the song, somehow. I’m crediting the song no matter what, is what I’m saying.)
Thing is: I don’t really like the song. There are Charlatans songs I much prefer, and have even paid money for (The best one? A cover of Sly Stone’s “Time for Livin’,” which is awesome). This one, not so much – but every single time I hear it, I go back to that afternoon more than a decade ago, and have that same feeling of calmness and happiness wash over me.
Come Down, Come Down
Truly, there were too many songs from the Britpop era that I have an undeserved fondness for because I had a crush on the lead singer of the band responsible at the time.
(Okay, maybe the horns in “She’s A Good Girl” make it more worthwhile than the others.)
Culture/Generation
Even more from Rian Hughes’ Cult-ure:
The culture gap was generational.
It described the difference between an older population with more traditional values and a younger generation whose new ideas came not primarily from the family or church environment, but from the vibrant, seductive – some may say dangerous – ‘new media’ environment.
The new media of the 50s, 60s was not the internet, but music, television, film, magazines and comics… The ‘new media’ meant that for the first time culture was not primarily being passed vertically, from parents to children, but horizontally.
Peer-to-peer.
As the world becomes more connected, cultural isolation is becoming rarer – and ever harder to enforce. ‘Traditional’ and ‘modern’ cultures, like different generations, are now rubbing shoulders more closely than ever before.
Certain memes that are acceptable in one context will be suspect or even offensive in another: democracy, free speech, religion, race, the role of women, homosexuality, bacon… The Generation Gap has become the Culture Gap.
We Are Always Drawing Maps
More Rian Hughes, from Cult-ure:
You could write the most informative review possible of a new record, but being made of words, that review will still not come close to the experience of actually listening to the song… This is another type of format conversion, of media remapping – a description in one media of something from another. A description, however accurate, is always a step removed, a reinterpretation of the thing itself.
Strangely, though, the description itself, now possessed of existence in the real world, has its own unique qualities and, though nothing like the musical experience it describes, is still a thing in its own right.
Again, the map becomes territory.
And due to this, can be mapped itself – it would be possible to have an article describing the history of the music review – a review of reviews. Or a book that detailed the history of mapmaking – a map of maps.
Introducing The Memetic Footprint As A Concept
Today, when all ideas, whatever their worth, are freely available on the Internet, we ourselves have to be very savvy about weighing up divergent opinions, about which sources we trust and what who we choose to believe. Because the world is now so interconnected we have a situation where a YouTube video made in the Middle East can inspire someone across the other side of the world to stab their MP. Ideas, good, bad and indifferent, can travel further and faster than ever before. To a greater or lesser degree, we all need to be aware of our own “memetic footprint”; as well as developing the tools to deal with other’s ideas, we have to also take responsibility for the ideas we ourselves pump out. That goes double for designers and writers! As I say on the back of the book, “In the new democracy of ideas, cultural power is devolving to the creative individual. Soon, we will all have the means to create. We just have to decide whether it be art or bombs”.
- Rian Hughes, designer and writer of Cult-Ure, the book he references above and which I am eagerly awaiting to have delivered by Amazon as you read these very words.
I Hope You Don’t Either
Dan Harmon, creator of Community, a show I love very much, has been blogging about the break-up of his relationship. And that’s not really what I want to write about, because it’s his and I don’t know him or his ex and it’s none of my business, but. But in one post, he wrote the following line, which I love unconditionally:
Then again, I never know what I’m doing. I hope you don’t either.
I don’t know if I love it because of the reading of the last line that says “I hope you don’t know what you’re doing either,” the reading that says “I hope you don’t know what I’m doing,” or the fact that it can be both. Years and years ago – a decade, maybe? – I found a quote along the lines of “It feels so good to be lost,” and this is the same thing: Not only being okay with not knowing what you’re doing, but embracing that.