Yes, what a waste a smile is in this place. The city. My observations, alas, of a recent ‘city weekender’ seem as poignant, (to the level of disturb), as those scribed by earlier writers of the Modern. A city evolving, say 1840’s Edgar Allan Poe’s Man of the Crowd type, hence London evokes with chilling familiarity, much of what I see in the phantasmagoric mess of it. London however is not my reference. For this entry I need not spell the namesake of location, my point is purely to focus on the metropolitan hit. So arguably as a ‘same vibe’ case scenario for most city visitations, those dreaded infestations, I feel the motto should be:
Look at the lights,
Smell the smells,
Welcome to Life’s Lucifer,
SPEND or GO TO HELL!
Hell of course is to be equated with rejection at the pearly gates, should you not comply with the above code. In shoppers’ terms, one may relate this to the immense double doors at the beginning of a ten-mile mall corridor, city centre style. Rather like being at a cross roads, the decision to step across the grid and into the heat realises a day lost to losing one’s cash. If you do not comply with this double negative, expect to be suitably spat out by a sneering sideways glance or three. Here money talks, people don’t. Labels count, smiles won’t. Situate the Cornish lass with a necessary and decisive desire not to spend. Without labels hanging off every piece of cloth or accessory like an overly adorned Christmas tree, this one is deemed to the abyss of ‘out of time-ness’. I say prepare to be snuffed or whacked when attempting to reside within the Label Culture as ‘Other’. Further, do not smile unless you bare a tooth gem or are admiring a latest tattoo.
Imagine if you will a Dizzy Rascal kind of conversation…
“Say what no Blackberry? You got no Burberry? No Gucci, Nina Ricci, Tropical tan, Lacoste or Hurley?” (Or in fact anything what rhymes with the ‘er’ or the ‘ee’?).
Yes, history is the demise of today should one fail to be seen through the obscured goggles of a ‘your worth it’ campaign. In fact, lets go for the worth-less theme. Do you fail to have the London look? (Whatever that is), has your hair lost its Mojo? (Or is that a sweet), do you have cologne that evokes the Man in you OR perfume that entices the man Into you? Are those nails bejewelled to the effect of a sabre-toothed tiger? No? Prepare to be dropped like a fallen angel. From V.I.P to R.I.P due to your own selfish nothingness identity and sensibility! So go on, buy back into the greedy Pied Pipers of Production and long may the duped swarm, horde or pack of rats, (that surely cannot all own non-rubber credit cards), scuttle on eekishly to feed on scraps reeking of mythical ‘cool’ status as they go.
A plethora of zombies, as Poe’s ‘tumultuous sea of heads,’[1]sweep the labyrinthine corridors of the centre, splitting off to designer shoes, suits, jackets and oddly the occasional book store. At the corner, a sight not to be missed for the amusement factor, reside the ‘torso tops’ I coin. Rather like the ‘muffin top’ branding of females who spill the waist, these young boys bear chests, waxed and frightfully perfect in physique. This, of course, was a necessary ploy to entice the prospective buyer into the surf brand store. Oh how cold they must have been to endure that hourly rate.
I needed coffee.
Coffee is however as ridiculously unreal as the all-surrounding aesthetic glory façade in this place. Swiftly now passing the fast food chains and unaffordable cup cake stands, one tries desperately, impossibly not to inhale the choking fat aroma of questionably freshly cooked doughnuts as you go. Not their namesake, mine. Therefore, a quick gag and coffee, yes, welcome to the world of frappé. Replace the f for a c and what have you got? On questioning a colleague of mine about this hybrid in plastic beaker with straw and ice, (with a good knowledge of the great C I hasten to add), he shrieks, “ it’s the vulgarisation of coffee!” Thank-you S, I tried it, I agree but it probably looks great in sucking plastic contextually, naturally.
So seriously how does one, this one I mean, digest the experience? The city mall, stench and sweep of feet, coffee bars and stores awash with blank expressions of ‘people in solitude on account of the very denseness of the company around?’[2]My conclusion remains the same Poe. The crowd, the experience, consumerism condensed to force the spend to bust is truly, for me, as much of a hideous reality as it was for The Man of the Crowd. The story drawn from an artist who could not see the highly apparent gaiety and delights of the masses transcends time well; the need to spell out what city life is not. A necessary comfort thank-you Poe. To be understood offers a sordid kind of ecstasy in times such as these and should one say the unnamed narrator in the unnamed coffee bar was the ‘Woman of the Crowd’…hmm interesting…
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