Day out in Digbeth

Jackie spotted a small poster for a vintage furniture place (the Moseley Vintage Hub) near Bordesley Station and, since we need a piece to put our turntable on and store CDs within, we headed down on a Saturday, mid-July. We actually had success and it was delivered a week later, but we’ll definitely be back.

We killed a few minutes going through the vinyl there while a rain outbreak passed, then made our way to the Rainbow for a beverage. We passed an enormous wedding party at a big venue on the way then, as we prepared to turn to the pub I stopped for a Cut Mark I knew was close (another one, on the pub, turned out to no longer exist).

Refreshed, we headed back out and looped by the central bus garage, a magnificent and massive building.

Jackie was really taken with the heraldry above the bus door, pointing out art and industry having a lean against the shield of, perhaps, the monarch or maybe the City or the County. The arm and hammer out of the parapet remains a mystery but I’ll update this if we figure it all out. FORWARD!

Voce Books was our other target, a small independent shop hidden by the arches just down from the cop shop on Alison Street. We could have bought the entire inventory, but settled on a couple of tomes we both wanted to read.

Short Book Review: Changing the World is the Only Fit Work for a Man

Yeah. You should read it.

Howard Gossage would have hated that, telling you what to do. He seemed to really believe that advertising — while still being dishonest at its core — should have a conversation with the end consumer.

He also had a more ‘event’ idea of ‘advert’ than just print or short video. The stuff about St Kitts and Nevis independence movement and his proposed advert campaign is minted. Literally, since it included generating a currency and a flag..

Gossage died, quite cheerfully, on this day in 1969. His friends included anyone you ever thought was hip from around then. Anyone.

Short Theatre Review: Lord of the Flies, 22 July 2023, Birmingham Rep

It was alright, but a one-off. You’d should have seen it through your broken glasses, Piggy.

Before the show, we saw Sunjay Brain — or, if our suspicions are correct, US Representative George Santos — do a set of largely blues covers. You should see him, as well:

Short Book (and Docudrama) Review: We Own This City by Justin Fenton (and David Simon)

They are both harrowing. The multiple timelines make the book a little easier to follow and hard to put down (although we watched the drama over the course of two days). You should read and see them and despair for America.

Short Book Review: Lithium

It’s alright. You should read it for the nuggets of trivia — like the 7 in 7-Up is for the atomic weight of lithium since it was flavoured with lithium citrate up until 1950, or that Lithia Springs Georgia is so called because its calming waters were rich in the future bipolar medicine.

Short Book Review: Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

I watch zombies on public transport transfixed by TikTok videos. The movie, Infinite Jest (aka, ‘the Entertainment“), from which this prescient novel takes its title, could easily develop from this stupefying nonsense. Lot’s of other disturbingly astute predictions also creep in (Zoom calls, sure, but also the filters to disguise one’s appearance in them to mention just a couple).

At page 500 I found one of my old business cards from the FOM Instituut/AMOLF with the words, “if it works on salami it will work on anything.” Nothing to do with the book, but something Jaap Boon uttered during a group meeting I was leading the first time I tried to finish this monstrous tome. It still makes me grin.

And, it’s alright. If you are one of the few out there who still read, you should read it. Don’t skip the end notes!

2023 Resolutions Part 1

By the end of the year, I intend to finish Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce, and The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann.

I’ve started all three on multiple occasions, each, and never read to the end of any (but, never less than half, either).

“And Lo, for the Earth was empty of Form, and void. And Darkness was all over the Face of the Deep. And We said: ‘Look at that fucker Dance.’”