Let’s keep it short.

I've neglected the blog for a while, kept busy with other projects - so here's something I wrote earlier -

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It has slowly come to my attention that I find myself on the cusp of a generation that cannot be bothered; to cook, (order fast food) to read, (skim the net) to wait for a film, (instant access online) to write, (just text) to talk, (just email) - it goes on, and the underlying thread of all this impatience is technology. What has fast paced living done to our language? What of the habits it has induced in an entire generation that no longer even care to articulate a full word, let alone a full sentence?

I certainly have caught a little of this language lapse and put it down to lost hours spent on social networking sites, where this mentality of fast information exchange has transferred in to a very acceptable and widely used social language. I was familiar with the old school abbreviations you know? Where we perhaps missed a letter out or use a number as a substitute, when we had the credit to text a friend on our brick-sized Nokia. If you were really skilled, you could type using ‘predictive text’, barely enunciating the first few letters before its finished for you. Yet this was tame stuff compared to the length in which we cap our words today. When abbreviations become a daily occurrence you begin to learn that ‘brb’ is ‘be right back, ‘rofl’ is ‘roll on floor laughing’ (obviously) and so on until you have a completely different communication system, with only a hint at previously belonging to the English language. Yet if we consider, I taught my Nan to use her phone, this is a woman who back in the day, could type one hundred words a minute and take an entire books-worth of dictation with her eyes shut, but give her a phone and the option of predictive text and she stares at me blankly asking 'why the phone is deciding what her message will be?' As a secretary in the eighties shorthand was a highly essential skilled for her and to this day she can remember how to read and write the strange flicks and curves of her own generations abbreviation system. But ultimately its hardly unusual that through the ages people have developed and experimented with making language quicker and more efficient to communicate and mutations of words in sub-cultures have formed colloquialism that have stuck. So as technology got quicker so did our need for shorter word and faster signifiers.

But what happens when this habit leaks out from instant messengers and text messages and in to our writing and even our physical conversations? I am now hearing people actually say ‘LOL’ instead of laughing! So what, now we are short-circuiting our emotions? But don’t think it’s gone unnoticed, a majority of the time someone actually says ‘LOL’ it is more of an ironic poke at their own subculture than a genuine replacement. Abbreviations are now words in themselves and the sound a word in itself! At what point does an abbreviation cross over from a colloquial shortcut to a feature of modern English language?

It isn’t just abbreviations, even when we do speak English, the ‘tweet-teens generation’ have soaked up a social environment of fast technology, fast living and instant everything, that there is certainly a skewed focus steering their latest colloquialisms. At the moment the fad in my social circle and overheard pub conversations is ‘really?’ Pronounced with a sarcastic intonation, an edge of pseudo disbelief, with an over dramatic inflection that can be thrown at almost any comment. Used to not only enquire validation over a point but as a statement and winning retort on your behalf to cut short the conversation. We have adopted our ‘online’ tone of short, brief answers and abrupt endings in our real conversations and this ‘really’ business is another extension of our supposed disbelief, really indicating non-committal mentality to delve in to a topic.

Writing has developed in tone as well, even noticeably in the highest circles of authors, a conversational tone and direct flow of consciousness in style engages the modern reader’s newly moulded and notoriously hard to focus ‘interest radar’. They connect with it as if it were a more sophisticated and evolved version of the statuses and stories they read all day for leisure and this is surely a notable observational to writers wishing to engage an ever more reluctant audience, who are easily torn away by the flicker of the television or pop up chat.

There's no where to hide for the i-kids

I was unfortunate enough to find myself on the nightmare train to Victoria recently. It's not usually a nightmare, usually I read, daydream or write. But this train was befitting of a nightmare considering it had fallen victim to collecting all the unruly kids from each dank corner of England. I could laugh along with the hairy-nostrilled businessman opposite, at the toddler next to us yelling "Look mummy a pig!" at a passing herd of cows.

But the school kids - it was like sitting in a cage of chimps that had inhaled half a ton of M&M’s.

Still, I couldn’t help but turn my ears to the little snippets of conversation that were forcing themselves in to my personal space.

Mediocre popular kid/greasy hair: “Well we are gonna egg ‘em on Friday, I think it’s Friday, we’re be on half term?”

Lead girl/bit spotty: “Yeah, but check Facebook though yeah, ‘cos it like right near Emily’s birthday thing, she said to invite youz lot, in half term yeah,? Check the events list.”

Class clown: “We have half term?”

{General squawking laughter.}

These kids have so much room for social manoeuvres. Their diarys fill up over half term; they check dates, plan meetings and negotiate clashes. It might be for drunken birthday parties, shopping or even egging (Seriously?) but social media is giving them the chance to get to grips with juggling their personal life from a young age. Not a bad thing up to a point.

The build up to the event is significantly more important than the event itself. A head count of who is attending and the expectant commentary of the potential ‘carnage’-(apparently this is another new addition to the i-kids vocab. – I had to check at Urban dictionary before I felt suitably informed enough to use it)

These guys should stop and think though. All those you tube videos, Facebook photos and infuriatingly detailed statuses will come back to bite their eventually grown up, highly embarrassed arse.

I appreciate hugely that I am on the cusp of the MTV /Tamagotchi generation. I can still indulge in suagar coating the horrors of being a teenager. I can forget the questionable clothing during my hippy faze (purple flared cords, fish net tops and beaded trainers) and the dippy high school boyfriends who you never really saw ( guy at bus stop/ ‘stud muffin’/one with a yellow fetish). I can erase the bitchy girls that called me names, the uncomfortable feeling when your best friend is off sick and the constant immature banter. I can almost look back fondly. i have a few faded photographs and an agile memory.

But these i-kids. Man. They are going to have the stark, unforgiving video footage and photos, a documentary of all the bits in life you stumble through hard and often before you learn to tie your laces and re-route. Good luck to you. I reckon now might be the time to de-tag and delete accordingly.

the horrors of polyester

I may have studied fashion promotion, but the meaning of what this actually is completely escapes my family. However, they do seem to grasp the ‘fashion’ element. My grand father in particular seems to have caught on and is even evaluating what his trousers say about him. I would like to think my efforts at explaining lifestyle branding have rubbed off, but after the following episode I can see my attempts are futile.

Now let me paint you a picture. This isn’t an old man with a stick, swimming relentlessly around memories of the war. This is Grandad who is probably fitter and healthier than me, and you for that matter. He cycles sixty miles sometimes three days a week, plays tennis, grows numerous vegetables and ferries the entire family back and forth between various appointments on demand. His only request being that he is allowed a nap after lunch.

Usually we enter in to pointless rounds of stubborn debates over the definition of shepherds pie or the possibility that the meaning of the earth and everything in it is 22, and I am given no slack in consideration of my youth, (he is pretty big on anti-agism too). Yet he will sheepishly enter the dining room, modelling an impulse pair of what he says are ‘practical, I’ve jut got off my boat and going for a glass of port’ trousers . A way of speaking I am sure he as adopted from me, in which an entire garment will summarise your every dream and whim. “Well?” he asks.

I look. He is modelling, what look suspiciously like an unruly spewing of polyester trousers, in a muted duck egg blue that do no favour for his lean frame, and are not only ugly trousers but are the sort of item that would provoke hours of rebuke on the terrors of polyester from my friends and I. There are many, believe me; the static, the noise, the undeniable man made sheen and unsightly way the fabric falls, in that it doesn't fall but merely hangs in a desperate manner.

I am sure, after reading this, he will storm in dramatically demanding I take back this clear line of unprovoked abuse at his beautiful new trousers. I could almost buy in to his daydream of yachts and expensive liquor, if the polyester were cotton or linen and the colour was crisp white, but dirty blue polyester trousers Grandad say only one thing - OLD! And that is one thing your trousers should never say about you.

The lost art of conversation

(… and yes, I know I’m completely contradicting myself, I continue to be an avid user and lover of social networking sites)

The bright greeting of my Mac book is a sound I have come to associate with getting in from a long day and finally relaxing. I mindlessly watch as I am ‘remembered’ by my various social networks. Bombarded almost immediately with a stream of identical greetings I barely acknowledge whoever is home inquiring about my day. This need to present a simulated image of our idealised self has become an addiction, we constantly asses our represented persona. Surely it is better to live in the moment and enjoy life rather than religiously worrying yourself with recording what are largely posed memories? Our relationship with a large amount of these’ friends’ is virtual and your only understanding of their true self is what they decide to tell you on their status updates or their Mr Men personality quiz results. So occupied are we with maintaining up to the second knowledge of everyone else’s lives, and making sure our thoughts are published, we are even beginning to tell people what, in reality, are very personal thoughts. It is all so idealised, so specific; the information given so considered and compromised. Yes of course its helpful to maintain work contacts and relationships and get instant feedback from targets for research and generally keep ‘connected’, but it has become, for many, an obsession...

(for full article please email christinepettman@hotmail.com)

in the dentist's chair

It is funny really that we hand over forty quid or more for the joy of having our mouths wedged open to accommodate various unspecified machinery. I can usually cope with it by blocking out the heavy breathing of my bemused dentist and the metal tray of very questionable tools, by drifting off to chew over some thoughts.

What annoys and bewilders me is my dentist's assumption that I know what he means when he points at various fuzzy shapes on my x-ray and mutters technical words that I'm apparently meant to understand; concluding I must surely need a filling. I retort that I am sure I don't. He injects my gum so I feel like half of my face is at a severe disadvantage should I need to smile and converse intelligently in the next half an hour. As we all wait for it to numb, the dentist and his assistant sit poised with various invasive (and in my opinion somewhat suspicious) looking instruments. I surrender to their hopefully experienced and well trained hands whilst my mouth locks open and my spine shivers from the drill.

I could probably have retained my dignity even after I gesture like a wounded bird at the pain, and attempt a stifled reply from behind the protruding drill whilst I'm cross questioned about my career path, - but as I feel a cold line of dribble running down my chin my former self takes one look at the sorry mess I've become and bolts out the door.

1am encounter / a spiders tale

I can't sleep.

A spider, that would have frankly been more at home in the Amazon, was loitering by my bookcase just underneath an oversized edition of 'Degas by Himself'. Very suspicious. I tried a humane capture, honestly I did, despite his obviously evil intentions. I ushered him towards a cup sternly, but he was having none of it and promptly bolted across the terrain of carpet.

What else could I do but honorably bash it on the head with last weeks Grazia?

I text K, who informs me that spiders come inside to mate at this time of year. A great comfort- fucking hell I'm probably providing low- level accommodation for the entire extended family. They are probably all in mourning for dear uncle Pete, unceremoniously murdered south of the washing basket. It's typical, I can't help thinking that the prickling feeling on my feet is not just my duvet, but an army of angry relatives, getting in to position to preform a complex 'coup de main'.

Taps dripping too. Will my torment never end?

___

I was waiting for Larry, (earwig/ renowned drunk.) We sometimes take a walk at the weekends, get away from the kids. Landlady never seems to notice. She is usually pissed at the weekends anyway so even when I've almost run over her foot she is oblivious. So she spots me. Starts yelling "look, if you come quietly i'll release you outside by the wheelie bins." Well, sod that, it was raining hard and I was due back for dinner. I made a run for it. She's half blind anyway without her glasses on so I thought what the hell. Then THWACK! I'm squished uncomfortably between the god awful brown rug she brought last tuesday and a flimsy magazine. Luckily her hearts not in it, but she screams shrilly and I play dead whilst she parades me around the house to prove I was a terrifying threat. Soon as she puts me down I'll send the signal. They'll attack at dawn. Shame I'd paid the rent already.

current article taster

Let’s keep it short.

It has slowly come to my attention, more vividly than the usual acknowledgement and complaints from ‘adult’ observers, that I find myself on the cusp of a generation that cannot be bothered; to cook, (order fast food) to read, (skim the net) to wait for a film, (instant access online) to write, (just text) to talk, (just email) - it goes on, and the underlying thread of all this impatience is technology. What has fast paced living done to our language? What of the habits it has induced in an entire generation that no longer even care to articulate a full word, let alone a full sentence?

...

The Surreal House

The most delightfully crass piece was contemporary artist’s Noble and Webster’s ‘Metal fucking rats’ (2006), in the Panic Space room

I am more than partial to the tantalising fantasies of Salvador Dali and the baffling explanations of Freud so I took myself along to the Barbican’s Surreal House exhibition to savour the delights they had brought together.

The pieces were located in various ‘rooms’ of the house and you explore, stopping to examine various installations, paintings and film footage, constantly feeling excited and on edge. I was studying a remarkable sketch by Dali of a obscure face, propped up by poles and prodding a female breast, whose head looked not dissimilar from a light fixture, when a loud crash of distorted piano notes echoed from deeper inside and tore me away to investigate. A baby grand piano hangs upside, suspended from the ceiling and the keys horribly bent and stretched, emitting off key twangs before returning to its un-tampered form until another two minutes had passed and so it repeats itself. This was Rebecca horn’ Concert for anarchy,(1990).

It was beautifully curated in the way you were swept unexpectedly on to the next room by a flicker of light from a film, or a glimpse of a half finished staircase ahead. It felt rather like that nervous, enchanted tickle of apprehension you get at the start of a rollercoaster ride or at a poignant moment in a horror film. It made itself particularly known in the small dark space showing Jan Svankmajers’ ‘Down to the cellar’ (1982), where a small blue eyed girl explores an underground cellar. There is coal everywhere, one man scrapes it over himself to mimic a duvet, a woman breaks eggs and mixes the sooty concoction in to black cakes, and the little girl watches, entranced. This nightmarish quality where you can’t quite tear your eyes away encompassed the entire exhibit and brought some remarkable pieces to light – a must see this season! It certainly got me thinking about dreams and their distortions and rationalising of the obscure in the subconscious.

C.Pettman

The Surreal House, Barbican art gallery 10^th June- 12^th September 2010

inspired by long analytical conversations with the girlies, special thanks to K.B! XOX

Relationships. A wireless connection?

After a secret indulgent few hours of sex and the city re runs, I noted that even in the last series the importance of technology in relationships is completely brushed over. Yes that sounds clinical and inhumane almost, but it’s a rather guilty truth that rests beneath our sub-consciousness and supposedly moral superiority as women who ‘have it all’. Yet surely our adamant dismissal only re enforces our obvious avoidance of the fact, that we have more reliance than ever on technology to help us form and sustain relationships?

In life generally the ease of communication is so readily available, so effortless that we barely acknowledge our use of it. My grandparents’ generation waste hours in pre-arrangements to rendezvous at a later date, working themselves in to a bickering turmoil of potential times and places. I agonisingly listen, fully aware that this triviality of pre arrangement can be cut out completely through a simple text. Technology can make spontaneity more than just a thought in our crammed days, but a realistic possibility. An unexpected phone call and free window of time at the right moment can delightfully shift the flow of your day in to a new path. For general practicality then, it keeps things efficient and makes time for sudden opportunities to arise and experiences to be had.

But with relationships it makes things tricky. A generation that never turns off their phones and are constantly reachable through this permanently open portal of communication, leave little space for solitude and uninterrupted time with their own thoughts or even with a real person...

(for full article email christinepettman@hotmail.com)