Two Minutes: Sanitised

It was a quiet, peaceful, predictable time. All the songs were about love, and peace, the soy eggs on the breakfast table and 176 shades of lavender. The news spoke of growth, the glory of the nations and endless, invisible victories. Time was devoted to communal reflection on publicly accepted (and officially endorsed and corrected) opinions. Art was abstract, fluffy and properly integrated into the market. Everyone knew their exact value, as determined by the "Citizen Points" system, daily tasks and privileges, as assigned and earned through that system. And the big numbers generated by the economy buoyed the general optimism of the era, which in turn bulled the market, which in turn buoyed the big numbers- it was a healthy, reciprocal cycle.

No-one really liked each other, but everyone somehow got along- of course, people had long ceased to talk to each other directly. Such unmediated communication had beed deemed harmful, unsafe and untrustworthy by the majority consensus vote of 2023*- in which 35% of voters had participated, with commercial personal entities making up the difference! The language filters made it almost impossible to be confronted with an opinion that deviated, even semantically, from the established discourse.

This was, of course, not to say that citizens were not free to dissent, on the contrary, it was encouraged to regularly raise awareness for minority and social causes, as long as it was endorsed by a representative celebrity. Even better if it was in the current Marketing Materials- buy your ticket to the Sténle holodemo today! 10% of the price will be trickled down to selected worthy representatives of your cause of choice. "Consumer options range from the ever-popular Minority Inclusion SCENTEDSOAPGUNS! to ultimately important Media Literacy UNILLAMAS and Regulated Biodiversity KITTENSCRUFFLES! No further interaction on your part required to uplift the equally but less privileged."**

* no-one knew exactly what the number 2023 signified.

** from the Marketing Materials circulated on 207, STE. The dating system was adjusted to reflect the sunsetting of an old norm of counting and startup of the era of Subjective Time. No longer was any individual bound by the oppressive shackles of an imposed system of time measurement, finally achieving harmony with personal concepts of time, reflecting the value of every unit of citizens' time. Any reference to the end-of-lived era were carefully recontextualised and adapted to reflect the new insight and understanding.

This feels relevant: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43198404

Comments

IGAF: Utopia- Les Jours Meilleurs

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote this post, titled Dystopia , containing a dark version of the future, a look at the negative outcomes that might crawl out of the COVID-19 crisis. It has, by now been described as "9/11 in slow motion". Someone else broke a golden editorial rule to describe it as "2008 on crack". Media outlets, including Youtube, have warned of the long-term effects of this, on civil rights, labour and employment, surveillance and press freedom. And some, most notably Mr Orban of Hungary, have used this excellent opportunity to pass new, restrictive legislation that concentrates power in their hands. There have been calls for the elusive COVID cure not to be patented. And yet… And yet… It's easy to lose yourself in a media bubble, following the news and media 24/7, following, queuing in line to get into expensive shops, just walking into discount stores and the constant desire for many drinks (preferably with 10 friends or more, in a park

In Taheyya we Trust - How an Egyptian bellydancer found her posthumous stage in Berlin

“You should have winked at her,” Aida said dismissively, as if such a possibility had been imaginable for someone as timid as I was. Tahia Carioca was the most stunning and long-lived of the Arab world’s Eastern dancers (belly-dancers, as they are called today). Edward Said, Farewell to Taheyya My story with Taheyya begins in the summer of 2016, at Bulbuls Café in Görlitzer Str. in Berlin. It ends two blocks down on Wiener Str 17. Bulbuls is a café and art space around my corner that I have grown to like to sit in and drink smoothies (1). He had commissiond us- a crew of Syrian and Egyptian artists, as well as myself, to paint the walls inside the café. El Tenneen (the Dragon) is the one who ended up drawing Sheikh Imam, with the help of Salam Alhassan (known as Salahef/ Turtles) and Sulafa Hijazis (whom we call El Hayya/The Snake’s) beamers’ illumination. The Sheikh sits happily in the place to this day and Crew El-Zoo was born. Tenneen had the adv

Random Browsing gets me a new face.

Two o'clock in the morning is generally a good time to randomly surf the web and the blogs. This lovely lady, known to me only as Wow Legs, points the blogophere in general to this brilliant Manga face creator . Akin to the Simpsonize me Viral effort, this allows you to create a mangaesque face for yourself, using prefab elements that actually work. Hours of fun to be had here. I think this might be how some tv cartoons are made, right down to the script, except that they don't possess the power of a handsome jawline. Just to clarify: This is Wow Legs manga avatar. Generally, I try not to mangafy people I haven't seen in real life. The picture above is something I threw together as a test. UPDATE: I don't know what happened here, but my clarification seems to have caused more damage than good. As my editorial standards prevent me from knowingly misinforming you, I posted the clarification (above) to do exactly that and not mislead the reader. I also wanted to preserve

Caramblogage

Search This Blog