Journal Entries
Rolling Stones (cont)
Posted Oct 23, 2002
I am not trying to make out that the UK is in any way an intrinsically special place, it is just the place that I grew up in, the place in which my 'cultural self' feels most at home and comfortable.
While I have been physically living out of the UK for many years now, culturally I still spend a lot - if not most - of my time there. I guess my using h2g2 is one small example of this. I watch and listen to the BBC using satellite and internet and longwave. I read the U.K. papers, I buy U.K. books (I wouldn't be seen dead buying an American edition, usually I dislike the covers) and have a strong preference to U.K. bands.
And you may well ask - Why am I living out of the UK?
to be continued...
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Latest reply: Oct 23, 2002
Rolling Stones
Posted Oct 23, 2002
... gathers no moss.
And moss now seems to be lovely stuff. A stone that is covered with moss has a textured feel, a character.
I have been on the move - rolling - for upwards of 20 years now and I am begining to wonder what damage it has done to me as a person.
I left the U.K. for a job in Saudia Arabia in '83. I wanted to see some more of the world. Get the cheap veneer of 'character' that comes with being a foreigner. Initially I wanted the States, but grabbed at the first thing that came along.
It was an easy thing. In the past people who emigrated had to put a lot of energy into the move. I just got on a plane, slipped moorings and started rolling away, tearing up roots...
This is where one metaphor breaks down because it is trees that have roots and not stones....
But I think that is what best described what happened to me when I moved. I tore up invisible psychological roots that exist in a dimesion other than the phyisical world.
Lets call it the cultural dimension. If I could see 'myself' in this cultural dimension, I would see tendrils - thousands of them - shooting out from me and wrapping themselves around.... well what..
When I was in the UK, it was theatre, comedy, the spoken word, the BBC, Radio 4, the Today program, NME, football, hating Thatcher the Sun and the Daily Mail, desperately wanting to be other than 'typically english', following the guidelines laid out by the likes of the Guardian and New Statesman, Educating Rita, Asimov and the "Boys from the Blackstuff" and the Greenham common protesters.
When I was living in the U.K. my cultural psyche was happily anchored. I knew that the U.K. was a messed up place and I knew and understood why.
To be continued....
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Latest reply: Oct 23, 2002
Rolling stones...
Posted Oct 17, 2002
... gathers no moss.
And moss now seems to be lovely stuff. A stone that is covered with moss has a textured feel, a character.
I have been on the move - rolling - for upwards of 20 years now and I am begining to wonder what damage it has done to me as a person.
I left the U.K. for a job in Saudia Arabia in '83. I wanted to see some more of the world. Get the cheap veneer of 'character' that comes with being a foreigner. Initially I wanted the States, but grabbed at the first thing that came along.
It was an easy thing. In the past people who emigrated had to put a lot of energy into the move. I just got on a plane, slipped moorings and started rolling away, tearing up roots...
This is where one metaphor breaks down because it is trees that have roots and not stones....
But I think that is what best described what happened to me when I moved. I tore up invisible psychological roots that exist in a dimesion other than the phyisical world.
Lets call it the cultural dimension. If I could see 'myself' in this cultural dimension, I would see tendrils - thousands of them - shooting out from me and wrapping themselves around.... well what..
When I was in the UK, it was theatre, comedy, the spoken word, the BBC, Radio 4, the Today program, NME, football, hating Thatcher the Sun and the Daily Mail, desperately wanting to be other than 'typically english', following the guidelines laid out by the likes of the Guardian and New Statesman, Educating Rita, Asimov and the "Boys from the Blackstuff" and the Greenham common protesters.
When I was living in the U.K. my cultural psyche was happily anchored. I knew that the U.K. was a messed up place and I knew and understood why.
To be continued....
they could be seen, would be extending from out of me in all directions desperately trying to wind themselves around any deeply anchored cultural object
These roots are the intangible things that tie you into an environment and which you use to draw emotional support from the environment around you.
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Latest reply: Oct 17, 2002
DammedIfYouDo
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