fisharepeopletoo

The Chairs from the Dancing School

Newly reassembled chairs for We Love Technology next week.

They were second hand from a dancing school in Derbyshire, so if you find yourself rocking merrily from buttock to buttock from the pure joy of the presentations, that'll be why.

Either that or I didn't put them back together very well.

Just don't rock back on them too far in your joy, that's all I'll say.

Voice of America

"And to all those watching tonight
from beyond our shores,
from parliaments and palaces
to those who are huddled around radios
in the forgotten corners of our world
– our stories are singular,
but our destiny is shared"

from Obama's acceptance speech in The Guardian.

more and more amazing!

"to those who are huddled around radios"

that and the "forgotten corners" are almost a cliche, but because of what the whole world now knows about his background, he said, "I'm one of you as well."

We'll see whether he means it or not, but it's quite a flourish.

And where have we heard the word "huddled" before, in the context of America and the world?

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"

Make a Piano in Spain

I've noticed a few pieces of work recently which use questions to draw responses from participants.

Make a Piano in Spain asked 500 people ‘What do you do to make yourself feel better?’ (May 2008)

As part of Fred, American artist Dee Hibbert-Jones asked "What's your method of escape?" (June 2008) and used The Secret Life of Cumbria to collect some of the answers, including:

"I set off a rocket and imagine I'm in it or watch for a satellite and imagine the same. X Jan"

"letting myself be held and kissed by a man there's no future with."

and this, which sounds bloody brilliant:

"i go into the woods, remove my clothing, sit in a stream, light a cigarette, close my eyes and listen. "

And our own work in which we put posters at bus stops, among other places, in Manchester, asking questions like "Where were you happiest to arrive and why?" (October 2006).

I don't know if there is anything more than coincidence in me noticing this, and I'm sure there are other and older examples.

But maybe we are at a moment in which we understand that if we find the right structures to welcome people who don't consider themselves to be writers or artists to say something in their own voice, they'll come up with funnier/ more surprising/strange/beautiful/poetic/sadder responses than we could ever have managed as writers or artists, and which taken together create archives of life with real depth and reach.

A Politician Who Doesn't Have Tin Ears

"Lately,
they've been calling me a socialist
and they found evidence
that when I was in kindergarten
I used to share my toys,
and in the fourth grade
I split my peanut butter sandwich
and they said
look, he's a redistributionist ...

There's nothing wrong with looking out for other people."

from an Obama speech reported in today's Guardian (my line breaks).

Isn't it great?

"Lately [comma pause] they've..."

It's wry, belittling his enemies, weary of trivial things and above such foolishness all at once.

And who are "they"? - people with nothing better to do, while he's ready to get on with running the country.

Then the evidence from his infant school days - again it's mocking - "look how much time they're wasting digging around, and so stupid and obsessed are they with trying to find skeletons in the closet they've even gone back as far as when I was five years old!"

But at the same time the picture he paints of himself is as a noble child, already thoughtful enough to share his toys and wholesome all-american food with those less fortunate than himself.

You just know he stood up to the bullies!

Using imagery he casts himself as Huck Finn without having to say it in so many words.

He's not doing anything so cheesy as to claim it about himself - he's not even having to describe his real childhood - no, it's the "evidence" that "they" have dug up against him while they were rooting around for smears and upsetting an innocent class of kindergarten children. They should be ashamed of themselves! (The idiots!)

So what is his tax policy?

Well, "they" say he's a "redistributionist", which is the only long, abstract word in the passage.

No one will really know what that means, but it's exactly the sort of word "they" would use, wouldn't they, because they're out of touch.

No, his philosophy is a lot more simple:

"There's nothing wrong with looking out for other people."

Who wouldn't agree with that? And who wouldn't put it in exactly those words? It's the kind of thing that you, me or anyone could say and believe in.

And it's a really well balanced line.

Say it out loud.

The stresses fall like this, one every other syllable:

"There's nothing wrong with looking out for other people."

You can imaging him stopping, looking out at the audience, emphasising it, but not too much: this is who I am, with a simple philosophy for doing right, just the same as you.

Obama probably didn't write it, but he knows how to find someone who can write.

And how much better is it than the wordy, abstract, disappear-up-its-own-arse Oxbridge phrasing that our lot come out with?

Can you imagine Peter Mandelson even being able to think like that, let alone say it?

They have got no idea how to talk to the people they are meant to represent because they never listen to them speak.

But anyway, fingers crossed for Tuesday.

Come on Americans, do the right thing!