Thought du jour - 16 August 2011

"Just as early industrial capitalism moved the focus of existence from being to having, post-industrial culture has moved that focus from having to appearing." - Guy Debord

Scene from the Mall

"Time stops by the 3rd floor railing
next to the food court
(no real food actually served)
as I endure a non-event horizon
of the never-ending grey glop mush of
mediocrity which passes for the
heirs of Voltaire these days,
the screens of their blackberries
the only illumination they'll ever know.
If they all dropped dead
no one would miss them,
least of all themselves...
an inconspicuously conspicuous mass of
conspicuously inconspicuous consumerites,
legions of the lacklustre for
the new imperium of the lowest
common denominator."

Written by yours truly last year, while waiting for a friend to finish shopping at MicMac Mall. Meanwhile, apropos of conspicuous consumption, I highly recommend The Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord.

Paul Kimball