Life Laundry
Prompted by the horrified realisation that I was turning into my mother in terms of showing hoarding tendencies, (she has the excuse of coming from a generation where you never threw anything away because a) things could be fixed rather than just replaced back then and b) even if something was knackered beyond repair, it could always be pressed into service as part of a barricade against any Nazi invasion) I decided to get rid of some of my stuff, or ‘junk’ as my wife more accurately if somewhat cruelly describes it.
This was prompted not just by the fear of turning into my Mother in terms of hoarding, but the very real possibility of turning into one of those mad old men who start off hoarding magazine collections that week by week build into a treasury of tat that you’ll treasure forever as it collects dust under your bed. Free binder with part two. Then you start hoarding all newspapers. Then before you know it you’re crapping in a plastic bag and hiding it in a cupboard to keep it safe from the Government.
My extensive video collection sat dust covered and neglected. It wasn’t just that my VCR had started playing up about three years ago and I had never bothered fixing or replacing it, nor was it that I was fickle enough to have transferred my attention first to DVDs, then to the internet (video is okay, DVD is better, youtube is hysterical but nothing, and I mean nothing, tops some desperate presenter on BidUp TV whoring himself live on telly trying to persuade you to buy towels and seeing that they have ten thousand of in stock, sit back, ‘phone your friends and start making bets on when his perspiration and desperation will become visible), it was just I had better things to do. Nintendo mainly.
One thing is for sure, anyone going into the local Oxfam will have one hell of an opportunity to get themselves a world class cinematic education on a budget. No longer will they have to feel slightly inferior because they have not seen classic movies. Even better, I was able to group them by genre.
This proved to be a little bit disturbing. There was a hell of a lot of action movies, with Arnie and Bruce very well represented. This is odd, as I always thought that I was a sensitive little soul, but based on the evidence of my movie tastes, my sensitivity extended to thinking it uncouth if a villain was dispatched without a pithy one-liner.
There’s a book by Umberto Eco about a guy who, after losing his memory, returns to his childhood home to re-read all of the books he consumed growing up. The idea is that it will trigger memory recovery but what the guy is actually trying to do is reconstruct himself from this literature. This is something I’ve often considered, and wondered about its effect, but what the book made me realise is that the character had the realisation that he was just as much a product of what he had read as what he had done. This is more than true in my case as I shamelessly plagiarise anything that might make me sound more witty or important than I actually am. So God alone knows what I would have been like if I had tried to reconstruct my character from my video collection – probably that special 80’s action combination of camp and butch and always ready with a one liner and a rocket launcher.
Obviously, there were some videos that I just could not part with. Video diaries from ten years ago, from the Hay literature festival, from the Edinburgh festival and from Sidmouth Folk Festival, back in the days where my mate owned a broadcast quality video camera and I had a jacket and tie and a microphone and you could get away with just about anything. Also, the Star Wars Trilogy that was bought for me for my 21st. Two reasons to keep this, sentimental value and because they prove, like incriminating CCTV footage, that HAN SHOT FIRST DAMMIT! Oh, and my wedding video.
This was prompted not just by the fear of turning into my Mother in terms of hoarding, but the very real possibility of turning into one of those mad old men who start off hoarding magazine collections that week by week build into a treasury of tat that you’ll treasure forever as it collects dust under your bed. Free binder with part two. Then you start hoarding all newspapers. Then before you know it you’re crapping in a plastic bag and hiding it in a cupboard to keep it safe from the Government.
My extensive video collection sat dust covered and neglected. It wasn’t just that my VCR had started playing up about three years ago and I had never bothered fixing or replacing it, nor was it that I was fickle enough to have transferred my attention first to DVDs, then to the internet (video is okay, DVD is better, youtube is hysterical but nothing, and I mean nothing, tops some desperate presenter on BidUp TV whoring himself live on telly trying to persuade you to buy towels and seeing that they have ten thousand of in stock, sit back, ‘phone your friends and start making bets on when his perspiration and desperation will become visible), it was just I had better things to do. Nintendo mainly.
One thing is for sure, anyone going into the local Oxfam will have one hell of an opportunity to get themselves a world class cinematic education on a budget. No longer will they have to feel slightly inferior because they have not seen classic movies. Even better, I was able to group them by genre.
This proved to be a little bit disturbing. There was a hell of a lot of action movies, with Arnie and Bruce very well represented. This is odd, as I always thought that I was a sensitive little soul, but based on the evidence of my movie tastes, my sensitivity extended to thinking it uncouth if a villain was dispatched without a pithy one-liner.
There’s a book by Umberto Eco about a guy who, after losing his memory, returns to his childhood home to re-read all of the books he consumed growing up. The idea is that it will trigger memory recovery but what the guy is actually trying to do is reconstruct himself from this literature. This is something I’ve often considered, and wondered about its effect, but what the book made me realise is that the character had the realisation that he was just as much a product of what he had read as what he had done. This is more than true in my case as I shamelessly plagiarise anything that might make me sound more witty or important than I actually am. So God alone knows what I would have been like if I had tried to reconstruct my character from my video collection – probably that special 80’s action combination of camp and butch and always ready with a one liner and a rocket launcher.
Obviously, there were some videos that I just could not part with. Video diaries from ten years ago, from the Hay literature festival, from the Edinburgh festival and from Sidmouth Folk Festival, back in the days where my mate owned a broadcast quality video camera and I had a jacket and tie and a microphone and you could get away with just about anything. Also, the Star Wars Trilogy that was bought for me for my 21st. Two reasons to keep this, sentimental value and because they prove, like incriminating CCTV footage, that HAN SHOT FIRST DAMMIT! Oh, and my wedding video.
3 Comments:
Oh my gosh. You have made me realize my problem: a one liner and a rocket launcher? That's ME! That is, as soon as you add in the 'James Bond collection' factor with meanlingless one-night-stands. Oh dear...maybe I should follow suit and get rid of all of my videos. I can't, however, because I've invested in a VCR/DVD combo player. I don't tend to watch either, but some day I might get rid of my cable. Who knows?
I can't believe it---another relationship debacle..wtf?
Right again---he wants to "take time off"....which is weird because everything was going so well until I caught him in a lie. He said he hadn't met anyone else which is even more confusing. I think he's the one who freaks himself out. Maybe it's a little too close to the holidays and he's not into buying presents. whatever. I don't care anymore. He doesn't get any more chances with me. (and if i put it in writing, I REALLY mean it)
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