Another visit to the Cloakroom today. The cress had rotted, to a sort of brown primeval soup and was beginning to smell. Annabel (on constant watch on my mental state) and I spent a little time scraping out the gunge and washing the glassware. Then, in another attempt to wrest some success from the sucker covered tentacles of hopelessness, I built a small crystal tower. It reminded Annabel of Cornell’s girl Berenice who made experiments in a crystal tower. It reminded me of Calvino’s city of glass, a poor imitation of grand proto-crystals that should have ruled the earth.
I am trying to come up with ideas for a phd application it must deal with some sort of investigation of art and technology, an area which seems to have a sickening optimism about it. Like some comic book villain, however, I find my pleasures in moments of degradation and collapse and I am not sure how this might be received, or even phrased as a research question. But the 3 year phd does come fully funded with a yearly wage which, as the world crumbles into economic dust, seems a good bet for survival. In ‘Greybeard’ Aldiss uses a bit of prescient satire in his description of the colleges of post apocalyptic Oxford. They have only survived through their embracing of a sort of economic ruthlessness where everything is seen in terms of cost and investment. I must harness their ideals and continue.
After writing the above in an international coffee chain, the only things that seem to be expanding in this recession, I returned to the Cloakroom with some more glass garnered from the nearest charity shop. While I was sitting cross legged, stacking these blunt cast offs, a security came piling into the room. She looked ready to wrestle me to the ground until I shouted: “its ok I have a crime number”.
