Reading the Arcades Project, I have to wonder what would have caught Benjamin's eye (and other senses) had he been working on the 21st c. US instead of 19th c. Paris. I have to think that the ubiquitous voice synthesizer would be one item on his list. Why is it so pervasive in pop music? Is it the desire to have the natural fed back in distorted form? In order to denature the voice (and, by implication, the body), or to hear the natural distorted by the machine, so that it corresponds to the experience of everyday life in capitalist society, blah blah blah? I have to think it would be more original than all that. Or maybe that's the problem - the New, the desire for novelty, which relapses into spleen afterwards.
What are some other things WB might fix upon? Vitual reality of all sorts, surely. Environmental bumper stickers. The NBA playoffs in the summer. Facebook, of course.
Revised mortician vignette
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"Where's your aria this morning?" I asked the singing mortician as he
leaned out of his red car in his dull scrubs to put on his new and very
white tenni...
5 days ago
