Notes From The Lookout

MySpace was the new Blogger. Now we hear Facebook is the new MySpace. It's so hard to stay fashionable in the world of the internet. Good thing I don't give a shit.

Have you noticed that there's a certain appealing quaintness about the sight of someone reading a book in a bus station or a rail station? There is where I live, at least. Now the majority of people spend their waiting time staring at their mobile phone. I know some are listening to music or watching videos; and you can see when somebody is texting because of the motion of their thumb across the keypad. But what are the rest of them doing? Reading old text messages? Scrolling through their contacts list in a completely absent-minded way, delighting in the fact that they know so many people?
I sat next to one girl a few days ago who spent fifteen minutes doggedly deleting one text message after another in her inbox while she waited for the bus from Northampton to Kettering. This may be the communication age, but as with deregulation of television services many years ago, an increase in the many ways a person can communicate seems to have drastically diminished the quality of the communication being made.

We learn that a relatively unknown fellow called Fred Thompson may get the Republican nomination for the presidential election in the US when that sainted day comes and George Bush finally leaves the White House. Apparently Thompson is an actor in some kind of television show and has very few political accomplishments to his name.
That probably doesn't matter. I feel uncomfortable as a fervent liberal (if such a thing exists) predicting it, but I can't see Clinton OR Obama being able to seize the presidency, however suited both of them might be, and however deeply-rooted dissatisfaction with the occupation of Iraq might be. They just don't feel like potential presidents in this confused and conservative age of ours.
I hope I'm wrong, though.

Next post, POETRY. Yes, I have finally written some. And all it took to set the stage for the return of my better, bardic self was three months of constant rain, pleurisy, depression, alcoholism, loneliness, and some good reading.
Who'd be an artist.