You can download the monologue on this page in English and Dutch. The links are sort of hidden. Hoover the mouse under the text “ARCHIEF”, where you see a large faint “X”. I think the original thumbnail has disappeared. The monologue is called Ruis in Dutch and Rattle in English. Rattle, I can imagine, is the noise in the streets, but I do not understand Ruis (noise, static). The monologue reads like a train-of-thought rattle. Very much how like Winogrand talked in a very Rattly manner.
At station Z, the blind man boards the train. Usually, he can sit in his regular window seat. But sometimes, that seat is occupied, and he has to find another seat, somewhat awkwardly. Bladderman immediately stands up before the blind man to offer him his seat.
The blind man listens to something on his smartphone, which he operates with a special device.
He gets off at the same station as me. With sure strides, his cane in front of him, he finds his way down the platform, up the stairs, and into the crowded station.
Bladderman keeps his briefcase on his lap. He uses it as a substrate for his Sudoku. A bag and a coat lay on the small table before him. He puzzles intently and fills in the numbers with concentration.
Every day, between stations C. and Z., he gets up. He takes his coat over his arm and takes his bag and briefcase in his hand. Packed, he walks out of the compartment and to the restroom. After a few minutes, he returns and sits back in his seat. Every day. Between stations X and Y.
Sometimes, he makes an uncomfortable chat with the Candy Crush lady.
The documentary All Things Are Photographable about Garry Winogrand is mandatory yet enjoyable homework for every (street) photographer (ignore the sometimes soggy commentary). You can view this film by Sasha Waters Freyer for free here.
Today I created another photo-video in the New Zealand for Beginners series.
You can binge and follow the playlist here. I am working on the rest of the movies. 4 more weeks of travel to cover. Then Japan is the next playlist to finish.
Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.
Postman argues that Huxley’s dystopia might be closer to reality. Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in 1985. The situation in the Western world, and especially the United States, is indeed terrifyingly even more spot on than in 1985. In today’s China, and even more so in Russia, Orwell’s reality, where Big Brother watches over the people, seems to be the state of affairs.
