And We Thank You in Advance for Your Participation

Coincidentally and obliquely related to the prior post. Pere Lebrun/Mister Kasper easing out of a long blogging hiatus, weighing in on ritual, pageantry, and the social sphere...

"Those who orbit closest to these spectacles drift – perhaps in vain – towards that most ancient promise: to belong. Advertising explains to us the most efficient means of doing so. Billboards, policies, shop fronts, profits, policing and urban planning move towards an ideal of a city that exists as theme park in the social imaginary. The collection of fragmentary experiences aggregating into a thematic coherence, or rather an over-reaching alibi: the future. Or, when that fails to convince even its most loyal ideologues, a tradition that always threatens to be lost in social reality."

Excellent work.

{ image: Ian Berry, Docklands, 1992 }