Back in England. Door-to-door a fifteen-hour journey. Task of the day, Monday December 18th, 2023, is to take the train down south, two hours to London. In Wilmslow train station it’s hard to tell there’s money in the air. Outside though, every other car is a Porsche, Range Rover, BMW, or Bentley. Took a day to see a Rolls Royce. At the platform there’s a seemingly stochastic rhythm of interweaved footsteps striding, shuffling, and plodding on hard surfaces. To my mind the surfaces sound wet, but it’s probably a subconscious inference from the myriad of dripping sounds. I am back in the northwest (of England): rain.

In Wilmslow’s train station you’re never far from being arm’s distance away from magpies or well-dressed folk, least when getting the train to Euston. I’m not sure what has happened here, Sunak possibly, but there was an eerie lack of pigeons in this station. As the train slowed its roll through the platform, the well-dressed yet inelegant folk hurriedly marched with an odd smugness towards the front of the train, purpose calling. Only to double back on their forethought on realising their cart was toward the back. I can only assume that where they are going, their gauche style will fit in. But alas, I am on the same train.   

Cart F. Seat 9. I sat down. Apologise to a woman who was resting on the two seats, one of which I had reserved. She moves on. Guiltily, I had not meant to move her, but am happy all the same. By the time the train starts moving, a man, who too just boarded, is making dinner reservations for Thursday. The haughty enunciated voice is not being carried well on the phone’s signal. “The name is Robert. It’s Robert. —Robert”. Ribbet. Upper-middle class heartlands. We are just departing. The upper, middle class, heartlands.

The trains are not as bad as I recall, but no better, having recently been spoiled on Via Rail in Canada, which, to be fair, is very expensive unless you book way in advance. There is the faint smell of urine in the air, likely from the latrine with an open door, but I’m not so naive as to eradicate all uncertainty. A young woman sits beside me and somehow eats crisps silently: a magician worthy of show. I see a pigeon in London Euston station. No ticket checks!

Arrive to Leicester Square Theatre at 6:40pm. The door lady is wearing the Monday blues, impeccably. Staff inside are friendly. Seated by 6:45pm. Seat A10! Front row, dead centre. As the place begins to fill, I’m checking my phone every five minutes, anticipating the start of the show. I start getting some adrenaline, the flighty kind. Guitar driven music is being played over the speakers prior to the show, it has a soft but up-tempo bassline that banks this way and that. It’s soothing. I become entranced on how the stool centre stage, behind the mic stand, is lit. It has red specular highlights and is itself red metal framed. The red, rim lighting pops around its near-edges and the underside of the seat has a red glow from light bouncing up off the stage floor from behind, which is also causing another red rim light but on the underside of the metal frame, which is neon-like given the contrast between it and the relatively dark underside. After many reminders of the time at which the show is to begin, the show begins. It is now apparent that I’ve not only chosen a centre front-row seat, but that the first seat to my left as well as two to my right are no-shows in the 400-seat, sold-out theatre. My first comedy show, and I’m island-like in the front row.

Basic Lee was the show. By Lee’s admission it started with a definition of stand-up comedy that got refined; he put forth, in a joke, that he was actually a literary-art performer not a stand-up. The show’s middle might have been the “But what is” Stand-up comedy, ashamedly I can’t remember. The end was the delivery of stand-up comedy which included the purported mandatory faux sob story.

The show was a blast. I underestimated how close I was going to be. Looking him in the eye was tough to maintain, even if I had wanted to, given the severe neck angle. Being alone at the front and with it being my first comedy show, I was a bit nervous about potential interaction from Stewart Lee. However, after the start of the second half my nerves were put at ease and I laughed freely.

I loved the metanarratives and long-form jokes. “This is me now, for those of you confused”, Stewart Lee remarked at least once. Mid-joke persona changes were easy to overlook at the moment, given the fluidity and pacing of the show, but they were part of the charm for me, and, I assume, part of the dupes and suspension that enable the curtain to be thrown back many a time within a long-form joke that might last upward of 20 minutes.

He opened with topical stuff whilst (as part of his act) complaining about doing topical stuff. Rishi Sunak’s government, and the three other Tory governments that had been had whilst he started writing the show (Jan 2023). Monarchists. He also riffed on his usual audience: men that like high-brow, exclusive stuff who drag their partners to his shows and condescendingly explain why he (Stuart) is so good. Fleabag being the first art form to address the audience, middle-class Oxbridge required—if only there had been working class art forms to do it”… Or something close to.

Lee started crowd work at the start of the second half. Picking on the slogans of what people were wearing. Characterising some audience members: there was the Andrew Tate disciple, Claire from accounting, the guy who likes hyper-violent films and doesn’t care for their cultural impact or historical context, and man with a symbol of a potentially Nazi radio station, oh, as well as me, the reclusive, too good for friends just like the character, Stuart Lee, in the show.

This got me a handshake from the Greatest Stand-up in the World (I think this is a The Times quote). Yes, Stewart, I am your main demographic: bearded man who likes exclusive things and would drag his partner to see them if she was in the same country. So, I do notice and enjoy that I got the only handshake.

Funnily, on the way out, I took a wrong turn and left the venue instead of going to his merch stand where he sells things. I ask if I could go back in, “Yes”. I go. I am the last in line, but Stewart’s merch stand is manned by him and another. I got the other (of course) and already had my money out, so people could move on with their lives, and pay him for a book and leave. I had hoped to get a polaroid picture. But I cannot confront him. Let’s leave it at a handshake, no verbal blunders or disinterest.

This was my first comedy show, and as said, it was a blast. I don’t think it would be possible for me to go to another show quite like this, the act is a big name in comedy nationally, and I was front centre with no one on either side. Perhaps because I was on my own, or because it was my first show, or even my reticent nature, but as an audience member I found it hard to laugh without being self-conscious. I think Stewart Lee treated me delicately, I stuck out on the front, and he only interacted with me in ways that were semi-complimentary or a call back to previous interactions. Comparatively, I would say he flagellated some (in the capacity expected for the context). I’m not sure where the sensibilities he had in dealing with me came from… Probably 35 years of performing. Maybe it’s just decent etiquette to not go for the lone, quiet showgoer. Maybe it was a read of my body language, scarce eye contact and clammed-up joy. Maybe both, or otherwise.

It’s odd, and misguided, but there were times where it really felt like he, Lee, was talking directly to you (or, I should say, to me, to put it more explicitly and expose the ridiculousness of the statement). This might factor in how I see him dealing with me as an audience member. I think, really, it’s testament to him as a writer and performer, knowing how to deliver a show and improvise. Anyhow, Lee’s interaction with me as an audience member did me a great service, it gave me licence to laugh. Consequently, I could relax and, without realising, immerse myself in the show. Probably the best £30 I have spent in a long time.

Perfect Blue (1997) is an “adult-oriented anime psychological thriller film”. The storyline follows a pop idol, Mima, who is undertaking a career change to become an actress whilst contending with an obsessed fan and, consequently, her lapsing sanity. If you have not seen the film, please do not research it or read past this paragraph—it is best experienced by going in blind. The themes in Perfect Blue make it an uneasy watch, but it is thought provoking so long as anime does not shatter your verisimilitude. 

The late director of Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon, was devoted to the format of anime, with this being his first film. He has been quoted saying live-action films were not of interest for him to create as he wanted to “depict the moment when landscapes and people that look as if they are real suddenly reveal themselves to be ‘fiction’ or ‘pictures’”. And for this purpose, anime suits, given its untethered relationship to visual realism.

Perfect Blue extensively plays with layers of reality. Initially, you are slowly submerged into disorientation as the protagonist, Mima, begins her career change. She becomes haunted through mourning her past opportunities, which have noticeably blossomed under her former colleagues; and by her current career choices, that are proving to be intensely demeaning; in addition to the (absent) presence of a stalker who is instilling dread and paranoia by detailing her day-to-day life with varying degrees of factuality on an online blog purported to be by Mima. The merging of these circumstances and emotions serve as a sharp accelerant toward the blurring of her reality.

Disentanglement from reality is heightened towards the third act during a sequence that ostensibly takes place in dreams, reality, delusions, and protagonist-unaware metafiction, all of which repeat and double-in on one another. You are dragged down into Mima’s paranoia, as It quickly becomes impossible to know whether what you are watching represents reality, a TV scene being filmed, a delusion, or dreams. I particularly liked that the delusions in the film start as snatched glances of defiant reflections which, over the course of the film, increasingly gain their independence to eventually become ghosts roaming free.

The reality blurring can be reframed as loss of, or questioning of, identity over time, and in physicality. Identity here meaning sameness and, as a corollary, difference. Attached to this is interrogation of one’s own agency. In Perfect Blue, celebrity as well as identity are key components to the plot, but its key themes sidestep the typical intersection of these two (the  camera-facing brand persona vs the private). Instead, Mima’s identity seems as one, in flux over jagged reefs of paranoia, fear, and degradation. The narrative invites the audience into the flux, into disorientation.

Early in the film, there’s a scene of Mima and one of her managers, Rumi, unboxing and setting up a novel technology, the Apple Mac. Watching this in 2023 is part hilarious, part painstaking, as Rumi explains what a World Wide Web browser is and how to enter a web-page address. Shortly thereafter, whilst on her own, Mima discovers the online blog purported to be authored by her, detailing her own life. The discovery starts whimsically but becomes dread filled in the insidious milieu of detailed non-fiction and lies. 

The blog reading scene is reminiscent of social media these days. Harkening to individuals curating an image of themself to platform and project out, which then folds in, causing a mix of anxieties and maladies in effort to beget the projected identity. Of course, for Mima, there is another person authoring the blog. Even so, what stuck out, in comparison to social media, was when the lies became desired to Mima: the blog was no longer at fault but she was, for not living up to it.  

On an aside, social media seemingly has a closer relationship to grovelling materialism and hedonism than blogs, however this may be due to the anachronism of blogs which were supplanted by the readily accessible sphere of social-media platforms.

Another central theme to Perfect Blue is the male gaze. There is rampant female nudity, and no lovemaking. With this comes a clear use of aesthetics to titillate. Practically all scenes with nudity concern negative aspects of the male gaze, with many being about male consumption. Such scenes include: filming of a rape scene for a fictional TV show (Double Bind); a glamour photoshoot where it is heavily implied the photographer used soft power to further expose the protagonist; and an attempted rape by an obsessed fan. In these scenes Mima is subjected to men (director, photographer, fan). 

The representations of entertainment industries lauded over by men are unmissable; afterall, the story hinges on two women grasping with the aestheticization of the feminine body by said entertainment industries. Anime enables ideal points of view (cinematography); consistent doll-like faces void of bone structure; and extreme high-pitch voices. These heightenings are, to my mind, enabled by the distance from the aesthetic of realism that anime holds. Consequently, I wonder if anime, and other formats not grounded in the aesthetic of realism, are well suited to explore the preternatural.

All this to say, I am looking forward to seeing more of Satoshi’s Kon’s films, though I struggle with anime to some extent. Perfect Blue was an enlivening title within the sea of films on offer from streaming services, which tend to be brain numbing.

(Screenshots taken for post)

SHIVERS

Within an expanse of evergreen trees and granitic hillocks, the city stands as a fortress. Its metal, concrete, and wood crenelations snow lapped. Down in Old Town, the door to a wooden cabin opens. A frigid wind rushes to meet an unprepared traveller. Stepping out, shivers enmesh his body, a gown coat goes hurriedly zipped. He looks south-east skyward, across the bay. A cold white return is given. Shivers recede.

PUPPETRY

Somewhere in the nucleic downtown, where the federal government has you believe their neutrality, and the mining companies their positivity, a duet of reproached soliloquies takes place. The stage is set a street back from main, in a minus 20 °C bluster. A stocky man, torso leather clad, head accented by yellow beret, is walking broadly then holds out and up a palm. His other hand raises in a single-finger point that first arcs up then down, emphatically, into the outstretched palm. “Any change?”. “Sorry, I don’t”, replies an ensconced technocrat; they continue to walk, passing each other. Then Soliloquy One comes in hard and fast, slurred from under the yellow beret where the puppet show has now ended like a switch thrown. The brutal words, said forcefully but undirected in a Molotov of resentment and shame, get snuffed out on the wind.

The technocrat, on his way to buy gluten-free lemon-poppy-seed cake, starts on his own train of words to never be heard, wondering if: 1) all the times he had been afraid of being violently accosted on the street were in vain as, really, someone was much more likely to stab him in the face after conversing with him; 2), that the wild yellow-beret man, in his anger, was valid to feel the way he did, foreseeably so; and 3), neo-barbaric: prostrate before soft hands and a well-oiled smug civility. This is the way it’s going to be. The puppet show continues.

Coincidentally, at the same spot a year prior, where there is a Subway at the crossroads and a Korean restaurant close by, the technocrat witnessed a woman in a wheelchair waiting on a person to get out of a car. However, her chair (and her) began to roll down along the pavement, turning, and she got launched off a high curb backward, cracking her head on the road below. The other passenger got out of the car and began to angrily reprimand the reeling wheelchair user, who was clasping their head for sometime. They both continued their respective actions for an unappealing amount of time. Foreseeably a street with one less pair of soft hands.

CRITICAL

It is a pedestrian Thursday afternoon that is as cold and dark as expected given the latitude and time of year. Outside the Capitol Theatre snow is falling softly, and the engine of a mini bus gently rumbles. Past the theatre entrance, at the base of the stairs and to one side is a faded movie poster mock-up with a nevertheless-vibrant border of warm orange and deep purple bands. A man in a suit is pictured against a bespeckled beige background. He has an enlarged camera for his head. The giant glass element of the lens covers all space where his head would be and more. “IT IS AN OFFENCE […]”, says the federal warning poster. Of all places for a reminder of the federal government. 

Heading up the stairs, the networking of geoscientists can be heard, it is a baffle of voices. At the top, a security guard requests a pass which I cannot brandish as I have just arrived. He directs me one of the two ways there is to go, not back, but down an elongate corridor. The corridor is just long enough that your vision narrows in an attempt to clearly see what awaits at the end: there are three young women in a line, standing behind a counter framed by the corridor’s rectangular end. They are lit brightly from above in an otherwise crepuscular space. As I begin my passage down the corridor, their gaze seems to triangulate and I feel like I have been brought to, inspected, put on a scale and weighed… Please, give me my badge and officiate me.

Leftward of the inspection counter, and out of view of the liminal space of the corridor, is the coat check. It is run by measuredly curt senior members of the Yellowknife community. They appear to be volunteers based on the donation box at the desk with the written prompt, “Support our seniors!”. I feel guilt every time I make them move, but not as guilty as when at least two of the three young women at the inspection counter notice me staring at the bank notes in the box, which are piled like feathers. It’s not that I need the money, though I would kind of like it, it’s more that I don’t appreciate how to run a conference. There are two “Diamond”, two “Gold”, nine “Silver”, five “Tungsten”, and nine “Zinc” sponsors. These correspond respectively to donations upward of fifteen, ten, five, and two-and-a-half thousand Canadian dollars, but not coat, bag, and boot check. Conservatively the budget is C$117,500 for the three-day conference; I would guess about 100 people registered, which represents about another C$30,000 if they all paid the student fee. It is Yellowknife, mid-November. Value your seniors.

MINERALS

The poster I am to present follows an untraditional layout, as suggested by conference organisers. It was hurriedly made, and I did not manage to integrate edits put forth from the main collaborator before printing, but I thought it stood watertight for the content within. At the poster exhibition, all posters have the title and authors at the top bar mine. Mine looks like a denuded tree amongst a verdant information forest, or maybe, more aptly, a cute sapling competing for light. Do trees feel pity?

The keynote speech was by Matthew Steele-MacInnes. He described himself with chronological consideration: firstly, it was “economic geologist”, which he conceded was a dirty term for academics; then, “geologist studying geochemical anomalies”; and finally, to capture the zeitgeist, “critical minerals geologist”. He pointed out their synonymous nature. He enjoyed language and clearly had an appreciation for it; his talk was long but engaging and digestible. He spent a surprising amount of time talking about language (in geoscience and policy) and keeping the crowd buoyed with gentle laughs. He made things sound easy, both the talking and the academics, so it is readily imaginable that he is deserved of his acclaim and awards. His conscious unpacking of language was aspirational, so it was all the more disappointing that the sentiment landed as staunchly neoliberal.

He appeared to hold the assumption technology will liberate, which I, unfortunately, hold too. Where I think we differ is the extent of criticality toward technology as a register of power that concentrates money to those who have it. I’m sure he would say “A rising tide raises all ships”. To which I don’t have a meaningful rebuttal, yes the wider spread of technology seems most apt in the potential for quality of life. The best, and terrible, rebuttal I can formulate is “When has the tide risen enough?”. You don’t have to look far, geographically, to see the tide is still out. Perhaps a temporal view would be best. However, the blind spot to cultural critique was telling, and maybe best summed up in the image he used to show distribution of electronic infrastructure globally: where do the mines which enabled that infrastructure plot on that globe? Which countries are the companies registered in? Where doth the money flow?

Even if the technological tide rises high, can we get off this train? Will we ever societally desire to? When everyone has everything. When everyone owns everything. Capitalism is a highly prodigious system, in a war machine of nations it hard to see it being stepped back from.  

I think Michael was a good look at what I perceive myself to be up against. A seemingly unquestionable neoliberal view. He was witty enough to be entertaining, amicable enough to be disarming, and noted language carefully, yet he is on the train. Next stop, critical minerals gold rush. For the technocrats!

UGLY THOUGHTS

I deliver the three-to-five-minute soapbox talk for the poster. I am not me. I sound like I started smoking at age six and my voice has dropped three-quarters of an octave. I feel like I am saying nothing, and an eternity has gone by. The microphone remains in its stand, where all other students who deliver soapbox talks keep it.  I stoop because the mic is too low. I memorised the talk but am anchored behind this desk and godforsaken conference laptop, which I am stuck awkwardly looking toward as if I haven’t an idea of what I am going to say. I look down to spot the mic as I compensate my stoop to ensure my addled voice remains constant in the theatre.

I raise the laser pointer about a minute into the talk, to gesture at the map on my poster. Not only do I have a smoking habit but I’ve developed Parkinson’s too, as the laser pointer is in a jagged dance. It’s my evident lack of control disembodied and projected onto the back wall. It makes me laugh inwardly. Which makes me start to smile outwardly. And I begin to use the laser pointer more than need be. Yet, the eternity is still going. I feel I am losing people as well as my memory, so I abruptly stop. Thereafter comments on the talk were the usual spiel, “Good talk”. I wanted to jump down throats asking “What did you like about it? What did you like within it?… Something? Anything?…”.

I tell myself “No news is good news”. As long as the undergraduate. Does. Not. Win. The poster competition. The undergraduate of the keynote speaker. The keynote speaker currently affiliated with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey (a.k.a., the judging body). The undergraduate who read her presentation verbatim off the laptop. Who addressed the hot topic in the field. Who had a typo in their site name, “Pine Point” rendered “Pint Point”: it’s a fine drinking region, no doubt. “I’ll have one of whatever the masters student who forgot their laptop on the plane is having”.

Noam Chomsky, has said “Science is a bit like the joke about the drunk who is looking under a lamppost for a key that he has lost on the other side of the street, because that’s where the light is. It has no other choice”. That’s kind of how I see that poster competition and by extension the conference as a whole.