Upon waking to the news of the volcanic ash that's drifting ever closer, my immediate thought was of Don DeLillo's White Noise, and the airborne toxic event that he describes.
'...we saw a remarkable and startling sight. It appeared in the sky ahead of us and to the left, prompting us to lower ourselves in our seats, bend our heads for a clearer view, exclaim to each other in half finished phrases. It was the black billowing cloud, the airborne toxic event, lighted by the clear beams of seven army helicopters. They were tracking its windborne movement, keeping it in view. In every car, heads shifted, drivers blew their horns to alert others, faces appeared in side windows, expressions set in tones of outlandish wonderment.
The enormous dark mass moved like some death ship in a Norse legend, escorted across the night by armored creatures with spiral wings. We weren't sure how to react. It was a terrible thing to see, so close, so low, packed with chlorides, benzines, phenols, hydrocarbons, or whatever the precise toxic content. But it was also spectacular, part of the grandness of a sweeping event, like the vivid scene in the switching yard or the people trudging across the snowy overpass with children, food, belongings, a tragic army of the dispossessed. Our fear was accompanied by a sense of awe that bordered on the religious. It is surely possible to be awed by the thing that threatens your life, to see it as a cosmic force, so much larger than yourself, more powerful, created by elemental and willful rhythms. This was a death made in the laboratory, defined and measurable, but we thought of it at the time in a simple and primitive way, as some seasonal perversity of the earth like a flood or tornado, something not subject to control. Our helplessness did not seem compatible with the idea of a man-made event.'
So, I guess I believe in fiction.
Banksy: 'They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilisations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.'
I've always been a fan of Banksy's art, and not just the curious suspicion it evokes in modern-day principles, but the means in which Banksy as an artist operates. To work with the medium of graffiti should be problematic for an artist, what with the obvious time pressures and legal issues that abound, not to mention the notion of whether it should be deemed 'art' at all by many individuals ('People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access'). I'm sure Banksy doesn't call it art. And yet it is obviously the means itself with Banksy that imbues his pieces with something more pertinent. His work is raw and angry, terse but suggestive. They stand as venomous advertisements, motifs of disillusionment and quiet violence. By scrawling it across a battered tube train on the District Line, or the empty canvas of a forgotten white-washed wall in Bristol, Banksy is asking for our distrust to the same degree as all those big-buck businesses are crying out for our hand via their next advertising campaign. His role as a graffiti artist is as much about reclaiming the streets from the rodents as it is about letting them loose from the stinking sewers. Are the rats those corporate companies and politicians that run riot, or is it the ordinary man, left squatting in his own mess? Surely it can't be a coincidence that 'rat' is an anagram of 'art'?
Tonight I will be watching the first televised political debate between the three main parties. I don't know who to vote for. I've questioned whether to vote at all. Then I get angry at people who say they won't be voting because they don't know or understand enough, which basically translates as they haven't tried to know or understand enough. I get angry at people who say they won't be voting because they don't believe it will make any difference, which actually means they don't want things to be any different. Everyone is claiming that this is the most exciting election in a long time because the race is so narrow but, when you think about it, it's actually the most unexciting because people just don't care who wins. The state of things hasn't quite reached the level of an 'airborne toxic event' yet, but it's certainly more than a 'feathery plume'; I'd say it's at the stage of a 'black billowing cloud', but one that is getting progressively closer and darker.
Banksy: 'Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw wherever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet.'
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