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IN THE MODERN ERA Greetings. It’s nice to be here again. As you can see, I’m standing in front of this Russian painting of some sad looking lady and her little glowing worm of a child. If you think he looks sad now, come back in thirty-three years time. Also, you might have noticed that I’m dressed not unlike a certain American woman with a gap in her teeth, who has a penchant for adopting African children while wearing conical-shaped brassieres. That’s right everyone, we’re talking about icons today. Or maybe tomorrow, or sometime in the future, if you decide to read this again, but that’s up to you. Many things can be iconic. Designs, architecture, the way your mom dresses you in her old clothes before you go out clubbing – but today we’re going to take our Hp glasses (no, not the Wayfarers) and push them just a little higher on our noses, so that we can take a closer look at how to become icons ourselves. • Be an Irish person. Start a band, perhaps just pick one letter and one number for the name. Make one or two good songs, then piss about for twenty years convincing people to still give you money. When that becomes boring, harp on about ‘global issues’ until someone gives you a knighthood/international peace prize/punch in the mouth to shut up. • Turn yourself into a building. Become interesting to architectural types. Perhaps let function decide your form. Remember: the Bauhaus is not only a dog-kennel.
• Convince people that a certain pseudo-leather-bound notebook with an elastic band to keep all your ideas in will make them more creative. Place this notebook in the hands of people who like to sit in coffee shops with laptops. Let them chew their pens and drink the blood of humanely killed organic coffee beans while jotting down inane thoughts and ‘doodling’. No, no normal paper is good enough for creative people. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel would have looked much better in an artistically coffee-stained notebook, thank you very much. • Take a fairly respectable genre of music (electro, for example) and water it down until it’s acceptable enough for the masses to swallow – because it’s edgy and ‘new’ yet somehow familiar. Almost like a jersey your cat-loving Aunt knitted for you, but with lightning bolts on it! Now that you have a great, watery base for your music-pot, throw in some ‘oh-so-naughty’ references to card games, muffins and large carrots (grown into the most amusing Freudian shapes). Actually, pass on the carrots. Now, for the look. It is suggested that you make yourself look like an idiot. But an idiot from the future. Be edgy. Who needs pants when the only lips that can speak can’t be found on your poker face? That seems to be all the time we have for today. Sorry Sir, did my pointy gold breasts poke you in the eye? Or was that just my opinion of myself? May all of you become transmuted into little graphic representations of the programs that live inside your computer, Paul White, HEADLINE payoff
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one small seed