Saturday, July 14, 2007
Memory, Starbucks and Mao
Mao Tse-Tung tried to eradicate Chinese culture. He almost succeeded. Respect for tradition, however, survives. Or does it? A Starbucks in the Forbidden City has closed after a 500,000 signature petition claimed it was 'trampling on Chinese culture'. My suspicions are aroused by this line in the BBC story - 'The Starbucks branch was told it could stay open if it sold other brands but has declined.' This doesn't sound like a popular uprising, it sounds like another commie plot. So perhaps Mao succeeded. He wouldn't have any problem if he were around now. Some clever people in Colorado have worked how how we can be made to suppress memories. I am drawn to this idea. The first thing I'd do, of course, is eradicate all memories of a coffee shop called Starbucks.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
That would to you the power of good, Bryan.
ReplyDeleteI know. Perhaps I could also forget short sleeved shirts with ties
ReplyDeleteBut then you'd have to forget this great man.
ReplyDeleteAnd Homer, of course.
ReplyDeletewatched Predator again last night: it has a great scene where Arnie meets the CIA apple polisher Dillon - the latter in short-sleeve shirt & tie - Arnie's first act, after arm-wrestling him into homoerotic submission, is to gesture to the tie and say "what is this fucking tie business?"
ReplyDeleteJust a thought; if every Starbucks branch were ordered out of the great city of Manchester, the effects could be threefold: 1) the sheer number of buildings released would increase the City's potential housing stock by about 40%, 2) If this approach were adopted nationwide, massive areas of greenbelt would be saved as estimates of need for new housing by 2020 were slashed from 3 to 2 million, and 3) My raging palpitations would be a thing of the past.
ReplyDelete