My path to mindful consumerism is fairing well. I can categorically claim now that I do not buy books, CDs, or DVDs. My conscience is not pricked by the damage I'm doing to these industries and their employees as I'm sure I'm in an eentsy-weentsy minority of, oh, about 0.0083%. I feel good.
I went to the library to get a book to help me with life drawing. I didn't spot one but came away with Outsiders: Art by People, by Steve Lazarides. It's an interesting book. Much of the art in the book is intended to shock the viewer by its context, its message, and its scale. In a book, most of it comes across as witty; I had to stop and think, hey, these guys are fucking up the places where peaceable folk live! Can vandalism be acceptable as art?
The best pieces were those temporary pieces which employed dummies; a cross-legged hoodie, head bowed, hands in pockets, leaning against a city office wall with a half-empty bottle of water beside him on the pavement, or the ''floater'' lying face down in the canal beside a bridge and clutching a collection of colourful helium-filled balloons. The first piece was largely ignored while the second eventually had the emergency services executing a deep water recovery. There's a clear line between despair and drowning.
We rent films monthly from LOVEFiLM. There's been some good ones recently;
I choose films arbitrarily, not knowing too much about them; like with books, you can do that more freely when you don't have to own them. So, you'd think there couldn't be any connection between these three films but now, strangely, I'm not sure.
