Last week, I was at the Profil Megastore (my Croatian publisher’s flagship store) to see how my book is feeling there. I found a book by Banksy, the UK street art guru (see my post from 20.5.2008) which I can recommend to everybody – it will both amuse you and make you think. So, I sat down at the café on the gallery to have a cup of coffee, look at Banksy’s work and occasionally glance down to see how people “interact” with my book. And then I realised I never signed any books for the store, so inspired by Banksy’s interventions, I simply went down, picked a huge pile of my books, brought them up to my coffee table and signed them. Each with a little note, of course. I returned the books and was very amazed because NOBODY reacted. I could have been just anybody writing anything into anyone’s books. I could have taken a bunch of Candace Bushnell’s books and signed those. Lesson learned: you can do whatever you want, as long as you do it with an overdose of confidence. “Catch me if you can”, remember?
Later that day, I proudly told Lucija about my “intervention” into my own books. “Shit, what if people complain that someone destroyed the books! Even the people working at the store can’t know the signature is really yours!” Well, shit happens. Maybe somebody gets the joke. And if not, if they really think someone else signed my books, they will have to throw them away – and print new books. And that’s how you get your second edition!
99F (The Film)
Wednesday, October 22nd, 200899F, a movie based on Frédéric Beigbeder’s bestselling book has finally arrived toAustria
99F became a bestseller as it came out in 2000 because it spoke openly about theSodom
But exactly the timing – the fact that we are currently standing in the middle of a painful awakening – gives the movie a huge plus. Because in his book, Frédéric used the frentic world of advertising to criticize our imbecile, irresponsible, consumerist state of mind. This is exactly the state of mind which brought us to the current crash of the economy and also of the whole socio-political system.
The movie is definitely fun to watch – it is like being dipped into a big, colourful, juicy comic. A great game with reality on one side, a bit too chaotic on the other. The trick of dividing the story into “I”, “You”, “He” chapters, which was unnecessary in the book, is only confusing in the movie. The book suffers an overdose of advertising tricks, and so does the movie but here, this overdose serves its purpose. I missed a few of the best scenes from the book. I also missed the direct criticism and some great thoughts from the book. But hey – can’t have it all!
Tags: Book, Commentary, Media
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