Fabulous piece of writing from Gordon Burn today in the Guardian about a particular, and very familiar, relationship with the past – The ‘English disease’ See also Gordon Burn in my blog entry on murder, the domestic and the uncanny – [Link] So good I have to quote quite a bit … Bob Dylan hated…
heritage
conservative heritage – the Yes Men version
A new take on our Classical heritage from The Yes Men.
memory, heritage, things and a sense of who we are
BBC magazine article today on the nostalgia business – it is big and growing. BMW’s new Mini – after the 60s icon – is very popular here in northern California. Raleigh’s 1970s “chopper” bicycle was relaunched last month. Now some people have a problem with all this – because they see nostalgia as some kind…
Issues of cultural property – the usual tensions
Two articles this weekend about the Parthenon marbles. The Guardian reports a video making a case for the return of the marbles sent to 1000 members of Parliament in the UK. The New York Times yesterday ran an article about the guilt instilled by a new museum on the slopes of the Acropolis in Athens,…
The perfume of garbage
Beginning work with Bill Rathje and David Platt on a paper for a special issue on archaeology and modernism for the journal Modernism/Modernity This is how we begin with the World Trade Center There is something profoundly archaeological about the experience of 9/11 and its aftermath. Less than a month after the attack a meeting…
Heritage and urban myth
Gateshead UK – Baltic Center for Contemporary Art Dinner last night with Peter and Sue MacDonald; Helen of course too. The restaurant is at the top of the old flour mill on the quayside, though it looks like a grain silo. It’s now an arts center, 46 million quids worth. Lots of other development here…