Effective Shopping With Emile Zola

"She was so lost and small inside the monster, inside the machine, and although it was still idle, she was terrified that she would be caught in its motion which was already beginning to make the walls quake..." (49)

Excitingly (for me) I just re-read one of my very favourite books, Ladies' Delight by Emile Zola. Also known as The Ladies' Paradise, or Au Bonheur Des Dames in the original French. The novel is part of Zola's epic 20-novel Rougon-Macquart series, which chronicles the fortunes of various branches of a French family 1850-1870. Enjoyable for stunning passages of description, forensic knowledge of the monstrous power of various sprawling social institutions (the railways, the mining industry, politics, the art world, the department store...), and also plenty of sex, death and scandal.

The Ladies' Paradise is set in the eponymous enormous Parisian department store, run by the confident and brilliant woman-conqueror Octave Mouret. I could go on about why I love this book for many pages. However, having traumatically been caught in town the other day, I thought it would be most useful to apply the wisdom of this book to the phenomenon of January sales.

God, I hate the January sales. See that quote up top? That's how I feel when accidentally caught in the masses of a large clothes store, only I am markedly less reverent. Probably I would feel better if I was in a lavish, palace-like department store in Paris in 1865. Anyway, here are some lessons that Zola can teach us about the way that the stores will try to catch you out. Oh the evil ways of marketing, germinating here in the insidious schemes of Octave Mouret! (It's ok, by the way, Mouret is eventually Brought Low by Love.)

Cheapness is never that cheap when you've been shopping all day:

"Ninety-five centimes, can it be true?...Why, I might as well take two of them, that won't ruin us!" (238)

Nothing is as good as it looks:

"In their square cardboard boxes, the suits, tied up with a ribbon, were folded so as to show only the trimmings, embroidered with blue and red, and across the corner of each box a picture showed the garment already made up, being worn by a young lady looking like a princess" (385)

No normal person ever remembers to return stuff:

"Then, penetrating even further into Woman's heart, he had recently devised "returns", a masterpiece of seduction worthy of the Jesuits. "Take it all the same, Madame: you can return the article to us if you find you don't like it." And the woman who was resisting would find in that a final excuse, a possibility of going back on an act of folly: her conscience satisfied, she would buy it." (230)

A shuffling of departments into a confusing and illogical order makes you buy more:

"Here, Bourdoncle, listen to what'll happen...Firstly, this continual coming and going of customers scatters them all over the place, multiplies them and makes them lose their heads; secondly, as they have to be conducted from one end of the shop to the other - for example if they want a lining after having bought a dress - these journeys in every direction triple for them the size of the shop; thirdly, they are forced to go through departments where they wouldn't have set foot, temptations there catch them as they pass and they succumb..." (232)

Beware advertising:

"the sixty thousand francs spent on announcements in the newspapers, the ten thousand posters on walls and the two hundred thousand catalogues which had been circulated had emptied the women's pockets and left their nerves suffering from the shock of such intoxication..." (261)

Do not be seduced by flashy displays:

"There, in the diffused light, stood a bright and gaily coloured display making a delightful effect. The counters, symmetrically placed, looked like flower beds, transforming the hall into a formal garden, beaming with a range of soft flower tones." (238)

In the presence of a gorgeous range of garments in a full stunning rainbow of colours, you buy the item, but really you are buying the rainbow. As the memory of the colourful feast for the eyes you saw in the shop fades, all you are left with is a rather ordinary blue shirt. This is why I spend so much money in American Apparel. (Although AA clothes really are nice.)

Emile Zola, Ladies' Delight, trans. April Fitzlyon 1957, Oneworld Classics 2008

P.S. Speaking of being taken in by commercialism, advertising, packaging etc., how nice is the edition above which I bought for myself in the course of seasonal spending? It was a gorgeous paperback, I couldn't help but buy it even though it's my second copy of the book. Also I wonder where the cover photo was taken?

Anatomy of an Xmas Present

Just thought I'd share a little of my "Creative Process", which in this case is put to use to make my Dad a Christmas drawing. I know the subject matter seems odd, but my Pops is a man interested in just about everything historical geographical and mineral (and possibly everything else besides, he has a true museum curator character) including postboxes. The subject here was a particularly fancy example near Norwich city hall; my Dad would of course be able to tell you the type and date and sundry other historical details. What a weirdo.

Step One: A first sketch using one of my favourite Derwent drawing pencils. I think this one is Ruby Earth? A very pretty colour, IMO.

Step Two: Whack on some red watercolour.

Step Three: A bit of shading with the red.

Step Four: Black for the letter slot and the base, and a bit more shading.

Step Five: Stick it in a simple clipframe, and Bob's Your Uncle and one's father is pleased!

I don't think I am particularly great at watercolour (or art, or life, argh), I don't have a very light touch and I've never really done enough to get the hang of it, but this was a simple subject and Papa seems satisfied, so I think that's Ok.

Tell you what I do like, though: Watercolour Challenge. What a show. Is it still on the telly, does anyone know?

Next week we will cover clouds, brushstroke width, and lampposts.

Winter Wonderland etc

No snow here this Christmas, but plenty at good old Reed College, which nestles cosily in Portland, Oregon. Alas and alack, I wish I was there to see the liberal sprinkling of the wintry white stuff this winter of 2008, although as it seems that the entire Pacific Northwest was epically snowed under such that transportation (air and land) was virtually impossible, maybe it's okay that I gave the snow a miss this year.

These pictures are a seasonal offering of a snowy playground at Reed from a couple of years back when I was lucky enough to spend a winter there. All the photos people have put up on Facebook of this year's Reed snow made me sad, even though I'm happy to be in the UK instead (and not snowed under, as mentioned previously), so I thought I'd put up these older ones as an antidote. And a nominal effort at an Xmas post.

Assignment #63

"Absolutely, Yes", Hollie Victoria Robson, London, UK

I found these on the website Learning To Love You More, set up by Miranda July and a fancy artist friend. The thesis behind the project is that they come up with assignments for people to do, and then those people send in their responses via the internets. Then they put them up on the website for your perusal, although they have also made a book. Here are a few past assignments:

Assignment #9: Draw a constellation from someone's freckles
Assignment #15: Hang a windchime on a tree in a parking lot
Assignment #34: Make a protest sign and Protest
Assignment #45: Reread your favourite book from fifth grade
Assignment #50: Take a flash photo under your bed

These are my faves from Assignment #63: Make an Encouraging Banner.

I am not one for inspirational slogans about chasing your dreams, you can achieve anything, we are all beautiful and unique snowflakes, etc. But these are lovely, because random people have made them in their houses for the purpose of encouraging strangers on the internet. Plus, they are just so cute.

"Get Awesome", Gabrielle Passaro

"Nothing is Going to Explode", Ashley Valverde

"It Will Get Warmer Again", Melissa Stricklan, Logan Utah, USA

"When It Doubt Add More Glitter", Jo, Long Beach California, USA

"Everyone Loves You", Gabrielle Passaro

"You Are Better Than You Think", Elisabeth, Auckland, New Zealand

"Good and Fine and True", Wheat Wurtzburger, New York, USA

Instructions

Some zine-related information for y'all, because people keep asking:

The submissions floodgates are open for Enthusiasm!

BUT we have a nice wodge of submissions for Issue #3, so your fantabulous pieces will more than likely appear in Issue#4.

Issue #3 will appear some time this month, a Christmas present to the zine world, and Issue#4 will be a January/February kind of deal.

Bring forth your amazing and creative submissions, party people!!

Just because I thought I was obliged to put a picture in. Flughafen the bear is getting his head squished next to a piece of my foundation year 'artwork', oh dear.

Cities and Eyes

An American friend of mine is visiting Berlin over the winter break, which made me think of my own visit to Berlin, many years ago, back in the mists of time... Ah! What times I had in Berlin. What a vibrant, decadent, bustling city in which a young cove like me could get up to all sorts of drunken mischief. Except not. I went to Berlin a year or two before sixth form, and I went with my parents, which seriously cramped my style. Oh, being a skint only child who is not yet in a position to go away to foreign climes without one's parents! Oh, the perils of having an incredibly history-enthusiastic museum curator for a father! We went to 12 museums in ten days. I don't want to talk about it.

Having said that, Berlin was wonderful. The look of the city really appealed to me. I also got the impression that a lot of fun was to be had if one managed to avoid being fifteen, crap at German and dragged around museums by one's parents (actually, I was crazy for the Bauhaus museum). I had such a good time taking photos, a few of which appear here.

Learning Through Musicals

Saw this on Funny or Die, home of the occasional star-studded gem of silliness. It's a fantastic example of musical satire speaking truth. Behold! Prop 8: The Musical...