V and I, noble creatures that we are, have offered, perhaps under the
influence of Mexican food, to spend the day with Atkin-san helping him
dry-mount the tip-ins (a strangely nautical phrase, no? "Dry-mount the
tip-ins!" "Aye Cap'n!") for his book Street Life in London Redeemed (bits of which will shortly become visible at Atkin-san's website.
This will involve him "showing us the machinery", which he almost never
does on a first date.(...umm, sorry...)and bringing us into the
mysteries of the dry-mounting process. My own vast experience recalls
one particular dry-mounting press which looked like a prop from a James
Bond move, a glittering behemoth that no-one in the workshop ever used.
Anyway, looks like we'll be sat doing repetitive tasks, snacking and
making appalling puns all day long. Atkinson has promised us music
while we work, but I worry that this means he will bring his vast
collection of inscrutable classical guitar recordings to bear.
I was reading in Alberto Manguel's book On Reading about how workers in Cuban cigar factories would pay for someone to read to them as they worked:
"... Sanchez mentioned one man who was able to remember the entire
'Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.' Being read to, as the cigar workers
found out, allowed them to overlay the mechanical, mind-numbing
activity of rolling the dark scented tobacco leaves with adventures ..."
I for one would love it if someone would read to me from
The Tin Drum about little Oscar's adventures. But I think and fear that
a steady diet of Antonio Lauro and his chums from the guitar store is
to be my fate.
No comments:
Post a Comment