An Escapologist's Diary. Part 5.
I’m still enjoying my planned escape, far away from home. Specifically I’m in Montreal.
In the city’s commercial districts, bilboards groan with high-profile advertising for a new interactive computer game called Beatles Rock Band. It’s an ingenious misappropriation of something that was once radical and important.
Forty years ago, John and Yoko conducted the third instalment of their Bed-In peace protest in this very city. Let us remind ourselves today that The Beatles wasn’t always an empty brand synonymous with inane, distracting tat:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvwkRihlZto]
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An Escapologist's Diary. Part 4.
I’m a month into my mini-retirement in Montreal. So far, so good. A typical day consists of a late rise, breakfast, bread-baking, writing, exploration of this new city and night-time festivity with new chums. I’ll write more about the joys of not working in New Escapologist Issue Three, which should be available early in the new year.
A few days ago, I enjoyed Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times at a local cafe-theatre with live piano accompaniment from Roman Zavada.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B3HGY_zLKk]
It’s an entertaining film for Escapologists in that it sympathises with the modern escape fantasy. Chaplin’s character attempts to escape humiliating work in factories, ship yards and department stores. He also ensures a brief spell in prison where he is taken after being mistaken for a the leader of a Communist demonstration. Tellingly, Chaplin begs the jailer to keep him locked up when the subject of his future employment is raised. Prison incarceration is preferable, it seems, to the world of work!
It’s fun that the film begins with the rapidly-spinning hands of a clock. To any worker, it prompts instant identification: a watched clock is surely the truest motif of modern division-of-labour-type work. Read the rest of this entry »
An Escapologist’s Diary. Part 3.
Ready to scarper on Wednesday evening, I’ve managed to reduce my entire personal junkstash to a ten-square-foot locker at a Glasgow SafeStore and a single suitcase of functional stuff, which is coming with me for the escape. H
Here are ten immediate thoughts about mobility and “stuff”:
Mobility versus “stuff”
1. I think I value mobility above all else. Mobility is freedom. Anything that compromises your mobility–a house, a grounded job, a possession, an expectation–is another nail in the coffin of your freedom.
2. Most of my “stuff” is in the form of books. It’s telling that my final vice is probably one that most people would overcome before, say, cooking utensils or clothes. I don’t own much of anything. Just a modest number of books. With libraries and broadband almost wherever you go, there’s no reasonable argument for a huge personal book collection so I’m forced to admit to object fetishism. I look forward to the day I’m unsentimental enough to cut loose my ten square-feet, settling to own but two suits, a laptop and a library card.
3. Mobility and “stuff” don’t mix. When people flee the cities in disaster movies, they always fill their cars with as much junk as possible. I love that the image of a killer alien tripod in pursuit of a Vauxhall Astra with a houseplant and a grandfather clock strapped to the roof.
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An Escapologist's Diary. Part 2.
A trivial thought occurs. When I leave Glasgow in a few weeks, I will have no keys.
I’ll surrender my house keys to the letting agent and return my drinking club key to the proprietor. All I’ll have left is a pocketful of fluff.
No keys! No security. No commitments. Nothing worth locking up.
An Escapologist's Diary. Part 1.
After two years of working in an office, I have handed in my notice. There are six more weeks before I actually have to clear my desk but already the sense of pending freedom is exhilarating.
It will be a three-month mini-retirement. I will travel, write and spend a not inconsiderable stretch of time in Montreal with my girlfriend. Together we’ll live the lives of Haruki Murakami characters: luxurious unemployment.
Two years work to earn three months of freedom is still a horrible injustice but I’m confident that this is just the beginning of a much longer escape plan and that eventually I’ll turn that ratio on its head. I’ll report back through these pages.
Colleagues have asked me how I feel. Do I feel anxious? Do I worry that I won’t be able to find another job when I get back?
The answer to both questions is a resounding No. As to how I feel, I feel great. I feel defiant, autonomous and (I’m sorry) slightly smug.
