As most of you know, it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and – amongst a whole host of other things – these arrived from my good friend Tarek…
– The first two books of Transmetropolitan, Woo! –
I started book one yesterday morning and had finished book two by the afternoon… There’s ten books in total, (eleven if you count Vol. Zero), and I am a fan.
There’s more to come on this – just as there’s more to come about my birthday – but I just wanted to share something with you that I read a few pages into ‘Lust for Life’…
(Transmetropolitan: Vol. 2).
In the image to the right, Spider – the er… ‘hero’ of said work, is talking to his new assistant. The reason he’s making this request of her?
Well, she wants to be a Journalist. Spider’s response to the question asked is:
“If you’re going to be a real journalist, you’re going to need to learn how to look.”
Upon the assistant’s return, Spider elaborates on this further…
.
This exchange, as I mentioned, comes quite early into book two… but upon reading it, I closed the pages together and stopped reading.
“You need to learn how to look…”
“You need to learn how to look…”
“You need to learn how to look…”
Over and over these words reverberated around my head and, as I was scheduled to be leaving the house within the minutes that followed, I decided that I would try and capture and/or record whatever I could. Observing that around me that I’d normally idly pass by.
Thing is, I thoroughly enjoy taking in the world around me most of the time and yet I’ve never really felt the urge to try and capture it, live and as it happens…
I walked out of my house this afternoon and set off to the train station. As soon as I stepped outside I started walking and I started talking… and – thanks to the wonders of SpinVox Memo*…
(*I speak in one end and an email pops out the other… and Yeah, I know I work there Dudes, but the service is actually bloody handy and the Memo part is FREE!)
This what I said/saw:
Walking out of my front door. The light is blinding, the air is cold and the trees are dark. The Sun is setting and yet still so bright. The ground is muddy. I can hear hammering in the distance and yet there is not a soul in sight. Two cars sprinkle the road like forgotten toys while a plane soars through the sky leaving a trail like a scar across deep blue skin. No clouds, not a single one. A couple of people appear but nothing to report. Life in constant transit. This is what I do…
It must be noted at this point that it’s not that I ever didn’t know how to look… it was more, as I said, never having the urge to capture it in actual words. The words spoken above aren’t about to win me any awards, nor are they ever going to. The point is; just reading one snippet from a comic book that a friend bought me for my birthday has changed how I now look at the world… if only slightly.
I’m going to start capturing more of what I see around me… and no doubt use whatever I end up with in future blog posts.
In the mean time however, I need to locate Transmetropolitan: Book 3.
ASAP.
🙂