Yes, coincidence and all that but I like this story so there.
I wrote for the Washington Examiner about Bodega, a start up with vending machines. There’s snowflake outrage about how this might replace actual bodegas. For the image they used AP which gave them the top connected image, of course.
Which is actually an art installation called “Fauxdega” by a young Englishwoman from Bath called Lucy Sparrow. Details here.
Hmm, a shop filled with hand made felt representations of what might be sold in such a shop? Chacun a son gout, of course.
But Lucy is the daughter of an old friend of mine and long time friend of this blog, Mark Sparrow. So, small world and all that. Lucy also sold out the entire stock in 16 days (9,000 pieces at $20 and up apparently) which is a welcome bit of capitalist rapaciousness in the art world. Plus being a useful export and all that.
She has put that alternate reality within easy reach: A felt cigarette pack costs all of $20; a box of candy is $35.
…Such compulsion, and the suppressed anxiety it suggests, is palpable in the 9,000 objects Ms. Sparrow has brought to New York.
All of Salon’s staff travel to work by horse and buggy, and they have their magazine printed in the old way before photocopying it and uploading it to the Internet, so it’s not like they’re hypocrites or anything.
Ce n’est pas un bodegas.
I feel Lucy’s next project should be a tech start up company entirely made out of felt.
This has a gloriously primary school appeal to it. I hope she doesn’t frown on British Bulldog being played in the car park.
Obviously satisfying a long felt want!
Even though Bath is a small place, I didn’t realise that you and Mark knew each other. Small world after all. 🙂
I went to see Lucy’s previous two exhibitions in London (“The Cornershop” and “Madame Roxy’s Erotic Emporium”). Neither of those were selling the merchandise there and then though.
We know each other through this blog rather than anything else. Different ends of town when growing up. Vast yawning chasm between south side of town and the London Road you know….
One end was only middle class and was looked down on by the other?
I jest – there are at least two non-middle-class households in Bath. Other than the students of course.
Mark’s from Larkhall, which has some lovely bits to it but it’s much more like a village on the edge of Bath than anything like one of the Crescents. And where I’m from, Bear Flat, isn’t like one of the crescents either…..
To be fair most of the best bits of Bath are straight, not curved, from my observations. And the basic rule of thumb with any town is that if you are dicussing a bit of it with its own name, it is going to be a bit more common (exception – see Stoke).
@Watchman, September 18, 2017 at 2:47 pm
Mostly true in Bangor, but not in Belfast; Nor in Edinburgh eg Dean Village, Swanston Village