channeling

More holiday reading, and another list - this time from a brilliant and acerbic essay by Chris Petit, in a fine new collection called Restless Cities, in which at one point he describes the effect of deregulated television as 'an audio-visual Allied Carpets':

'Proposed TV channels: the madness channel, animal disease channel, overheated old-aged homes channel, death's waiting room channel, oxygen mask channel, struggle for breath channel, rebellious body channel, irritable bowel channel, rogue headache channel, aches and pains channel, bad back channel; next month they're sticking a camera up my arse channel; the shocking facts of sex slavery channel; indigenous borders channel; lonely priests with wavering vocations channel; genocide channel; pointlessness of death channel; and channels devoted to denial, ritual and consumption compounding that denial (hang on, we've already got those)'.

Chris Petit, 'Bombing', in Matthew Beaumont and Gregory Dart (eds), Restless Cities, London: Verso, 2010, 36-7

Graffiti by Banksy