Love is the only subject anyone has ever created art about. Love of oneself, love of another, love of nature, love of death, love of God. All of art since the birth of Man has been about love: and all of that art has been an attempt to pin down what love is, what love does, what love means. And all of that art has failed. The best we’ve managed is a series of similes, a collection of metaphors. The closest we’ve come is an evocation of feeling, a sense of greatness, a touching of inexpressible emotion: we’ve created art that soars on the airs of love, that gives a glimpse of the possibilities of love... but we’ve never managed to nail the thing itself.
It is un-nailable. Love is an endless afternoon? It’s not a bad attempt – but if it works for me there’s no guarantee it will for you. Love by its very nature defies definition, and the fact that you and I could argue over it forever – and every writer, musician, artist that ever lived has done exactly that – says more about what love is than any art, no matter how beautiful.
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This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.
No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.
Defining the age through a slogan a day
This is the age of the slogan, the soundbite, the snappy phrase in place of considered argument. Thought is dying; reason’s gone critical. In bookshops and magazine racks we’re told only what we want to hear: we’re told it in neat, bullet-pointed affirmations of our own worth.
No more. This is the fightback. The resuscitation. This is the slogan as explainer of the world. One a day for a year. Three hundred and sixty five phrases, soundbites and bullet points with which to make sense of the way things are now and point to how things could be tomorrow. Read them and weep.
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