Love this

Yes, a directive I'm afraid. But you will.

Recently I saw two billboards side by side at the station. On the left, a picture of a female child slave with the caption "Employee of the month"—an ad for charity. On the right, a picture of an actress wearing denim with the caption "G Star Raw".*

Side by side. It was glorious.

Two females, two advertising campaigns, two purposes, one objective: dollar$.

The marketing angle, almost unconscionably, and certainly incomprehensibly, aside for just a moment, there was something weirdly unifying about these two images, shot from the waist up.

Young women. Hope, love, long hair, dark hair, dark eyes, men, futures of a sort, death. And the futility of an optimism supposedly sated by consumption. Because we need Exhibit A in order to enjoy Exhibit B.

I'm not insinuating that G Star denim products are anything other than legitimate, of course—I'm talking about a bigger picture in which the rich and fortunate of the world are rich and fortunate precisely because they're not the poor child slaves, and must rely on those people to remain in slavery if the rich fortune is to continue.

By the rich and fortunate I mean, of course, you and I. Looking around the lifts of the glassy, glossy city office blocks, you see women in flimsy new season's $20 Sportsgirl tops and bad makeup, men in boat shoes and shiny trousers, all chatting gaily about the weekend and the office party and the broken copier on level 13.

They're all pretending that this shit matters, when what matters is that glamorous Gemma would be hauling buckets in a tin mine but for the grace of good fortune, and that we're kidding ourselves if we believe that the raise, the Audi, Lancome and the Cleo beauties, Zoo, a long board, diet beverages, Crocs, Kumfs, smartphones, the designer bike, the designer dog, the CEO's invitation to speak, the CEO's wife's outfit, manicures, hairdos, Holden Special Vehicles, a diamond, diamantes, etc. are where it's at.

Where is it at?

People. Just people. End of story.

That's what to love: that the conflicting billboards with the same objective cancelled one another out, and all that was left were two people from different continents, different circumstances, regarding me through paper eyes at Southern Cross. They and me.

They and me.

The sun shone through the architect-designed roof. I continued on my way.

*Oh, the waggery that clearly prevails at JCDecaux.