Trash Masters: Urban Archeaology

I’m down in downtown Chinatown with Jimmy Downs, owner of Downs Downtown Municipal Waste Company (The double dee-em-dubya-see) to get his point of view on the issue pressuring every American. What do we do with our waste? Jimmy Downs is young, but also an expert on everything wastewise, coming from a dynasty of refuse processors that could trace its roots all the way back to 1885. I plunge my hand into a bag of garbage on the street and hold it up for him to inspect.

“Yep, that’s a mix of domestic and light industrial.” He says, laughing like Popeye.

“You mean I’m holding industrial waste?” I say, examining the cluster in my hand. Past the plastic food wrappers, wet tissues, hair and a mouldy burger, there was cement pouring from something in my hand.

“People throw all sorts of stuff away. We recycle what we can. Furniture, wood, metal, there’s gold in other people’s trash. Literally, mmhmm.” He says. I throw the stuff on the floor and we walk on. As I wipe my hand on my jeans, I start to get excited. I had been e-mailing Downs for the last couple of weeks, trying to pull off something I had always wanted to do. Working alongside the Mayor’s office, my agent and a faceless array of administrators, we were doing a form of archaeology that traced the urban history of the city, exploring it from the angle of waste. Jimmy Downs drove a garbage truck up to the Puente Hills Landfill and stopped, looking up at the device.

Inside the support structure there was a large, hollow drill. It had the diameter of a bus, with the engine driving it mounted on the side along with a control room. The drill would go down whilst piercing the centre with a stainless-steel holding pin. As the drill and pin descended, they would be added to, extending the total possible length of the drill to five hundred feet. The teeth of the drill were made of titanium, able to tear through the garbage beneath, though the sound it made as it went down was horrendous. The stench of ancient garbage began to fill the air, creating a thick cloud around the site as the drill screamed downwards and the engine blasted again and again. Everybody was wearing breathing apparatus, the clothes we were wearing would need to be burned later. Drilling was slow, taking hours until it reached the bottom. Jimmy Downs signalled for the drill to stop, then to a crane that began to pull at the steel pin in the centre. As the core ascended, two rollers circled the garbage so it would be held in place, twisting chickenwire around and around. The device clicked open like a handcuff, reversing away to leave the five-hundred-foot monolith of trash standing near the peak of the landfill.

Everybody gazed at it. Though the sun was behind it, the layers and layers of trash were discernible even at a distance. The structure also seemed to hold, although bits of plastic and rags caught the wind, fluttering like flags across the huge thing.

“Cylinder is holding at 97% stability.” One of the engineers says, standing by a control panel. A few cheer.

“Let’s not jump to any conclusions. There may be inner nodules of liquefication we can’t see.” Downs says.

“Come on Jimmy, its holding steadier than a wisdom tooth.”

“The sunlight will be heating up the garbage juices.” He says, holding a hand up. He’s right. A jet of black goo erupts from a side, causing trash to cascade down.

“Cylinder is at 95% stability! 94!”

“Tighten ‘er up, tighten ‘er up!” Downs says. I look down at the control panel and begin to twist a knob. Motors at the top of the chicken wire begin to tighten, causing the huge cylinder to become constricted, elongated. This also has the effect similar to wringing out a towel, causing more of the juices to begin exploding from the cylinder.

“Stability increasing…” says the refuse engineer, leaning close to his monitor. I carefully twist the knob, not wanting to wring the cylinder dry, compact.

“That was a close one.” I say, sighing relief.

“Get ready for stage two.” Downs says.

We watch the crane lower the top of the cylinder to the ground. The steel pin at the centre of the foul column also expands, creating a latticed tunnel running through the core. This strange tunnel seems to beckon us. Heat haze from it makes the air curl like oil on water. Jimmy Downs and me begin walking towards it.

“What do you think we’ll find, Jimmy?”

“Old trash.” He says. As we walk his hand shoots in front of me.

“Easy there.” Downs says to me. I look down, seeing the hole where the core had been extracted from. A five-hundred-foot drop inside the old landfill, the sunlight only illuminating near its lip. We continue walking.

The tunnel lies ahead of us. The Puente Hills Landfill opened in 1957 to handle waste from east L.A., and one of the biggest landfills in the United States. A mountain of waste had been built in what had been a canyon, building up and up over the years until finally closing in 2013. The mound had since become a nature reserve, joining the wider area across the Puente Hills among the California floristic province. Ahead of us was the tunnel in the middle of the core, a space only big enough to crawl through. We played rock, paper, scissors to see who went first. I assumed that Jimmy Downs would play rock due to the shape of his hands, I played paper, it was over before we got to three. I saluted him, then began to crawl through the tunnel.

The headtorch casts a pale glow ahead of me, and as the mask on my breathing gear became steamed up it became difficult to see what was in front of me. I was crawling through the tunnel, through history. At the very beginning, the trash from 2013 was easily visible, not as compressed as later sections would be. Relics from the era stuck out between the black trashbags that had split; a broken selfie stick, a flier celebrating gay marriage, a cellphone had turned itself on and was playing a Harlem Shake video and there was a happy meal toy of Elsa covered in a brown mass. On I went, past posters for Obama’s second term,  iPod headphones, the remnants of packaging for an Xbox 360 and Mountain Dew. As I crawled through the trash I kept crawling back in time, seeing old packaging for food, broken toys, discarded and forgotten things illuminated in the dim yellow light from my headtorch. These nostalgic artifacts were also buried amongst clumps of long rotten cardboard, broken bits of wood, the corners of fridges and washing machines, broken glass, twists of wire. On and on I crawled. Past what I estimated to be the early nineties, things began to change shape. The weight of what I had passed before had crushed these layers of trash so they became rings of brown sludge, the things that couldn’t rot or be crushed stuck out more easily, like bones poking up from dead flesh. I feel as if I was crawling through the digestive system of a corpse, with loose flaps of plastic hanging downward between the gaps in the tunnel walls, a thin puddle of slime running along the floor that soaked into my knees and gloves. This putrid intestine continued, the plastic was less and less as I made my way towards the beginning of the landfill, back to 1957. There was not much recognisable by this point, though something glinted in the light from my head. I crawl up close to it, wiping off the sludge so I could get a better look.

“What are you?” I say. I pull, it slides out from the ancient trash easily. It is some kind of stone. I brush at it again, and see it shining in the dim light. Jimmy Downs arrived behind me.

“What is that thing?” he asks. I throw it over to him.

“No way…”

“What is it, Jimmy?”

“It’s a garbage jewel. I didn’t think these existed.”

“What’s that?”

“If you crush garbage for long enough, I heard it can make special gemstones. Similar to how diamonds are formed, the intense pressure over time creates something new. They form underground, but only in very particular circumstances.” He says, holding the garbage jewel up.

“So what you’re saying is, this is concentrated garbage?”

“Precisely. Just as a diamond is pure carbon, this jewel is pure waste. Amazing…” he says, looking around. I could see the look in his eye, even through the respirator.

“Say now Jimmy, don’t do anything crazy.”

“Don’t you get it? All this end of the cylinder might contain more garbage jewels. We’re going to make a fortune! We’re going to be stinking rich!”

“Jimmy, the structural integrity…we need to get out of here.” I say. He ignores me, rifling through the layers of waste like a wet phonebook. From the walls he plucks another jewel, this one smaller.

“Come on, you got to help me.” He says, plunging his arm back in to the filth.

“Jimmy, leave it! We can come back!”

“No, no, no, no, we aren’t sharing these jewels with anyone. You and me, we’re like explorers at El Dorado. Come on, help me.” He says, thrusting his other arm into the wall, searching for the rot stones. The cylindrical wall around us moves, the delicate balance of its archaeology getting ruined by the clumsy fisting of Downs.

“I’m getting out of here.” I say. Downs ignores me. Moving round inside the tunnel is awkward, just as I position myself to crawl the last dozen or so feet there is a groaning all around us. I look back over my shoulder. Downs looks around, up to his elbows in the garbage.

“I got a big one! I can feel it!” he says, starting to throw his body back, trying to dislodge the thing.

“The tunnel’s going to collapse! Leave it!” I call back. He ignores me again, leaning back. The steel lattice running inside the tunnel creaks, twisting and bending as the trash finally gives way. The ceiling collapses, giving birth to the wet skeleton of a horse that bursts downward, the yawning jaws of the old nag split open impossibly wide, falling over Down’s head. An avalanche of decomposed trash and rusted metal follows it. I grab the man’s arm and try to yank him from the pestilent burial, though his visor has become smashed from the horse teeth. More of the ceiling around us begins to collapse, and crawling whilst trying to drag Jimmy Downs was hard, too slow. Only the top half of my body managed to make it before the tunnel collapses completely, trapping my legs and most of Jimmy in the primordial garbage that had lay at the bottom of the excavation. I grab at my walkie talkie, shouting for help.

Ten minutes later we were both free. I was fine, though with Downs’ mask breaking, seventy five year old sludge had come through, almost drowning him in the old refuse. He had also lost his garbage jewels somewhere in the tunnel.

“You could go back and get them.”

“Maybe. They might be broken by now, obliterated amongst the inner trash physics. You’re right, I should have left it behind.” Downs says.

“What happens to the cylinder now?” I say, finding a joint in my pocket and lighting it up.

“We got some guys at the Smithsonian coming tomorrow. It belongs in a museum, they need to conduct a proper post-mortem on it.” He says, accepting the joint and taking a couple of hits.

“Maybe some things are left alone.”

“Mmhmm.”

We watch the star dip below the Pacific, thinking of things underground, of the garbage jewels that twinkle in the darkness and other things that would be forever unknown.

Insomnambulist

Sleep. The word conjures up images of being asleep. Yet sleep is one thing severely lacking nowadays. Insomnia is suffered by 1 in 4 people in the UK and is one of the leading concerns with visits to the GP. Yet what exactly is sleep? And why isn't anyone getting any?

Sleep is a natural response to neural stimuli. One has to will themselves to go to sleep to actually achieve sleep. It is through the act of lying down and closing one's eyes whilst relaxing that one achieves a sleep state which quickly goes...to the REM state. That stands for Rapid Eye Movement, REM. Nobody knows exactly why we need sleep but experiments have shown that without it things die in a matter of days. Sleep is more important than food in this regard, so it is curious that being gluttonous is acceptable in society yet being sleepy isn't. A way sleep scientists have learned more about sleep is by looking at animals that don't sleep. And that's where things really start to get wacky, as it turns out the only things that don't sleep are jellyfish. From the worms to the eagles, every other thing tends to sleep at some point or another. It is thought perhaps things with brains require sleep in order to give the brain a rest from it's conscious state, yet the brain waves are still active during sleep. Gamma, Theta and Beta wave patterns appear throughout the night, each of them giving more dreams of varying complexity. Dreams are caused by the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) of the sleeper beneath the eyelid, the patterns the dim light makes against the vein structure forces the sleeper to make sense of the abstract. Somewhere along the way this gets translated by the subconscious into a mental image. Scientists have experimented on people's eyes when they're asleep and discovered that if the eyeball is held in place the dream is just a still image. All night the sleeper will dream of one thing, say a vase of flowers, and like leaving a computer on without a screensaver the image is burned into the subconsciousness, in this instance everything in the waking state will somehow resemble a vase of flowers. People often need to sleep for several hours in order to feel totally energised. Bizarrely, tiredness causes errors in brain function more so than anything else.

So now we know what sleep is and why it's so important, it's curious why people struggle with getting to sleep. I went to visit a self diagnosed 'insomniac' in order to see what they were doing wrong. Abigail McGregor lives in Cheetham Hill in Manchester and works as a graphic designer. She's on a good income, lives a healthy lifestyle and says she is pretty much happy in her day to day life.
"It's the night time I don't like. I can't get to sleep for hours, I've tried going to bed early, going to bed late, nothing works." she says. I ask her further questions and find out she's tried every trick in the book.
"Have you tried all of the tricks at the same time?" I ask.
"I find one of the most relaxing ways is to drink a herbal tea and take the valerian route a few hours before bed, but I can't say I'm happy with the results." she says. I suggest that I spend the night in her flat, watching her sleep and then have a discussion in the morning. She agrees.

It is about 11:00 PM and Abigail turns off her television.
"About now I start to get ready for bed. Usually I go to my bedroom to check everythings in order." she says. I follow her down the corridor to her rest chamber. Though she's paying a five figure number for this exclusive apartment situated on the top floor of the state-of-the-art Green Quarter building, her bedroom is still quite small. She turns the light on and looks at the bed.
"Usually I get changed into my nightie and take out my contacts." she says, going over to a mirror.
"I'll step out of the room." I say, turning the light off as I go out. No wonder she can't get to sleep with all this electricity surging round. After roughly four and a half minutes she steps back out.
"Now what?"
"Well I go to the bathroom and y'know. Sort myself out."
"I'm sorry?"
"Have a wee, brush my teeth." she says. I nod and follow her to the bathroom. Although I don't watch her urinate I kneel by the closed door and listen intently, which is perceived as less transgressive in our society yet is, perceptually relative, the same. I open the door again and watch her brush her teeth.
"Hold on, hold on. Do it longer." I say after she gives up after half a minute. I keep encouraging her until we have reached the recommended time of two minutes.
"Oh, I forgot...I sometimes get a glass of water." she says. I roll my eyes and follow her back to the kitchen, where she takes a 475ml glass from the cupboard and fills it from the tap. I shake my head.
"You should only drink bottled water." I say. No wonder Abigail had problems sleeping, she was infusing her body with fluorides! Begrudgingly I follow her back to her room and watch pull the covers back and sit on her bed.
"Now what do you do?" I ask. She picks up her phone from the bedside table and waves it.
"Check my alarms on. Sometimes check twitter." she says. I restrain myself from pointing out the obvious. If you check twitter before bed you won't get to sleep because twitter is too exciting. I watch as she lies down, turns off her bedside lamp and begins to fall asleep.

"What are you doing?" I ask after a few minutes.
"Well, I can't get to sleep." she says.
"But what are you doing?"
"Lying down...I have my eyes shut."
"Try turning over." I suggest. She does so.
"The pillow is slightly cooler on this side."
"Is it agreeable?" I ask.
"It's alright." she says. I stand at the foot of her bed, examining posture and duvet thickness. Abigail has chosen a duvet with a tog rating of twelve, which seems reasonable to me. I estimate an increased temperature beneath the covers of roughly 10%, the standard difference required to keep the body warm over the course of the night. Yet before ten minutes have passed Abigail has already moved again, this time facing the opposite direction.
"Stop. Abigail. Abi, stop what you're doing." I say, sighing. She sits up. "You'll never get to sleep if you keep wriggling around like that." I say.
"But it's normal to move around in bed. I'm getting comfy."
"Is it normal? How do you know?"
"I've slept with people before." she says.
"Forget what you think you know. I've watched a lot of things go to sleep and none got their by moving their bodies except maybe fish and birds which only go to sleep with one brain hemisphere at a time. But mammals don't. Maybe giraffes sometimes. Pretend like I'm not here." I say.

The hours pass. By looking at her through an infrared camera I see she has finally got to sleep. I get down on all fours and begin to crawl up to her side of the bed, staring at her as she sleeps, memorizing every facial tick and change in breathing rhythm. Partway through the night she wakes up to go to the toilet and returns. I have now positioned myself at the bottom of the bed and watch her get in under the covers. I begin to crawl towards the pillow, using my phone as a torch.
"What are you doing?" she says.
"Gathering data. My phone is linked up to stream into The Cloud where it's compiled into a rich format .xlsb file." I say. She goes back to sleep and I work my way out of the bed and explore her flat, paying close attention to the contents of both the fridge and her bookshelf. I go back into her room and check through her phone, downloading some fun apps for her to try tomorrow. The sun begins to rise behind a ceiling of grey cloud, it is morning. Her alarm goes off and Abigail wakes, I go to the kitchen and pour us two glasses of orange juice.
"Sleep well?" I ask when she comes in.
"Yeah, not too bad actually all things considered. How about you?"
"I didn't sleep."
"Oh."
"Abigail, do you mind if I give you some feedback?"
"Sure." she says, drinking the juice.
"It's mostly good. You slept for exactly six hours and twenty three minutes, which isn't too bad. Could get a couple more in there, but not bad. I noticed you got back to sleep pretty quickly after visiting the bathroom, so, good job on that."
"Thank you." she says.
"Now for the bad news. Heh. You remember telling you about moving at the start of the night? Well...you moved again at about two in the morning. I was surprised to see you managed to do it in your sleep. If that was me, that would have woken me up, but somehow you managed. You also did it again about ten minutes before your alarm went off."
"Wow."
"I know. It's like you can't stop moving or something." I say, laughing mildly. "All joking aside, I think I found the reason for your insomnia and the cure is pretty simple."
"Really?" she says.
"I think tonight you should lie in the bath and cover yourself with sand. It might sound crazy, but trust me, I've seen these problems before and it works."
"So I should sleep in a bath full of sand?"
"Not full, that's too much. But enough so that it covers your body."
"Dry sand?"
"Dry to start off with, then you turn the hot water on."
"And this works?"
"It can take a few nights but about 75% of insomniacs benefit from this new form of sleeping." I say.
"Well...I'll give it a try. Thanks."
"Not a problem." I say. "Now if you don't mind me, I really could do with going to bed myself." We both laugh and I leave her apartment, pleased with my discoveries throughout the night.

So there you have it, a cure for insomnia. Comments or questions can go below or fire off an e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com/thepile@gmail.com and I'll get back to you ASAP. Also check out our youtube channel for the latest updates and our new segment 'Cooking With Daria'. Thanks for reading.

A History Of Hollywood

The city streets were shape shifting, caught in a transmorphing temporal wormhole of culture generated through the Hollywoodland media cluster. The combination of population density, money, technology, crime, topology and cinema had made Los Angeles transcend from reality into a metaphor, exemplifying humanity's utter present, using the city as canvas. It's architecture a continuous set for the people acting out potentials, the asphalt and concrete and glass and metal sprawling outwards, increasing in citymass hour by hour. There are times in the year when stood at precise points across the city that its entirety reflects back at you and you are caught in the composite eye of Los Angeles and it burns you with a million reflections from windows in high rise buildings, the shafts of light are caught against your retinas then stabbed into your brain, the concentrated beam melting through your neurons like satan's lasers.

The city of Los Angeles. Home to Hollywoodland, built in 1902 by the Warner Brothers. The Hollywood sign now rests on the side of mountain, an old ad gimmick, white letters arranged amongst rocks and scrub land. It is a kitsch icon, a set of modernist erected fonts each as tall as a building that further went on to dub it's surroundings as Hollywood in 1947. Hollywood is home to several film studios, including the empty sets of the olden days you may have seen in pictures at your local cinema. All of the Hollywood executives ride around in expensive cars and they wear nice suits, they have the final say in the taste in style as they're the ones that decide which film is going to be made! The producers often have big piles of money stacked up on their desk, ready to give to the best director. The director then takes the money away and begins to hire writers, camera crew and actors to be in his picture. These stars and starlets of Hollywood are as follows: Johnny Depp, Simon Agby, Brad Pitt, Joanna Lumley, Sarah Jessica Parker, Justin Timberlake, Will Smith, Johnny Knoxville, Angela Carter, Channing Tatum, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, John Travolta, Courtney Cox, Nicholas Cage and Michael Cera. The film executives often spend a few hours a day looking through glossy black and white photos of potential actors for their films, muttering to themselves whilst smoking cigars. Meanwhile back on the sets of Universal Studios the film will begin to be made whilst the marketing gurus begin to advertise the picture, using social media, alternative reality games, merchandise, trailers, the web, billboards, newspaper articles, events and a word of mouth campaign. The film will be broken down into its basic components before being reconstructed by CGI. All of the best films nowadays are 3D and shown on cinemas around the globe, with 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound and comfortable chairs. Some cinemas even offer popcorn to munch throughout the movie viewing experience as you whisper to your friends;
“This movie rocks!”
“I don't know what to say, I love it.”
“The ending...it's a killer!”
“That was one seriously funny movie.”
Viewers are then persuaded to go home and think about the film as they lie in bed, unable to get to sleep. They can't stop thinking about it! For the next few days it will be all they will be able to talk about, often stopping people in public, physically restraining them by the shoulders, and telling them about the film. They would speak immensely quickly and sometimes get their words jumbled up, often being pushed to the ground by other people due to the enthusiasm they display in talking about the movie. There bodies would begin to convulse and blood begin to leak from the ears, nose and throat, muffling their voices in the sticky iron redness. The eyeballs would melt out of their sockets and the face would begin to turn inside out, the roof of the mouth being pushed out of the lips as the entire skull cracks. The organs begin to dissolve the skin and tissue surrounding them, displaying a bed of human entrails sitting in the body cavity that thump and twitch along to the rapidly beating heart and everything begins to bleed and rip itself open and scream. The director walks in front of the camera and yells 'Cut! That's a wrap.'
The actor sits up in his prosthetic latex suit.“How did I do?”
“You were great!” says the camera man. The crew begins to clap and the actor looks around, smiling.

E-cig review

Like many other smokers I can't help but begin to feel the adverse effects smoking has had to my health. I struggle to run up the stairs, I cough in the morning, I sometimes don't like it and generally wonder what I'm trying to achieve in life. After trying to quit a handful of times with various methods in the style of Wile E. Coyote, I have decided that smoking is going to be a lifelong habit for me. But what if I could smoke a robot? Or maybe look like I was from the future? All of this could be achieved through smoking. But not in the sense of burning plants, but electricity and liquid. Smoking for the new millennium has arrived with the advent of electronic cigarette machines, or e-cigs for short.

The process of smoke delivery is quite simple. A lithium ion battery cylinder is attached to a short cartomiser in which a mixture of Propylene Glycol and flavouring is ignited through a heated lattice, vaporising the e-liquid and delivering a lungful of cloud gently into the body. This vapour is itself made up of hydrogen, oxygen and nicotine, a much more benign substance than the old fashioned cigarette or cigar. It dissipates quickly in the air and remains odourless, allowing e-smokers to puff away happily anywhere in the world. Now that sciencey bit is out of the way I'll get on with the reviews! I have chosen a collection of starter kits from a variety of suppliers and spent the afternoon trying them out.

JACVAPOUR V1P PCC STARTER KIT

This e-cig is a handy little device. It's just a little bigger than your average cigarette and when you puff away it feels like a genuine smoke! The end of mine has a blue LED in it, which is cool. Makes me feel like Harrison Ford in Blade Runner. I often smoke my V1P quite happily at work, at home or relaxing by the sea. The 'juice' or PPG liquid is quite tasty. I got watermelon, bubblegum and mocha flavour. I can mix and match the various liquid in the style of a kind of alchemist. This is more steam-punk than cyber-punk! I have tested this kit to great extent and highly recommend it to the casual e-smoker.

E-LITES E-PRO 4 E-CIGARETTE KIT

What more can I say, this is a fantastic starter kit. It comes with a USB charger, not one but two battery packs, 32MB of disk space and a special black cloth to clean your e-cig. Sadly the flavours I received turned out blank, so taking a hit was like washing my mouth with diluted milk. Still, this e-cig really packs a punch! It can deliver over 23mg of smoke in each puff, making this little thing into seeming like something better than it first appeared! I rate this kit 3/5.

APOLLO SMART LITES 4400 ELECTRO-CIG KIT

The 4400 is the ultimate in vapour tech, infusing each bauble of liquid with a tiny hint of flavour amongst the great lungfuls of black vapour. I tried making a cocaine tincture by dissolving 2g of the white stuff in a VG based liquid over a two day period. This thing was like smoking crack, and quickly ruined the small bauble that came with the kit. Still, I highly rate this experience.

NU-SMOKE 60/40: THE REVENGE STARTER KIT

Nu-smoke 60/40: The Revenge starter kit is a surprisingly unsatisfying piece of mechanical engineering. American boffins have been tinkering away at this new type of e-cig for the last few years, creating an energy efficient vape that delivers both satisfying hits and versatility. Customisation is key in the 60/40, with different cases coming with the kit as if they were important. It comes with several different mouth pieces, batteries and half a metre of ethernet cable, although I'm unsure why. I smoked this e-cig underwater whilst searching for scrap metal and found it held up, though didn't work after a major car accident. A poor show by the Nu-smoke team, though shows great promise. Might be worth purchasing this one for the ipadness of early adoption.

LIBERTY FLIGHT LITE XP PRO KIT

What more can I say, this is a fantastic starter kit. I took a toke of this sweet smoke and thought I had reached Nirvana. I imagined the great Ganesh covered from head to toe in the finest golden finery, his red skin seeming to glow from within like the underside of a finger covering the sun. With one tusk broken and the other proud, he speaks to me in Hindi.
"I don't understand." I say. The vision dissipates. I am alone.
I give this starter kit 5/5.

Nothing Has Changed Since 1989

The world wide web has caused a time fracture to occur, causing the last ten years to repeat at varying tempos since 1989. I propose that nothing has changed for the last twenty three years. You may be reading this and thinking 'of course it has', though I ask you to think again. Has it really? I'm not arguing that new events haven't occurred or that time hasn't advanced, rather that nothing has changed in particular.

So let us first consider what change is. You may look at yourself and maybe even provide that as evidence. You may say "I have aged by twenty three years or even have been born in that time.", though I would then suggest that there was somebody your age at any particular time in the eighties. Not only that, but they had as bigger impact on world events as you currently have. Even individuals that have the potential for enormous change, such as the important politicians, remarkable scientists and artists or particular daring revolutionaries exist at all moments. They do not produce something radically different but build upon previous events. If Albert Einstein had been born a hundred years earlier would he have proposed the theory of relativity or perhaps the theory of electricity? If it had been the former he wouldn't have been understood, if it had been the latter he'd have been just as remarkable had he been born at any particular point in history. Of course I am not suggesting a literal reincarnation of Albert Einstein, though rather the concept of Albert Einstein. At any one time there are only a certain number of influential people on the Earth yet the population increases significantly every year. Either way a decent proportion of individuals have little impact on history, and even those that do are remembered more for their actions than how they were as people. If something is due to happen it will.

Which takes us to events. You may argue that the world trade centre attacks significantly changed culture in the west, or the financial crisis of the late zeroes, or various natural disasters over the last two decades, though humanity has been in a consistent state of crisis since the first humans left Africa. Events themselves may have massive impact on your personal life, society or entire ecosystems, though on a personal level a person will still go to sleep at night, work so that they can eat and enjoy the company of others. From the shamans of the Amazon to the American soldier fighting in Iraq, both are human beings that would have done the exact same thing if born to each others mothers. The cultures may differ, either geographically or temporally, but people are people. Wars happen, things are made, the sun goes down and so on, but there is nothing significantly new about any of these things at a fundamental level. Even with specific events that may have changed cultures at a massive level, such as world war two or the civil rights movement, directly involved less than one percent of the entire human population on the planet. And if an individual was involved in these changes, chances are that they would not be conscious of the impact of the event during the event.

So why has time repeated from the eighties exactly? I concede that certain world changing events have occurred in the past as life has significantly differed from Ancient Egypt to Modern Tokyo, though I believe the nineteen eighties to have been the pinnacle of human progress. Is Tokyo in 2013 so much more different from Tokyo in 1989? Perhaps on a cosmetic level, though all it is is cosmetic. If looking at a photograph of Tokyo from the last twenty three years the only real notifier of when it might be would be if the cars were new or if people had mobile phones. The models of the cars are unimportant, people have been using them for the last century to get around in rather than the train or the horse and cart. The mobile phone is the only notable change, though we had those in the eighties anyway. Which brings us to technological change, which I suggest is also inconsequential. In the last twenty years we have had theoretically world changing inventions being made yet none have been implemented fully enough to differ the current time to that of the eighties. Advances in communications, medicine, physics, computing and energy have had little, if any, impact on the way we live. We still put petrol in cars. We still meet our friends face to face. We may be able to live longer and healthier lives, but all this does is allow an individual to survive old age for longer rather than have the abilities and appearance of a younger person. The internet could be argued to have had changed the way we live, but all it is is a faster way to access information. I can find out almost any known fact I want by searching for it on the internet, or I could read a book that would have taught me other facts around the information and perhaps allowed me a deeper knowledge on the subject. I can talk to almost anyone, but I can in real life. And even if I was to make friends with someone on the other side of the world chances are that I would one day want to meet them without the internet to separate us, negating the usefulness of the internet in that sequence of events. Otherwise I can write letters, send faxes or phone people if I want to talk to them instantly. Other uses such as online gaming, social media, downloading files and so on have an analogue counterpart. The internet has replaced this analogue counterpart, as less people may play sports or be part of clubs or rent videos, but that we still undertake these actions is a sign that we haven't changed as a society. A person might be watching films on a television or on their mobile phone, but they are still watching films. Couples might meet at a nightclub or over the internet, but they still will have sex. If a tree falls in the woods and nobody is around to film it then put on youtube for people to comment on does it still make a sound? 'How' people do things isn't as important as 'why' people do things and why we do things hasn't and won't change since the beginning and end of humanity.

The eighties in particular marks the beginning of this loop for a few reasons. Part of the major stagnation has to do with the advanced form of capitalism put into place in the eighties. The economy has always been a significant force in shaping society, though this particular type of economy has made it so that the rich get richer and the poor to feel as though they are through selling them various gadgets to make their lives lazier. Any resistance to this idea has little chance in succeeding as Capitalism has been effective in absorbing counter-culture in previous decades, first by first appearing hostile to an idea before cashing in once enough people are aware, such as the sixties free love movement, gangsta rap, the rave scene and so on. Using this makes it difficult for anything considered dangerous to society to remain so for any length of time whilst allowing those in marketing to appear as if they have a sense of humour or that they support these concepts, even though some of these go entirely against the ethos of the concept they are attempting to sell. A majority of those that are in these subcultures are often young at the time of their conception yet will often grow older and calmer as time increases. Children also became a viable market in the eighties as they began to have their own money as well as changes in parenting. The advent of cartoons such as He-Man and Transformers tied in with toys turned a good profit, and these children have grown up to have their own children who also watch remakes of these cartoons and also buy toys and so on. Advertising often aims to recreate nostalgia in some way in order to revert people back to how they were in the eighties, when things appeared better, though this goes hand in hand with the infantilization of the work place and amount of entertainment technology on the market. If it wasn't for larger televisions, new computers, games and DVDs people would spend their money on other things that would expand the mind differently, such as travelling, hobbies or socializing. The last notable pop culture icons that have remained over the years were from the eighties, like Michael Jackson or Madonna, rather than ones that have come and gone, such as Kurt Cobain, The Spice Girls, Eminem etc.

And what of the future? Will we ever end this ten year loop of celebrities, junk food, international warfare, dance music, political scandal, mobile phones and silly hair? I'm unsure. Technology has the potential to change the world but only if we use it correctly. Ideas are only important if people act on them. The outcome only changes significantly if you significantly alter the variables. Will things like ordering your shopping to your door or wearing a camera on a pair of glasses or having a robot drive your car around change our concepts of society, politics, relationships, gender, race, age, work, leisure, life or death at all? Or will it just be like the eighties forever.

Candy Crush Sage

Bucharest. The word summons up for me images of the subtropics, boulevards, gardens, markets. There seemed to me to be an element of light danger, cold war paranoia mixed with film noir, that I couldn't help but feel slightly on my toes as I left the airport. Eighty minutes later I was at the headquarters of one of the fastest growing online gaming companies this side of the millenium. I wait at the reception for a while and look at several large oil paintings mounted on each wall. They are abstract, red on red, and I can't help but get up to examine one more closely. My field of view is entirely submersed into the painting, though a tap on the shoulder jolts me out of my fugue.
"Riccardo Zacconi will see you now." says the receptionist. I nod solemnly and make my way towards the stairs, wondering exactly how I got to be at the headquarters of king.com in the first place.

I entered the office of Zacconi and see a short, strong man sitting on a stool by a large desk up against a small window. He turns as I enter and gestures that I should sit, which I do quite happily. I watch him work for a while, he seems to be playing a game on a flat computer. The bleeps and bloops punctuate the dreamy soundtrack from time to time, as does the odd word in Romanian I can't recognize yet feel they are uttered in anger. He is of course playing Candy Crush Saga, the flagship game from king.com. With more than four billion users playing the game worldwide and more each day, Candy Crush Saga is taking both the digital and physical world by storm. Zacconi finishes the game and shakes his head before coming over to sit on the floor by me. We both introduce ourselves formally and I begin the interview.

"So, tell me a bit about yourself, about the company." I say. Zacconi glances back to the flat computer at his desk and his face twitches.
"My name is Riccardo Zacconi, I am the lead designer of digital games at king.com. We started here ten years ago, as midasgames, now we're one of the biggest suppliers of games on the market. Forget this call of duty or halo. Does your sister play that? Can a child play that? No. We design games for everyone." he says.
"And so you think that is why Candy Crush has been so successful?"
"Of course. It doesn't need any explanation, it's simple. It is the occam's razor of entertainment."
"Could you tell me about Candy Crush? How it came to be? Where it's going?" I say, leaning forward slightly. Zacconi rubs at a scar on his cheek before placing a delicate hand on my shoe.
"It came to me in a dream. At least, I think it was a dream. American candies, falling, exploding, fitting into place. Patterns of colour. When I woke I had already been doing the preliminary coding for the thing in my sleep, scrawled in pen on my wife's back." he says quietly.
"But what's the concept behind it?" I say. I knew what the game was about. Players moved pieces around in order to create rows that would make pieces disappear in order for more pieces to fall from the top. This in itself was nothing new, though it was the combination of aesthetics, sound, tactics and luck that had made the game successful. Not to mention the social media aspect of requesting extra lives or 'tickets' in order to progress in the game. 24% of all facebook activity over the last few months had been people sending lives back and forth over Candy Crush.
"The concept? Ah. Follow me please." says Zacconi, getting up. I offer him a hand to steady himself but he refuses, as is the way of lead designers.



We are now walking through a dimly lit office, the only light emanates from the CRT monitors stationed in each cubicle. There might be three or four hundred people on this floor, I know that the building is about forty stories high.
"What most people forget is that the game is called Candy Crush Saga. Emphasis on the saga aspect. Consider Beowulf, Sturlunga, Volsunga and so on. Perhaps the more contemporary would be Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, you see? But what these things have in common besides thematic similarities such as epic journeys or good and evil, is that they take time to fully digest. It is the time aspect that allows people to become attached to the characters and the world to such an extent it creates a kind of third place, between fact and fiction, you see?" he says. I nod, knowing exactly what he means. Elvis Presley, the JFK assassination, television soaps, the concept of family, biker culture and so on. On the surface each of these seemed to be more of a hobby than anything else, yet often these would become the subject of fanaticism.
"So what you're saying is that computer games are the next form of communication? Like books or film. And you see Candy Crush Saga as being a great work in this artform?"
"Precisely. The last thirty years of gaming has been shit. Candy Crush Saga is changing the world. You don't need realistic models, artificial intelligence or physics. It's all about the plot, the story, the human element. And what is more human than struggle? The underlying plot of the game is that of a journey, though one of pacifism. The average person can identify more with Ghandi than they can Jack the Ripper." he says. We have stopped walking and have arrived at a balcony overlooking Bucharest. The sun has begun to set, though the air is still warm.
"Can they though? Maybe part of the reason that things like murder have such a prevalence in our culture is that we, as human animals, enjoy that kind of thing?" I say. Zacconi turns to me. Maybe I see a tear in his eye, though he seems to reabsorb it.
"Just because that's the way it is doesn't mean we can't make steps to change it, you see? Candy Crush Saga is the first step in the complete pacification of world culture through computer games. We have started a trend in this type of gaming that will advance for decades, long after this company has been bought out. It is Vegetarianism. It is Buddhism. It is Marxism. It will change the world." he says. My phone beeps. One of my friends has requested that I send them a train ticket so that they can reach lemonade lake, and I oblige without thinking. Maybe Zacconi is right. He is crafting a subconscious mode of thinking through social gaming that appeals to everyone, no matter the creed or the colour, gender or age. I wonder what the world could be like if Zacconi had more sinister intentions, promoting illegal or immoral activities. Though as I turn from the Romanian sunset and look upon the visage of Zacconi I see a man with a pure heart, his expression set into that of a man gazing into the potential of tomorrow, a world he could have a hand in forging through Candy Crush Saga.

Information Light

The executives waited in the foyer, mouths open, eyes vacant. They appeared to be subintellectuals and in fact they were, except when it came to business. A sort of capitalist autism had set into each of them, smashing down the labyrinth walls of the mind to make way for the monothought.

Humanoids

Weighs Like Stone, Feels Like Shit

seven kilos of electronic jelly walking round in seventy kilos of blood and tubes and bone and hair numbering seven billion and yet here we are. only four hundred films get made a year. perhaps another hundred times that with books and a million times that for music. the last total number representing culture yet of what percentile of humanity are involved in the making of it? and what further percentile of it is any good? ideas. What's worth recording in any manner? By thinking about something you aren't necessarily fully enjoying it's actuality.

Monks in solitude delicately piecing together codices, whispering to themselves in Latin. A child watches a re-enactment of this in the next millenium, laughing and squirting virtual shit across the universe like some primordial gull. Allergies. Fat wrists. Delicateness. Nose bleeds. Cataracts. Baldness. All by the age of ten.

Another twenty million dollars is thrown in the face of an actor as he sits naked in bed surrounded by prostitutes, all are tanned and have perfect sets of filed down teeth. A phone rings. It's a studio executive pitching a t.v series set in the past. The actor accepts, his laughter almost blows the cocaine away as it's rubbed in his face via arse. The finest white wine in California is opened and all settle down to watch a blu-ray. Ninety minutes pass. And nothing has changed.