Warning. Short post tangentially related to the larger process of redress.

I saw this yesterday. It seems to me indicative of a larger process of rebranding behaviour. How come someone is selling water as ‘just water’. I remember getting into a conversation about Starburst at the beginning of the century. They had changed their strawberry wrappers so they read ‘simply strawberry’ which was a weird complication to something that had previously been altogether simpler. There was confusion about why I was bothered. I was worried by the inexplicable need to make something appear more visibly naive than what had gone before.

Below is an old image of some books published by Cat Byrne. I was happy to discover that they existed outside of my own personal experience of her work. I was in Manchester and found them in the Traveling Man comic shop. It was a simultaneously grand and simple moment. If there then perhaps in the other shops of this small chain. If so then in the hands of readers far beyond Todmorden. Wow!

I was listening to a radio program about Harvey Weinstein and the horrors he’d performed. I’ve also heard a lot of people talking about Quentin Tarrantino’s new film in which he rewrites history and an act of terrible violence, famously against a woman. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it being his best film. It’s a tricky one. Quentin won an Oscar for the screenplay for his second film. It was a film made by Harvey’s company Miramax. The script had actually been co-written by Roger Avery. Avery was offered a large sum of money to take his name off the script. This helped him to make his next film and increased the chance of an Oscar which were apparently, thanks to Miramax’s extensive research, more likely to be given out to a single screenwriter. What went before is very often forgotten and the small acts of simple bravery to push forward often ignored. It’s disturbing the way that happens. Quentin may not have been involved in an act of abuse but he certainly benefited from the culture of control that allowed that abuse to remain hidden.

To paraphrase what it says in the picture, just saying.