Super Duper Close Up

Jess Latowicki, Made In China

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781786826862
• eBook ISBN: 9781786826855
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

We're all starring in the movie of our life. Selfie after selfie, post after post. It's exhausting. So take a break. Bask in the glow of the big screen as someone else has a go. See the heroine all dewy-eyed as the camera zooms in. And in. And in. Get set for a live-filmed Lynchian ride through the anxieties of an unsettlingly ordinary woman's existence. An epic journey to everywhere and nowhere, through a labyrinth of click-bait and pop cliché, via an infinite stream of frozen pouts and desperate smiles. Razor sharp innovators Made In China return following the "brilliantly subversive"???? Double Double Act (Time Out) and "murderously entertaining"???? Tonight I'm Gonna Be The New Me (The Guardian). A tragicomic and hypnotic explosion of film, movement and words, Super Duper Close Up asks what a girl is to do when everything is virtual, and virtually everything is for sale. Are you ready for your close-up?

On a Tuesday, not so long ago but also not this year, I went in for a meeting.

It was a pretty normal meeting. It wasn’t about anything special.

Not a meeting of any note.

I didn’t think that I would come out of the meeting with anything more than I went into the meeting with.

Unless of course, I did.

Ultimately, I was meeting this person because I wanted them to give me something that I didn’t have.

Money.

Or time.

Or space.

But this meeting wasn’t actually about asking for those things. Even if those things are the things that I was ultimately hoping I would get.

It was more of the kind of meeting where I was checking in.

With the person I was meeting.

We were checking in with each other about where we both were. About where we had both been. About where we each were going and whether we thought there might be a way we could go there together.

Metaphorically, of course. The where is a metaphor. It’s a metaphor for money. Or time. Or space.

A couple of my friends, a couple, Kate and Victor, got married recently. I went to the wedding. In their speeches to each other, their vows, they spent a lot of time talking about where they were going – and of course when they talked about that, they were both speaking about a metaphor and actual places they’ll go. Kate and Victor like to travel and both have jobs that have international offices or placements or something. They spent last year in Portland and they are thinking of going to New Zealand next winter, after their honeymoon. I like this couple, I think they’re a good pair. They look very similar, like if they said they were related you’d believe them. Sometimes Kate invites her brother, Duncan, along to social events, like dinner or trips to the pub, or even festivals – and whenever Duncan is there, or whenever Kate posts photos of Duncan and Victor together on social media, I always think to myself how similar Duncan and Victor look as well. I thought that at the wedding. As Kate and Victor were talking about all of the places they promise to take each other, metaphorically and literally, I was thinking about how basically everyone in their families all could be related. By blood.

And then I thought how good they’d all look when they inevitably posted a photo online. Not only would their ties and dresses and like, corsages all match, their faces would too.

I was early for the meeting. I’m early for everything. I used to think it was a hangover from when I smoked. I’d get places early so I’d have time to have a cigarette. But really, the reason I like being early is because it gives me a moral high ground, especially if the person I am meeting is running late. Waiting patiently is virtuous. And being late is stressful. And life is already stressful enough. I was early for my meeting so I was trying to focus on a crossword puzzle. I do a lot of crossword puzzles. I read it’s an excellent way to strength your ability to recall the right word in the right situation. It’s part of my concerted effort to be less … um.

But also, I do the crossword because otherwise I spend all my downtime looking at photos. On my phone.

This meeting I was going to, it was rescheduled four times. I rescheduled it the first time because I double booked myself.

The other three times Harriet rescheduled. That’s who I was meeting. Harriet. This meeting between Harriet and myself, had been a long time in the making. Countless emails, a handful of texts, and one last minute phone call, which happened when I had already arrived at the venue, the last time we were supposed to meet.

The venue is obviously referring to the building where the meeting takes place. Harriet works at this venue. And as you can probably tell, I make work for venues.

The meeting itself wasn’t about a particular work. It was about the possibility of work. About whether there was a possibility that the building Harriet worked at would be interested in working with me, providing me with space to work so that I could make a work that would work for them.

Harriet was late.

And I was early.

I was early enough that I moved from my crossword puzzle to scrolling through an entirely visual social media app. You might know the one I mean. It’s pretty addictive, right? Sometimes I dip in for a quick scroll and then suddenly realise I’ve been looking, mindlessly, for twenty-three and a half minutes and I’ve missed my stop on the bus and it’s nighttime so there isn’t another one for like thirty-five minutes so I end up having to walk all the way back like a mile – in the rain. You know?

I stopped the crossword because it was hard – I can still really only do Monday and Tuesday without having to look up every answer. They get progressively harder as the week goes on and I’m still a crossword novice after three years of pretty regular crosswording.

I feel like I’ve gotten worse at retaining or recalling information, so even if I sort of know what something is, I often can’t, you know… find it.

I worry sometimes that this is a warning sign of Alzheimer’s. I’m in my thirties, and apparently, there can be warning signs this early. Plus my grandfather had Alzheimer’s. He died when I was very young, so it’s hard for me to know if he also displayed signs, like forgetting names of television shows or forgetting being introduced to people or forgetting appointments even when they’re in your calendar. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I try to remember each detail of my day – everything I said, everything I saw, all the breaks I took, everything I read and listened to, all the new things I learned from the crossword – to make sure my brain is still working the best it can.

My grandfather, his life was very hard. His life had been so hard that he didn’t want to remember things. He wanted to forget. He prayed and prayed and prayed to forget things that happened in his life. Maybe he wished the Alzheimer’s into existence. Maybe each time he prayed, a small part of his brain would disappear, a small memory or word or sound. And so eventually he forgot everything.

He drooled a lot, when he was sick. My grandfather. I got a little scared of him then.

My life, it’s not been that hard and I don’t want to forget anything. But I do anyway.

That’s a lie. There are actually some things that I’d like to forget. But those are the things I seem to remember. They never seem to leave. In fact, they seem to get stronger. Maybe those bad memories are eating the memories that I want to keep or the words I am trying to remember. You know, like Pacman. The bad memories are using up all my storage! And I can’t work out how to erase them.

The crossword was too hard. Sometimes Tuesdays are just right and sometimes they’re just out of reach and it really has to do with how much I’ve slept and whether I did my brain exercises and my body drills and what I know and what I need to learn today and while I was sat in the reception of the staff entrance to the venue waiting for Harriet I didn’t seem to know anything. And I was frustrated which was frustrating because I didn’t want to be frustrated at the start of a meeting that wasn’t about much in particular, more just about working out whether work would work which is already frustrating enough.

So, I started scrolling.

Apparently, scrolling releases dopamine in our brain – that’s why it’s so addictive. Did you know that when dogs lick us, it’s the same – dopamine is released in their brains. That’s why they do it. Lick us. That and our skin is salty and it probably tastes nice.

It is Tuesday and I am sitting waiting to go into a professional meeting where Harriet, the person I am meeting, will talk about themselves for a while, then I will talk about work and then Harriet will say something to me that I will not be able to forget. Despite trying.

But I don’t know that yet. For now, I am scrolling, breathing deeply, wishing I still was a regular smoker.

When Kate and Victor got married I smoked. Even though I don’t really smoke anymore. I had to keep asking people for cigarettes. I asked Duncan, Kate’s brother, for quite a lot of cigarettes. He seemed to always be outside engaging different female wedding guests in intense chat. Duncan is a toucher, like, he always touches your arm when you speak to him. And he’s a quite close talker. You sort of always get the impression when he’s speaking that he could kiss you at any time. Everyone thinks that. Even all the married people who were there, even the ones who’d brought their tin...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1