Homage to Benjamin

Yo I tell you what I want what I really really want sings Mel B in the opening lines of the Spice Girl’s first hit wannabe. This is promising. The age of Girl Power is dawning with a decisive woman. The suffragettes wanted the vote. Aretha wanted respect. Now it’s 1996 and a bunch of five feisty females are about to unleash their deepest desires on us. But they don’t seem so keen to get to the point. So tell me what you want, what you really, really want Geri echoes impatiently in response as Mel B tantalisingly repeats her first line. But, sure enough, following a brief interlude of guttural “huh – huh – huh ”-ing, Mel finally tells us what she’s after. It’s a ZIG A ZIG AH Zigazigah? I hear you cry. Zig-A-Zig-Ah? What the hell is a zigazigah? While hours have been spent debating the precise meaning of this set of incoherent syllables (and one can make a pretty good guess at what it might be), 13 years on this song has been playing on my mind. Mel wants something. She probably wants...

I've been in awe of Walter Benjamin ever since I stumbled across him in my 'Theories of Urban Culture' course as a second year undergraduate. Benjamin was fascinated with (brace yourself for a few long words) the social minutia and microscopy of everyday life . In layman's terms this means he wrote about seemingly superficial stuff -- the Arcades in Paris, photography, clothes -- and used these observations to come up with brilliant theories about culture. If Benjamin were around in 2009 I think he'd have been a blogger. Back in 1936 he wrote a seminal essay on the profound effects mechanical reproduction had on the art work; so no doubt he’d have a few thoughts on the digital age. He also introduced me to the figure of the flâneur –- an aimless wanderer who strolled through the city in order to experience it. I have very few similarities with Benjamin. I am not Jewish or German. Nor am I an academic (not even a failed one like Benjamin) or a Marxist. I am however...