Night lights

 Using one place to represent another has a long tradition with film-makers. I suppose the lie of being “on location” somewhere entirely different is for reasons of convenience or cost. Or to minimise any later nuisance from fans. Or to provide employment for location scouts. Fair enough. They say the Great Wall of China is visible from space. In 1958 it could be seen on the hills behind Penrhyndeudraeth when it was recreated for the “Inn of the Sixth Happiness”.

Playfully conflating places is however bread and butter to psychogeography. Even within the narrow horizons of a child’s world view,  I once thought Petula Clark was referring to “dain tain” Pompey when she sang “Downtown” (1965). A couple of years later, I believed “Don't Sleep in the Subway” was about a pedestrian underpass to the shopping centre, where on autumnal trips to M&S, my mother would buy tins of her preferred Chunky Chicken. On the way there, via a then well known department store, I can still recall her Co-op share number, recited at the till. It was 92124, but of no value now if you try to cash it in, or even find it.  I have vivid memories of waiting for the bus home at dusk, brightly lit shop fronts reflected in puddles from dripping rain, just as fictional dystopian futures were, and still are, portrayed on the big screen. But now with acid rain, toxic rain, radioactive rain. 

The sense of dislocation is more dramatic as the evenings darken, as shops shutter and restaurants reawaken. A twilight world of contraflow, the parallel universes of those rushing home and those setting out for the evening. The boundary is more blurred in these days of flexible work patterns, and multiple jobs for many people. In the gloom beyond the zones of privilege, we are likely to find the dystopian present. 

The moment is a popular trope in song. In 1974, Linda Thompson wanted to see “The Bright Lights Tonight”. In 1978 George Benson observed “The neon lights are bright tonight on Broadway” (but not the one in either Devon or the Cotswolds), in a song laced with the melancholy of the vain hope of fame. In 2009 will.i.am had a feeling that “Tonight's gonna be a good good night”. And in 2012 Sarah Cracknell could  “hardly wait” for “Tonight”, a song by psychogeographers Saint Etienne [which incidentally and uniquely manages to rhyme “surprises” with “synthesizers”]. As if in gentle parody of the genre, one noctilucent novelty song  (“Birdhouse in Your Soul”, They Might be Giants 1990) describes a child’s night-light in the shape of a canary. Maybe I digress. Maybe not, recalling the early influence of lights at night at this time of year. 

Restaurant windows can take you anywhere you imagine. Whether viewed from outside or in, they camouflage the actual city/town/village beyond. The surrounding darkness blends borders. Bowness becomes Bangkok, Betws y Coed is Buenos Aires, Southampton is Singapore and Portsmouth Pokhara. The delicious pretense is amplified by the decor, music and menus of idealised origins. I love it all: the aroma of the herbs and spices; the buzz of people enjoying themselves, mostly decades younger than me.  Am I guilty of cultural appropriation in trying to recreate the game at home? Maybe where you happen to be is of no consequence, if wherever you like in your head.

LINKS

two tourist traps (cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com)

Babylon Wales: Ingrid Bergman in Penrhyndeudraeth

Saint Etienne: Home Counties review – finding Arcadia in the Brexit heartlands | Pop and rock | The Guardian

Why Music Sounds Better at Night: The Science behind the Phenomenon (theaudiostore.in)

Second helpings from someone else's table (cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com)

Birdhouse in Your Soul - Wikipedia