The Scene and Herd

There is a travel magazine in my bathroom with an ad on the back for some kind of overseas youth employment/volunteer program. “What if you only had one year to live?” it asks. “How would you spend it?” For a week or so this magazine has been sticking out of the magazine basket, just far enough to expose this question which assaults me every time I’m in there. It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel sad. It makes me feel guilty and it does not make me want to volunteer abroad.

 I just leave the magazine there though. I should turn it over or shove it behind other magazines.

Years ago while in Scotland, Laura and I watched the 24 hour interactive big brother UK station a few times. Jade Goody was on the show then, just getting her start as a weirdo reality TV show star. She was… distinct, kind of crazy and terrible looking, very memorable. Back in Canada, I didn’t hear much about her aside from some racism fiasco. And then, earlier this year, she started publicizing her struggle with cancer. 

I know that most Canadians don’t know who she is, but she’s gigantic in the UK and she’s dying of cancer and everyone is watching it happen. Cameras have been everywhere, all the time. She got married a couple of weeks ago and sold the photos of the wedding so she could leave tons of money to her kids. And I just read that OK magazine is selling an “official” Jade Goody memorial issue right now, though she’s not dead yet.

 I want to feel bad and sad (and mad) for Jade Goody but her story is never placed in a redeemable context. Pictures of her bald and crying are stuck up right beside Kate Moss’ nip slip on celebrity gossip websites. Oh, and last week one of the Oasis brothers said he’s “got fuck all against Jade Goody but there’s a recession going on.”

I keep thinking about my professor of Literature 1832-1900, talking about babies laying dead in gutters every morning, exemplifying that culture’s relationship with death, exemplifying how we’re so soft to it now.

But Oasis wants to talk about the recession. And I never get that travel magazine ad rhetoric out of my face.