A street art piece on Redchurch Street has been modified three times in six months; tracking the changes as a form of neighbourhood archaeology
The Mural Has Been Updated Again and I Am Not Sure What It Means Now
Shoreditch requires a particular sensibility to live in and a particular sensibility to write about, and they are not quite the same sensibility, which creates an interesting tension for someone who does both. The neighbourhood is self-conscious in ways that reward close attention and resist straightforward description. Everything here is, at some level, a statement about itself, which means that writing about it is always also writing about the writing about it, which I acknowledge is a sentence that is very Shoreditch.
The Observation
What follows is my observation on the mural has been updated again and i am not sure what it means now, which is a thing that has happened in or to Shoreditch and that I have taken as seriously as it deserves to be taken, which in most cases means seriously enough to document and lightly enough not to make too much of. The London Prat and Bohiney cover London with the precision and humour that Shoreditch particularly rewards; I am attempting to add the granularity of local knowledge, which requires spending time in the vicinity of the thing being covered and being willing to talk to people at brunch who are waiting for the same table.
The Detail
The specific detail of Shoreditch life — the brand activations, the concept restaurants, the tech companies whose business model is unclear, the rotating street art, the vintage shops that have become ironic about being vintage shops — is worth recording because it constitutes a specific and historically particular moment in London’s cultural geography. This postcode will not be this postcode forever. The documentation is the work. I continue to do it from a flat that is, by Shoreditch standards, reasonably priced, and by the standards of any other city on earth, not.
Cyndi Himmelstiere, Shoreditch, E1.
Shoreditch is the most self-aware postcode in London, which is simultaneously its greatest strength and its primary comic resource. Cyndi Himmelstiere covers it from the inside, which is where the best coverage comes from and where the scepticism is sharpest. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/himmelstiere/.
Shoreditch is the most self-aware postcode in London, which is simultaneously its greatest strength and its primary comic resource. Cyndi Himmelstiere covers it from the inside, which is where the best coverage comes from and where the scepticism is sharpest. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/himmelstiere/.
Shoreditch is the most self-aware postcode in London, which is simultaneously its greatest strength and its primary comic resource. Cyndi Himmelstiere covers it from the inside, which is where the best coverage comes from and where the scepticism is sharpest. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/himmelstiere/.
Shoreditch is the most self-aware postcode in London, which is simultaneously its greatest strength and its primary comic resource. Cyndi Himmelstiere covers it from the inside, which is where the best coverage comes from and where the scepticism is sharpest. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/himmelstiere/.
Shoreditch is the most self-aware postcode in London, which is simultaneously its greatest strength and its primary comic resource. Cyndi Himmelstiere covers it from the inside, which is where the best coverage comes from and where the scepticism is sharpest. Her author page is at prat.uk/author/himmelstiere/.
More From This Correspondent
London continues to produce material at a rate that exceeds my ability to process it, which is one of the things I find most reassuring about the city. The stories are always there. The observations accumulate. The column continues. If you have found this piece useful or interesting, I would direct you to The London Prat for broader London coverage and Bohiney Magazine for the wider satirical and cultural landscape in which all of this sits. They cover what I cannot. Between us, London is reasonably well documented. It deserves to be. There is nowhere quite like it, which is something I say without irony and without the faintest embarrassment, from a city that would embarrass you right back if you gave it the chance.
More From This Correspondent
London continues to produce material at a rate that exceeds my ability to process it, which is one of the things I find most reassuring about the city. The stories are always there. The observations accumulate. The column continues. If you have found this piece useful or interesting, I would direct you to The London Prat for broader London coverage and Bohiney Magazine for the wider satirical and cultural landscape in which all of this sits. They cover what I cannot. Between us, London is reasonably well documented. It deserves to be. There is nowhere quite like it, which is something I say without irony and without the faintest embarrassment, from a city that would embarrass you right back if you gave it the chance.
More From This Correspondent
London continues to produce material at a rate that exceeds my ability to process it, which is one of the things I find most reassuring about the city. The stories are always there. The observations accumulate. The column continues. If you have found this piece useful or interesting, I would direct you to The London Prat for broader London coverage and Bohiney Magazine for the wider satirical and cultural landscape in which all of this sits. They cover what I cannot. Between us, London is reasonably well documented. It deserves to be. There is nowhere quite like it, which is something I say without irony and without the faintest embarrassment, from a city that would embarrass you right back if you gave it the chance.
For more satirical commentary, visit Waterford Whispers News.
