In Search of A/The Point of Life

Posts Tagged ‘subjectivity’

Merry mad/maudlin Xmas – apt times to ask the big question: ARE YOU ALIVE? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LIFE QUIZ C

FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are  more than 5 different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. We will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!


ARE YOU A LONDONER? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LONDON QUIZ 2

Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are more than 5 different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!


As we turn 10-months old, we ask: ARE YOU ALIVE (too)? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LIFE QUIZ B.

Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are more than 5 different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!


TRANS-DIMENSIONAL RUNNING FOR OUR LIVES! A ROUGH GUIDE: IN THE CHAOSMOS OF OUTSIDE/IN. Or: Why running is an excellent tactic for the urban dweller.

** Breaking news: Currently #5 in the War of Films contest: CLAUDIA TOMAZ’S film about KAIDIE AND HER MEANING OF LIFE 3.0. VOTE NOW!** Vote by clicking on + sign at the top of video player. ** Don’t forget to vote for Episode 2, Run Kaidie Run, too!**

As we ran about in our neighbourhood on voting day May 2010, we found something found, and not lost. For a change. But perhaps she was unwanted, as it had been more than 2 weeks. Or perhaps she was the one who decided to leave, to have a new place to dwell.

In the physical, primary world of Life 1.0[1], running as a means of navigating the urban landscape has the clear advantage of not increasing our carbon footprints. While this single reason should be compelling enough to persuade the uninitiated, there are several more reasons  – philosophical, poetic, psychogeographical, personal and political  – why running is an excellent tactic for the urban dweller.

When we run in the city, we are able to personalise what could otherwise be an anonymous, alienating and brutal landscape. While located as an extension of the long traditions of walking (Benjamin, Debord, Richard Long, Lake District writers, Herzog et al), reality becomes more heightened for the runner (with the increased heart rate, speed, physical duress et al given the high impact activity). As an everyday (and legitimate and safe) activity, running departs from other urban tactics such as parkour, skateboarding and grafitti.

We can outrun our fears and danger when we run in the city. We could allow ourselves to be intimidated by the oppressive Barbican buildings and its heavily concrete surroundings, or, we could find our own ways around it, by running it. Running through a council estate in Peckham enables us to conquer our insecurities and paranoia, real, imagined or simply rumoured. If we have no physical advantage over another person (especially if one armed with a weapon, a hoody and ugly tracksuits, a fighter dog or ill-intent), like the Kalahari endurance hunter, we understand that we have our tenacity to rely on, that will allow us to outrun any potential matters of life and death.

Let all the 10,000[2] CCTVs in London follow our movements, for we will register as nothing more than blurs, as if in a Marinetti painting. Haussmann built broad boulevards that were not only beautiful for the flaneur (including those on hashish) to stroll on, but easier for Napoleon’s troops to run down delinquent Parisiens. We could theoretically outwit that, by running through it, as Lola did Berlin, not once but thrice, in Lola Rennt (Tom Twyer, 1998). (Indeed, Lola not only made us see different faces of Berlin, she overcame her useless lover’s problems and overturned her own fate). In precisely-built concrete jungles, the runner can find small ways to defy grand narratives, by running and discovering unknown alleyways and pockets of areas that are neglected. For tightly controlled cities that have been infamously described as having chaos is that is ‘authored’ or absurdity that is ‘willed’, running is a gesture that we can adopt as a comeback (also to the one who described it as such). If we have nowhere to run to, or to run away from, we can discover new spaces within a difficult system, to run. This is one way to ‘not let the bastards grind us down’, as the angry young Arthur reminds us in Sillitoe’s other Kitchen Sink classic, Saturday Night Sunday Morning.

Running also offers a refreshing filter for us to explore a foreign city. When we run in a new city, we interpret landmarks in ways that differ from the overexposed versions pushed forward by tourist books and postcards. Being literally and metaphorically on the ground, we can also run into places – including those that are filled with chaos and absurdity – that would otherwise be whitewashed from the glossy official or so-called authoritative versions. Exposure to the unedited and un-Photoshopped places can open our eyes, ears and minds to other, perhaps more meaningful micro-narratives than the overarching ones.

As runners, we also cease to be taken as ignorant foreigners or exotic Others who are vulnerable, helpless or simply irritating (although we now irritate in other ways, by for instance, ‘endangering the lives of other [slow] users of the pavement’, and so on). While we have previously seen how remains vital to assume the ideological position of an outsider, it is also strategic to look like a local every now and then. Other tourists or even locals ask us for directions, as if the runner has a greater authority on the given site. Indeed, we do.

Virtually anyone can run anytime, anywhere. While it remains unfathomable how the ‘female species’ are still viewed as ‘the weaker sex’ in the 21st century (this is a separate discussion that warrants another 2010,000 theses, and more, but not this one), running is a method in which the female urban dweller could subvert this tiresome outlook. While the female runner is still likely to be spectated upon, she is soon gone, away from any actual bullying that might have befallen someone in a slower mode of navigation. In return, we can enjoy a few moments of tokenistic reciprocations of taunts (after all, we have been at the receiving end from the beginning of time, since having allegedly been created from some spare rib, according to one best-selling storybook), by deliberately making eye contact with the male spectators, but swiftly sprinting off, as if saying ‘catch me if you can’. They do not, and / because they cannot, and they know it only too well. Hence, the look of impotence. A female runner navigating the big city alone can be a sign of physical and mental strength and confidence, thereby warding off any unwanted attention. Or, perhaps it is the face of intense concentration, or simply the excessive (and offensive) perspiration (and animalistic panting) of the serious female runner that desexualises her for the male spectator.

One female, foreign urban-dwelling runner is always warming up. Left: June 2010. Middle: April 2010. Right: May 2010, with our Garmin Forerunner 405 with a broken strap (due to our excessive perspiration, perhaps), here seen taped down to our wrist. We try to use brown tape instead of say, black gaffer tape, for aesthetic purposes as the former can blend in with the colour of our skin. You could not have seen the tape had we not pointed it out, could you?

Running in the city, we produce our own desire paths that subvert tracks laid out for us by the city planners. Should we have a Global Positioning System (GPS) device, we are also able to literally draw our own desire paths. In this way, we create our own unique marks in the midst of the concrete jungle. Akin to the graffiti artist’s surreptitious insignias on walls or trains (or the dog’s trail of urination in the streets), GPS drawing allow us to register our place and existence in the urban landscape. These new tracks, and indeed maps, can be shared with the online community on GPS-sharing sites[4], and further modified collaboratively[5]. From these, further mashups can be created. Like the Situationist tactic of deliberately reading a map upside down, the trans-dimensional runner can appropriate the mashups in innovative ways. In this manner, a lively Life 1.0-Life 2.0-Life 3.0 translation process is generated, all in turn allowing us to return to explore, question and understand our relationship with the city, and indeed, the builders of the city.

The glories of GPS aside, running in a city that we are unfamiliar with without a map can be liberating. Even in a city that we think we know, running without a map can open our eyes, ears and minds in new ways. In an age in which every frontier has been marked, mapped and fully known, such are small ways in which we can re-imagine and re-assess the environment that we live in, as well as its dwellers, including ourselves.

Running in the city, we can run away without physically away. Our minds travel while we remain fully embedded in the urban din. That it is neither illegal (as graffiti is), esoteric (as tai-chi is), extreme (as base jumping is, in which people jump off skyscrapers), technically-complex (as parkour is) or requiring special equipment (as nordic walking does), is the forte of running. Running is so simple as to be banal. While the likes of Roger Deakin, Byron and Martin Amis have made the activity of wild swimming sound lyrical, that it necessarily takes place outside the city, in somewhere unchartered and, indeed, wild, makes it escapist. With running, we can remain fully within a / the system. The ability to conform to a system while playfully questioning it, is an important point of the tactic of trans-dimensional running. Rather than to deny the city or reject reality, running allows us to opt in and play by the rules of the games, while slyly overturning them in personal but powerful ways. Running allows us to take ownership of a place that can be otherwise intimidating and prohibitive. By running, we see the city unpack itself in new ways that in turn also open us up.

Kaidie's desire paths for the month of May 2010.

This is an edited extract from a chapter. Where on googleearth does Kaidie do her writing (and some thinking)? Where is the place in Nondon that inspires us to generate such mindblowing, worldchanging, teethbearing words of wisdom?? To find out, read the next post!


[1] The various lives have been defined in the following ways in this thesis (as of 10 August 2010): Life 1.0 refers to the primary, physical world, ‘reality as it is’.  Life 2.0 refers to the realm of imagination, ‘reality as I like’, as well as realities made possible by Web 2.0. Life 3.0 points to our current hybrid, mixed and augmented realities made possible by Web 3.0. Life 4.0 refers to ‘Web 4.0? and other future technologically-enabled realities, as well as other cycles of our lives to come, in the form of transmigration.

[2] Justin Davenport, ‘Tens of thousands of CCTV cameras, yet 80% of crime unsolved | News’, London Evening Standard, 19 September 2007  [accessed 9 August 2010].

[4] Such as GPSies

[5] Such as open source software Qgis


ARE YOU ALIVE? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LIFE QUIZ A

Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are more than 5 different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!


DAY 45: KAIDIE’S ROUGH GUIDE TO WINTERTHUR (KAIDIE, THE TOURIST OF LIVES 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, ENJOYING THE WINTER DELIGHTS OF WINTERTHUR).

Bonechilling winter alongside warm sunny sunshine with white snowcoveredeverywhere with art, music, sports, nature, animals, cats, good studio space, good food, and good wine puts Kaidie in certain good spirits in Winterthur. Allow me to list down some of the highlights of my residency at the wonderful Villa Straeuli so far, just so that we could pat ourselves at our backs and fronts and insides and outsides and bottoms and tops and laptops and armflaps and thighbacks. As I said before, Life 3.0 is a  bloody good life, and, as I said before, envy me not, and as I said before, I said before. I have.

My very elusive happiness plugin came kicking in when I was running at the lovely Lindberg Hill, as I was happy to be back on my feet again, if ever-so-slowly. Running remains one of the best ways to have a swift panoramic introductory view of any city – across the local neighbourhood to the city central, hideaway corners  not mentioned in any guidebooks (EXCEPT KAIDIE’S, THAT IS!) to pockets of nature,  smiling back to 1 or 2 locals (out of the 100,000) who smile at you (probably because they are thinking, ‘who might this sweating, panting silly stranger be?!’ and yes looking slightly dishevelled as a visitor but literally close to the ground, one foot after the other.

Another reason for the joy was because my new travel-mate Mini, the Garmin navigator, finally found the Winterthur satellites and began doing what it is supposed to do! That said, it still is temperamental and fails to work consistently. IF GARMIN OR ANY OF ITS RIVAL BRAND IS READING KAIDIE’S TRAVEL BLOG, PLEASE HAVE THE COURTESY TO SPONSOR HER YOUR LATEST BESTEST MOST HIGHTECH NAVIGATOR.  A  lightweight one that also calculates heartbeat and distance preferred. Product placement guaranteed. Contact Kaidie NOW!

Winterthur

Lindberg is one of the 7 hills in Winterthur. From the top one can get a nice view of Winterthur. I also visited the other hill, the Bruderhaus Wildpark, and took some videos of my friends, which I will share in another posting. (We should be disciplined and distribute our pleasures, should we not, my Dear Readers?). Speaking of being on top, we also went up to the Roter Turm which also offers a nice panoramic view of Winterthur, at 483 m above sea level. The view is greatly enhanced with delicious white beers and even more so with the even more delicious Rieslings. Since we are at it, let us rub it in and make Kaidie a good food/drinks critic-cum-Rough Guide writer, by allowing her to add that the french fries at Irish pub Paddy O’Briens, just 1 minute 15.672 seconds walk from Villa Straeuli, was nicely heartchokingly fried. Devour with relish or eat plain. Thank god for the Irish diaspora! And while we are at it, thank god(s) for the Indian and Chinese diasporas too for our tandooris and wokwingfry chopped panda takeaways (vegan organic versions with black and white hair removed via brazilian waxing available on request) and singaporean (sic) flied lice. And yes, Swiss chocolates is not bad. Not bad at all. I would usually prefer dark (70% and above) chocolates, but Swiss milk chocolates is quite heavenly indeed. Cut thin, its taste is light but deep and sophisticated as well, and makes you want to buy up aaaaalllll the chocolates off all the Coop supermarket shelves  – if only the CHF isn’t so frightfully high. To eat as breakfast, pair chocolates with strong espresso or a frothy cappuccino with mountains of chocolate shavings. For brunch, pair with rose champagne; lunch, with Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc; tea, with Merlot or Shiraz; dinner, with straight vodkas; finally finish off with a large supper serving of Singapore slings, which is most appropriate, since Singapore is said to have modelled itself on Switzerland. (So, how’s Kaidie’s food critic skills so far??)

But of course, Kaidie in Life 3.0 is civilised, cultured and terribly artistic. I was delighted to have been reacquainted with some of my old friends at the Museum Oskar Reinhart, such as Goya and his fish, Van Gogh and his Arles, Cezanne with lots of fruits and/or mountains, or both, and the brilliant El Greco and his Cardinal.  This was just one of the many cultural institutions (including Villa Straeuli) set up by wealthy industralists of Winterthur.  I also had the pleasure of attending one of the weekly Saturday morning music concerts at Villa Straeuli. The sonorous sounds of the cello and the double base illicit profound poignancy as it does pure, pure joy. (Such a contradictory combination/clash/conflict occupies a most powerful state of in-between, the same spot where the frigid subzero temperature sits alongside the warm sunshine, where a Boltanski installation, a Chris Marker film  or a Glenn Gould rendition hits, and where Life 3.0 lies – ideally).

Coincidentally, Gould is quoted at an exhibition at the Fotomuseum, by Becky Beasley for her work Curtains (I) 2009:

There have been many occasions when I have recorded something and I have come into the studio at 10 o’clock on a Monday morning and really been in 16, not just 2 different minds, but 16 different minds as to how it should go.

Indeed. So go all 16 ways.


ARE YOU A LONDONER? ENTER QUIZ NOW! LONDON QUIZ 1

Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. FILL THIS UP AND SUBMIT TO KAIDIE, NOW! There are several different quizzes. Do complete them all! And you can fill up as many as you wish. I will publish the most interesting ones! THOSE WITH THE BEST ANSWERS WILL WIN A SPECIAL, SECRET PRIZE FROM KAIDIE!


DAY 6: MAPMAKING WORKSHOP AT THE BRITISH LIBRARY; ANOTHER SITE MAP FOR THIS SITE

Sight map of this website

Sight map of this website. I cannot bend my knees due to my folly of falling off the treadmill 2 days ago, but I can map the globe.

It is only Day 6, but every single day is full, fulfilling and meaningful for me. Today I take part in a mapmaking workshop at the British Library. This is my first ever workshop. I go as my current shape, a hamster. No one laughs at me, or find me strange- if they do, they do not show it. This is what I love about Nondon – that every one is different, every one has an accent, every one is as ‘entitled’. (To be sure, this is not what all Nondoners think, and certainly not what the Nick Griffin or the members of the  BNP [thats’ the Banque Nationale De Paris , for the non British out there] think, I think).

There are many exquisite maps at the British Library. (Like the British Museum, there are many, many, many things in the British Library. One of the reasons as we all know quite well is that they, well, ‘appropriated’ many things from all over the world during the glorious days of imperialism, but Kaidie, a 3rdlifer, while aware and conscious of course of these discourses, is free from the baggage and burden of  history/histories. As well as taste, some might say, looking at my map, above).

After the workshop, I walk down the Euston Road, which leads to Marylebone Road. Opposite the Madam Tussaud’s Museum (which is full of my impersonator friends), is a pub named the Globe (see below). As a true-blue cosmopolitan Nondoner, I down 9 pints in quick succession in 6 minutes, of Hoegaarden, Asahi, 3 Moët et Chandon Brut Impérial, 2 Mojitos, washed down with 2 straight vodkas. Burp. (In Life 3.0, there is no legal age-limit. Nothing is illegal, or nothing is legal either.) Refreshed from my small drink, I go home and make my own map (see above).

We are told that there will be a big map show in April 2010 – either the show is a big show, or that the maps that are shown there are big, or it is a big show that shows big maps. Magnificent! I must go! I must put it down in my diary.

Around the Globe in 6 days.

Around the globe in 6 days.

I MUST, MUST go as well to look at The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam show which closes 21 Feb 2010! I have just signed up to receive online newsletters. I must register to be a Reader as well.

SO MUCH TO DO, AND SO MUCH TIME TO DO THEM ALL! How I adore Nondon! My Life 3.0 is a bed of roses. And fragrant proses. Sigh.

Do not, my dear Readers, envy me please. Inequality is life. Such is life. Accept it!


I MAKE A NEW FRIEND IN EAST NONDON

Explorations in the exotic east.

I swim out Mummy’s tummy and wander about. I reach a place with many tall buildings, which excite me. Peering inside, I see offices with no one, as it is a Saturday. I visit the Nondon Museum, which tells me about Nondon in the past, which is nice, since I would have quite limited knowledge of Nondon before I was born today, though I think I would also enjoy exploring cities knowing next to nothing about them. With adjustable lenses within my eyes, I see a giant cucumber in a distance. This makes me excited again. I feel hungry. With desire rushing to the end of my earlobes, I swallow a few bagels (salmon and cream cheese) at Brick Lane. I see an exhibition by an artist called Sophie Calle. This is new to me. Her work is quite interesting. So this is what contemporary art is. I think I like art. I then put on earphones and walk a tour by Janet Cardiff. As someone new to Nondon, and on the Grand Tour of Life 3.0, I like the idea of being on an other tour while being on a couple of tours. Cardiff whispers into my ears. I hear sounds of footsteps. I am unsure if it comes from the earphones or the environment. I turn around anyway, and see a person behind me. She has a large pair of plastic wings on her shoulders, which she uses to wipe her mouth.

‘Come join me on my tour’, I say to her, and offer her one of the earphones.


WHILE FLYING ACROSS NONDON, I DECIDE TO BE A CATFISH IN MY NEXT LIFE

Flying across Nondon with my friends from one of my previous lives.

Flying across Nondon with my friends from one of my previous lives.

Today is a fabulous day. At 24km, I experience a runner’s high. I feel happy, calm, relaxed, smiling to myself, other runners, cops carrying large toy guns at Binfield House, babies visiting the zoo and having their other experience of animals apart from supermarkets, ducks and ants. Before I know it, a large pair of plastic wings is stapled onto my shoulders and I begin to fly. It is quite a lovely, crisp day, given December. I sight my friends from my one of my previous lives, who inform me that this has not been the case, as Nondon has been hazy lately. Hovering above Bee Tee Tower, I peer over at the Blade School of Dine Art – gosh, people certainly look different from a bird’s eye view. Being so high make me delightfully queasy, which surprises me, as one would imagine that the gift of flight automatically comes with anti-vertigo traits as well. Being a visitor in Nondon, Yengland, the land famed for its people of impeccable manners, I decide that, although recipients-to-be may not see me, it is best not to retch while in mid-air. I begin to make a slow descent. With vomit climbing up my eyes, my body begin  violent convulsions, and I see visions of myself as a catfish in my next life. Though I had been a fish and a cat in my previous lives, I had not been a combination of them – the prospect of becoming both at the same time at one go cannot sound more splendid. I suspect that the more I do this, the more efficient I become.

Finally, I reach the ground and find myself, as well as the other version of myself, in East Nondon. I begin to surreptitiously follow the other version of me, who is in the middle of a Janet Cardiff audio tour.

DO YOU THINK KAIDIE SHOULD CONFRONT HER OTHER SELF (WALKING KAIDIE IN EAST NONDON), OR SHOULD SHE (FLYING-BUT-SOON-TO-BE-ALSO-WALKING KAIDIE) JUST SECRETLY FOLLOW HER (WALKING KAIDIE) AND SEE WHAT SHE’S UP TO UNTIL SHE NOTICES? HOW DO YOU THINK SHE (FLYING KAIDIE, WALKING KAIDIE) WOULD REACT IF SHE SEES THE OTHER? WHAT SHOULD SHE SAY TO THE OTHER? SHOULD SHE SMILE?


TALK TO ME! YES, YOU! WITH ME, KAIDIE! NOW! HERE!

Of course, I would love to meet all of you out there, and most of all, YOU, yes YOU! But please understand that I can’t quite do that, much as I would love to (yes, believe me, for real). So the best space and time where we can come together is here. So don’t be shy. Come on in. Here are questions that I have come up, with to get us started. FILL THIS UP, AND SEND IT BACK TO ME. IN RETURN, YOU CAN ASK ME ANY QUESTION THAT YOU HAVE IN MIND. ANY – APART FROM THOSE ALREADY ADDRESSED IN THE FAQ – ANY, ANY, ANY. If you do not fill it up, I will not talk to you. Simple. You do not, of course, have to answer ALL of them (though it will so please me if you would). Just go for the ones you fancy. For the trickier questions, I have even provided some tips to help you! See, Life 3.0 is nice like this.

The Nondon Underground.

The Nondon Underground

  1. SCREEN NAME / STAGE NAME:
  2. CITY OF ORIGIN:
  3. LANGUAGES SPOKEN/WRITTEN:
  4. WHY ARE YOU IN LONDON?
  5. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN IN LONDON?
  6. WHERE DO YOU LIVE? DO YOU LIKE THE AREA YOU LIVE?
  7. WHAT KIND OF SPACE DO YOU DWELL? HOW DO YOU LIKE IT? Tip: Bedsit, studio-apartment, dorm, hut, straw house, council block, cave etc
  8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LONDON? COMPARED TO THE CITY YOU HAVE COME FROM? COMPARED TO OTHER CITIES?
  9. WOULD YOU LIVE IN LONDON FOREVER? WHY? WHY NOT?
  10. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF LONDONERS IN GENERAL?
  11. DO YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF A ‘LONDONER’?
  12. WHAT CAN KAIDIE DO TO BE A ‘LONDONER’?
  13. WHAT CAN KAIDIE DO TO BE A ‘TYPICAL’ LONDONER? ‘GOOD’ LONDONER?
  14. WHAT DO YOU LIKE/LOVE ABOUT LONDON?
  15. WHAT DO YOU DISLIKE/HATE ABOUT LONDON?
  16. WHAT DO YOU DO DURING WEEKENDS IN LONDON?
  17. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MEANINGFUL PURSUITS FOR KAIDIE IN LONDON? WHAT RECOMMENDATIONS HAVE YOU GOT FOR KAIDIE TO DO IN LONDON?
  18. WHERE CAN SHE GO TO CHECK OUT DURING WEEKENDS?
  19. DO YOU THINK THERE IS ALWAYS NOT ENOUGH TIME, OR IS TIME JUST RIGHT?
  20. IF YOU ARE TO DIE TOMORROW, WHAT WILL YOU DO TODAY?
  21. IF YOU HAVE 1 HOUR TO LIVE, WHAT WILL YOU DO?
  22. WHAT WILL YOU EAT AT YOUR LAST MEAL?
  23. TILL HOW OLD DO YOU WANT TO LIVE?
  24. HOW IN LONDON DO YOU WANT TO DIE? Tip: Mugged, at UCH(‘s waiting list) with swine flu, run over by the tube, hit by a taser gun, etc
  25. WHERE IN LONDON DO YOU WANT TO DIE?
  26. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WERE BEFORE YOU WERE ‘YOU’?
  27. WHAT DO YOU WISH TO BECOME IN YOUR NEXT LIFE?
  28. WOULD YOU WISH TO REPEAT THIS LIFE?
  29. WOULD YOU BE BACK IN LONDON THE NEXT TIME ROUND?
  30. IF YOU COULD LIVE YOUR LIFE ALL OVER AGAIN, HOW WOULD YOU CHANGE IT?
  31. IF YOU COULD CHANGE THE WORLD, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
  32. IF YOU WERE MAYOR OF LONDON, WHAT IS THE FIRST THING THAT YOU WOULD DO?
  33. WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BECOME IN YOUR NEXT LIFE?
  34. ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT YOUR LIFE NOW?
  35. ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT OUR LIFE IN GENERAL NOW?
  36. IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WISH TO CHANGE?
  37. IF YOU WERE A SUPERHERO, WHO WOULD YOU BE?
  38. IF YOU HAD A SUPER POWER, WHAT WOULD IT BE? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
  39. IF YOU COULD DO ANYTHING THAT YOU WANT RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
  40. DO YOU HAVE A WISH FOR YOURSELF OR FOR ‘MANKIND’ IN GENERAL Tip: Imagine yourself as Ms Universe when you answer this question.
  41. RIGHT NOW, IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WISH TO DO THAT YOU CANNOT?
  42. IS THERE SOMETHING YOU HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED OF, THAT YOU CANNOT ACCOMPLISH, FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER?
  43. IF YOU ARE GIVEN A CHANCE TO REINVENT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD YOU BECOME? Tip: A famous personality, a not famous personality, a famous non-personality, a person with a different occupation/gender/class/accent/appearance, or not even a person, but perhaps something useful, like a falafel or curtains, etc.
  44. WHAT GOOD PERSONALITY TRAITS DO YOU THINK KAIDIE SHOULD HAVE?
  45. WHAT GOOD HABITS SHOULD KAIDIE DEVELOP?
  46. WHAT BAD HABITS DO YOU THINK KAIDIE SHOULD NOT DEVELOP?
  47. FROM YOUR PERSONAL POINT OF VIEW WHAT DO YOU THINK OF KAIDIE’S QUEST?
  48. DO YOU HAVE TIPS FOR KAIDIE FOR HER TO LOOK FOR THE MEANING OF LIFE?
  49. ANY TIPS FOR KAIDIE TO BE HAPPY? BE HEALTHY? EAT WELL, HAVE A LOVING RELATIONSHIP, WORK-LIFE BALANCE, BE OPTIMISTIC ETC.
  50. WHAT OTHER ADVICE DO YOU HAVE TO GIVE KAIDIE?
  51. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO KAIDIE IF YOU MEET HER?
  52. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO KAIDIE HERE?
  53. WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO KAIDIE IN A PRIVATE CONVERSATION?
  54. WHAT ARE YOUR LAST WORDS TO KAIDIE?
  55. WHAT ARE YOUR LAST WORDS BEFORE YOU DIE?
  56. WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ON YOUR TOMBSTONE (IF YOU COULD DO THAT JUST BEFORE YOU GO, THAT IS)?
  57. WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE AS YOUR LAST BLOG ENTRY TO US EARTHLINGS?
  58. WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE ON YOUR WALL AS A PARTING SHOT?
  59. WHAT IS YOUR LAST TWIT? (BE CONCISE NOW! ONLY 140 CHARACTERS!)
  60. FINALLY, ONE ADJECTIVE TO DESCRIBE YOUR LIFE. JUST ONE. Tip: fab, amazing, shite, so-so, what-life? etc

UPDATABLE GLOSSARY: LONDON, NONDON, NON-LONDON

The world has more than One London, including the one 'so full of Stink and darknesse'.

The world has more than One London, including the one 'so full of Stink and darknesse', and - get this - London BEFORE London (?!?)

GLOSSARY/ WIKI ABOUT THE UNIVERSE OF KAIDIE / LIFE 3.0, AND THE THEATRE OF CHARACTERS (ongoing). SEEKING DEFINITIONS AND MULTIPLE+ALTERNATIVE DEFINITIONS! CONTRIBUTE NOW!

VARIATIONS OF LONDON:

* London, UK:

* London 2012’s London:

* Rough Guide’s London:

* London A-Z:

1) Contribution by reader KathyMartens 12/12/2009: ‘Something that ALL Londoners carry! Hallmark of a Londoner. If you don’t own one, you’re not a Londoner.’

* Nondon:

* Nondon in Bangladesh:

*Londoner:

1) Following KathyMartens’ definition, one that carries an A-Z.

* Nondoner:

1) Question from Michiko 12.12.2009: Is Kaidie the only inhabitant of Nondon?

* Virtual London: project by CASA at UCL; other digital versions of Londons

* At least 12 Londons in USA:

* Little Londons all over the UK, and Serbia, and Jamaica:

* Quite a few Londons in Canada:

* ‘London’ according to Patrick Keiller, Will Self, Woody Allen, Rowling/Potter, Loach, Gilliam, Neil Gaiman, Dickens, Wilde, Woolf, Kureishi, Rushdie, Hitchcock and Bond – James Bond:

DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE VERSION? HAVE YOU YOUR OWN VERSION OF LONDON TO SHARE WITH ME? OR, ARE THERE COPIES OF YOUR CITY OUT THERE? HAVE YOU YOUR PERSONALISED VERSION OF YOUR CITY?