Putting away the last hat, she closes the carton and hands it to Voytek.
“You’re paid to go to clubs and mention products?”
“Firm’s called Trans. Doing very well, apparently. I’m a design student, need something to make ends meet, but it’s getting to be a bit much.” She’s lowering a sheet of tattered transparent plastic to indicate that her makeshift stall is now closed. “But I’ve just sold twenty hats! Time for a drink!”
“ YOU’RE in a bar, having a drink,” Magda says, the three of them wedged into one darkly varnished corner of an already raucous Camden pub, drinking lager.
“I know,” says Voytek, defensively.
“No! I mean you’re in a bar, having a drink, and someone beside you starts a conversation. Someone you might fancy the look of. All very pleasant, and then you’re chatting along, and she, or he, we have men as well, mentions this great new streetwear label, or this brilliant little filmthey’ve just seen. Nothing like a pitch, you understand, just a brief favorable mention. And do you know what you do? This is what I can’t bloody stand about it: Do you know what you do?”
“No,” Cayce says.
“You say you like it too! You lie! At first I thought it was only men who’d do that, but women do it as well! They lie!”
Cayce has heard about this kind of advertising, in New York, but has never run across anyone who’s actually been involved in it. “And then they take it away with them,” she suggests, “this favorable mention, associated with an attractive member of the opposite sex. One who’s shown some slight degree of interest in them, whom they’ve lied to in an attempt to favorably impress.”
“But they buy jeans,” Voytek demands, “see movie? No!”
“Exactly,” Cayce says, “but that’s why it works. They don’t buy the product: They recycle the information. They use it to try to impress the next person they meet.”
“Efficient way to disseminate information? I don’t think.”
“But it is,” Cayce insists. “The model’s viral. ‘Deep niche.’ The venues would be carefully selected—”
“Bloody brilliantly! That’s the thing, I’m every night to these bleeding-edge places, cab fare, cash for drinks and food.” She takes a long pull on her half pint. “But it’s starting to do something to me. I’ll be out on my own, with friends, say, not working, and I’ll meet someone, and we’ll be talking, and they’ll mention something.”
“And?”
“Something they like. A film. A designer. And something in me stops.” She looks at Cayce. “Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“I’m devaluing something. In others. In myself. And I’m starting to distrust the most casual exchange.” Magda looks glum. “What sort of advertising do you do?”
“I consult on design.” Then, because this is not exactly the stuff of interesting conversation: “And I hunt ‘cool,’ although I don’t like to describe it that way. Manufacturers use me to keep track of street fashion.”
Magda’s eyebrows go up. “And you like my hats?”
“I really like your hats, Magda. I’d wear them, if I wore hats.”
Magda nods, excited now.
“But the ‘cool’ part—and I don’t know why that archaic usage has stuck, by the way—isn’t an inherent quality. It’s like a tree falling, in the forest.”
“It cannot hear,” declares Voytek, solemnly.
“What I mean is, no customers, no cool. It’s about a group behavior pattern around a particular class of object. What I do is pattern recognition. I try to recognize a pattern before anyone else does.”
“And then?”
“I point a commodifier at it.”
“And?”
“It gets productized. Turned into units. Marketed.” She takes a sip of lager. Looks around the pub. The crew in here aren’t from the Children’s Crusade. She guesses they are the folks who live nearby, probably back behind this side of the street, a neighborhood less gentrified than Damien’s. The wood
“You’re paid to go to clubs and mention products?”
“Firm’s called Trans. Doing very well, apparently. I’m a design student, need something to make ends meet, but it’s getting to be a bit much.” She’s lowering a sheet of tattered transparent plastic to indicate that her makeshift stall is now closed. “But I’ve just sold twenty hats! Time for a drink!”
“ YOU’RE in a bar, having a drink,” Magda says, the three of them wedged into one darkly varnished corner of an already raucous Camden pub, drinking lager.
“I know,” says Voytek, defensively.
“No! I mean you’re in a bar, having a drink, and someone beside you starts a conversation. Someone you might fancy the look of. All very pleasant, and then you’re chatting along, and she, or he, we have men as well, mentions this great new streetwear label, or this brilliant little filmthey’ve just seen. Nothing like a pitch, you understand, just a brief favorable mention. And do you know what you do? This is what I can’t bloody stand about it: Do you know what you do?”
“No,” Cayce says.
“You say you like it too! You lie! At first I thought it was only men who’d do that, but women do it as well! They lie!”
Cayce has heard about this kind of advertising, in New York, but has never run across anyone who’s actually been involved in it. “And then they take it away with them,” she suggests, “this favorable mention, associated with an attractive member of the opposite sex. One who’s shown some slight degree of interest in them, whom they’ve lied to in an attempt to favorably impress.”
“But they buy jeans,” Voytek demands, “see movie? No!”
“Exactly,” Cayce says, “but that’s why it works. They don’t buy the product: They recycle the information. They use it to try to impress the next person they meet.”
“Efficient way to disseminate information? I don’t think.”
“But it is,” Cayce insists. “The model’s viral. ‘Deep niche.’ The venues would be carefully selected—”
“Bloody brilliantly! That’s the thing, I’m every night to these bleeding-edge places, cab fare, cash for drinks and food.” She takes a long pull on her half pint. “But it’s starting to do something to me. I’ll be out on my own, with friends, say, not working, and I’ll meet someone, and we’ll be talking, and they’ll mention something.”
“And?”
“Something they like. A film. A designer. And something in me stops.” She looks at Cayce. “Do you see what I mean?”
“I think so.”
“I’m devaluing something. In others. In myself. And I’m starting to distrust the most casual exchange.” Magda looks glum. “What sort of advertising do you do?”
“I consult on design.” Then, because this is not exactly the stuff of interesting conversation: “And I hunt ‘cool,’ although I don’t like to describe it that way. Manufacturers use me to keep track of street fashion.”
Magda’s eyebrows go up. “And you like my hats?”
“I really like your hats, Magda. I’d wear them, if I wore hats.”
Magda nods, excited now.
“But the ‘cool’ part—and I don’t know why that archaic usage has stuck, by the way—isn’t an inherent quality. It’s like a tree falling, in the forest.”
“It cannot hear,” declares Voytek, solemnly.
“What I mean is, no customers, no cool. It’s about a group behavior pattern around a particular class of object. What I do is pattern recognition. I try to recognize a pattern before anyone else does.”
“And then?”
“I point a commodifier at it.”
“And?”
“It gets productized. Turned into units. Marketed.” She takes a sip of lager. Looks around the pub. The crew in here aren’t from the Children’s Crusade. She guesses they are the folks who live nearby, probably back behind this side of the street, a neighborhood less gentrified than Damien’s. The wood
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