Not your life – but what it could smell like
Not life.
Just a short one today. Something Johnny found and I thought was worth translating. Some copy for a place called PAPERCUT.
You are born. You learn to walk. You start school. You fall in love. You get dumped. You get up again. You fall in love again. You get dumped again. You go on. You steal a chocolate cookie. You get caught. You are ashamed. You get tired about being ashamed. You run away. You become an exchange student. You get in trouble. You get sent home again.
You fall in love. You get dumped. You get depressed. You start a band. You believe you’ll succeed. You don’t. You couldn’t care less. You get tired about not caring. You freelance for a painter. You end up breathing toxic chemicals. You end up in the hospital. You meet this nurse.
You fall in love. You get married. You become an architect. You get tired drawing houses. You buy one instead. You have kids. You separate. You get back together. You tell yourself that it is the right thing to do. You know it’s wrong. You hang in there. You get tired of hanging in there. You separate again. You wonder what you want to be when you grow up. You realize that you already are grown up. You go back to college and become a cultural journalist. You get a job at a local newspaper. You write this article about the ph levels in a local river. You write about how the mushrooms are early this year. You write about the birth of the hippopotamus in the local zoo. you get tired of the whole thing. You get an offer to start as copy at a local advertizing agency.
You say yes. You get the assignment to write about the well sorted store “PAPERCUT”. You write that ad as if it was some sort of biography, You don’t think. You forget completely that the assignment was to inform about the fact that PAPERCUT has everything you never thought existed. You drive to Krukmakargatan 24 – 35 (that’s an address). You find a shop that just got in the edgy interior design magazine ANTHOLOGY, the cookbook LA CUISINE and the fascination documentary THE RADIANT CHILD. You add a sentence to break the ad’s rhythm:
Sassa Brassa Mandelmassa.
Like a symbol for this shop being able to offer something beyond the ordinary. A symbol for the fact that life can actually be a bit more fun sometimes. A bit more interesting. A bit more exciting. Honestly, life isn’t so great all the time. And that’s exactly why you need film, literature and newspapers that are just the way your life is not.Amen for tonight.
Doesn’t happen very often that I stop and look at an ad these days. Except for the man your man could smell like of course. P. actually started buying his own shower gel (L’Occitane) and smells sexy ever since.
