Adelaide Road

Aoife's Blog: Media Sandbox Showcase

March 13, 2011

On Feb 18, I went to the Media Sandbox Showcase in Bristol where I learnt about cutting edge digital possibilities that are being developed with the Pervasive Media studio. I particularly loved the idea of using smells to create poetic stories as well as the 'Hills Are Evil' app that allows wheelchair users to find out how accessible a particular route really is. It made me very excited about the digital possibilities for Adelaide Road!

Here's another piece for Touchstone (who I'm also imagining speaks the Prologue piece). I'm seeing him as a 21st century fool, our unreliable narrator/guide/pimp/petty criminal. He's slightly sinister, though I do intend him to be funny and outrageous as well!


TOUCHSTONE:

Escorts wanted. Earn five hundred quid a night.
It's easy money if you're sweet as honey.
Let me tell you why. We need girls who are easy
on the eye, who know how to grab an opportunity
with impunity. Do you like to dance?
Fancy taking a chance on romance?
Can you walk? Can you talk?
It's all very zen and above board, you simply get paid
to listen to interesting men with stories to tell.
What the hell are you waiting for?
You're not getting any younger,
don't you hunger for a better life,
to be a rich bloke's wife, to dress in gold.
For truth be told, love is bought and sold
to the highest bidder. That's the harsh reality
so forget your morality. I doubt you can afford it,
loosen up a bit, on the street we're all just meat,
no room for vegetarians, eat or be eaten.
Don't be beaten by the recession, learn this lesson,
fidelity is highly over rated, success lies in those
who know how to shake it, fake it, take it lying down.
Don't frown, it doesn't suit you. No need to be blue
because your rent is due. I'm your saviour
who'll pay you more for good behaviour.
Who said anything about selling your body,
what I'm after is your whole soul.
Trust me heartbreak doesn't kill though admittedly,
without my protection, it'll make you very ill.
You need me, believe me. Escorts wanted. That's right,
you heard me, earn five hundred quid a night.
You know you want to.

by Aoife Mannix  |  2 comments


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Comments

Mar 16, 9:03am
VB

A man in the street would first be asked to volunteer and if he refused he was often plied with alcohol or simply knocked out and taken.
I love the line 'what I'm after is your whole soul' Very Shakespearean Mephistophilus.
The soliciting energy got me thinking of Press gangs in the 18thC and wondered if this would help in the Adelaide Road development
'A commonly held belief of a trick used in taverns was to surreptitiously drop a King's shilling ("prest money") into his drink as by "finding" the shilling in his possession he was deemed to have volunteered, and that this led to some tavern owners putting glass bottoms in their tankards. However, this is urban legend; press officers were subject to fines for using trickery and a volunteer had a "cooling-off" period in which to change his mind'

Mar 18, 1:15pm
Barbara Saunders

I like the trail connecting Touchstone here to the notice about escorts mentioned in the earlier prose piece "Pressing Buttons."
Touchstone's sleazy innuendos seem to spring naturally from his everyday expressions and from the clever use of line breaks which create twists and turns of ambiguity. A very slippery character! I like the rhyming scheme too, making this speech feel dynamic.

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