UNCONTROLLED MANCUNIAN DIVISION

Good morning.

I’m loving the new neoliberal Manchester. Some of the old historic Manchester looks a bit like old New York. These new skyscrapers that sprouted here since I moved, mimic the newer US landscape.

At first, you hate them. They steal your sunshine, for one. They look unimaginative, like the architects are primary school children just learning to awkwardly draw houses. But splashing on a little “creative” wing, to be a bit “extra” — like a protruding side. Angled above the water, or some other grotesque element of “modern” architecture. Or a cheesegrater top floor, poking clumsily at the sky with delusions of grandeur. Not exactly the Woolworth building, is it.

But then you walk in. And …it’s not so bad. They steal everyone’s sunshine, so they give it to their own in large amounts through floor length windows. Large, airy, chilled. Good looking people live here. They walk their dogs. A woman looking like an athlete (judging by the boxer walk); another like a DJ, dragging music equipment, looking left and right hoping to be noticed and talked about. Well, you are talked about, love.

A model. A male mimbo collecting his ASOS parcels from the XXL hyaluronic lips receptionist, dressed in black tight sportswear. Minimal, professional, tame — only indication of any lust of life being the size of lips and the huge check it probably costs her to keep them that way.

Chinese students hiding their identity behind black baseball hats and oversized trench coats.

Good coffee. Hipsters working in the lobby — “watch me work on my Mac, with my matcha latte, and my expensive grey hoodie from nondescript American brand”.

A ginger beard, of course, matched with jungle earrings and a tattooed neck. Inspiring a purchased, curated masculinity that sits there, posing with a laptop, waiting to be complimented. Cosplay masculinity. A flash of his wrist, blue tattooed skin. Tattooed fingers to really imprint the idea he definitely has a unique personality, to look good in filtered Instagram shots of him working over the …laptop. In this stolen neoliberal sunshine, in the high rise palace of capitalism, overlooking a manicured river.

So much verve and motion. Like a lot is happening. And yet you feel like nothing worthwhile is happening.

Like it doesn’t lead anywhere. Just a sort of expert manifestation of production and capitalism with no purpose, no real joy. Definitely no culture.

Everyone is busy, or posing as such. A cosplay of life itself. Everyone is playing a role written for them by someone high above. They don’t know.

Well these skyscrapers put my rent up lower down the river, so I’ve parked myself here to enjoy their jollies for free. No one tells me anything, I can also cosplay being one of them. Though not posing with a Mac. Posing with a smile.

We’re all cosplaying here.