GREATEST HITS
INTRODUCTION BY JAKE CHAPMAN
Once upon a time, not so long ago, in a place not so far from here, a small-time accountant named Bernard Matthews* was discovered impaled upon a meat-hook in the refrigeration compartment of an articulated lorry. According to The Sun newspaper, this merciless and cold-blooded act was the tragic consequence of a very mistaken identity. Through no fault of his own, Bernard Matthews’* frozen-solid body had thus been committed into the peculiar category of violent deaths whose shared characteristic is defined by the simple failure of a name to indemnify its owner from an erroneous fate.
As Mr Matthews’* immodest body-weight came to rest upon the hook, one imagines his dilemma and the desperate appeals summoned to deny the paradoxical accusations made about his identity – for, if it is true to say that torture seeks truth, one would hope to have a secret to reveal.
Under such duress, a proper name would appear to fluently disinvest itself of its given authority, offering little compensation to the marooned identity in question; the disarticulated being left to dangle, writhing with the helpless ambiguity of a disloyal name - and such is the tragedy of Mr Bernard Matthews*.
Hence, death by mistaken identity seems especially tragic because it demonstrates the disreputable nature of the very thing that appears, to an individuated ego, to count for everything – for One’s name not to be taken in vain.
A similar conundrum settles upon those unfortunates who grow up to find out that in the permutational cosmology of possible names, their very own personal moniker just happens to be in comic alignment with a star, popular celebrity or famous entity. Hence, to be named Tom Jones*, Howard Jones*, Elton John* or John Lennon* and not be the Tom Jones*, Howard Jones*, Elton John* or John Lennon* is a fate perhaps less painful than Mr Matthews’* but it is nonetheless humiliating.
Click. Flash. Blink.
In the event of a Being’s becoming noteworthy, first name and surname congeal beyond individual parts into a divine and indivisible entity or logo. Yet such indivisible entities (or monads) are prone to becoming internally defective as a consequence of the very pressure that stability impresses from the inside. Nouns Tom and Jones come together in the manner in which carcrash compresses into carcass. A short, fat, unattractive and bald unemployed deaf man called Tom Jones* is discovered fatally beaten with an ornamental brass coal-bucket in his self-styled bungalow. According to The Sun newspaper, this random merciless and cold-blooded act is the tragic consequence of yet another mistaken identity - and such is the tragedy of Mr Tom Jones*.
Emerging from the ‘mass grave of signs’ language superceeds the expectations of human interaction - fractally ratcheting into temporary alliances and novel formations that slip the noose of utile application. The sadistic whirlpool of impersonal forces of which 'language speaks man' gets its forking tongue twisted into serious trouble; an innocent remark spirals past the good intentions generating it cascading towards the chaotic attractor that will cause it to spasm cruelly: 'We are sad to announce that [..........] died last night after a long struggle with illness. He will be sorely missed'.
This, in a nutshell, is just what Justin Westover* does.
Jake Chapman
*Names used here have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
