quote:

“Who told you that story?”

“Someone who claims to have been a member of the boarding team.”

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“Why are you so interested in the contents of Chombo’s container?”

(...)

He seated himself. He looked up at her. “I’ve learned to value anomalous phenomena. Very peculiar things that people do, often secretly, have come to interest me in a certain way. I spend a lot of money, often, trying to understand those things. From them, sometimes, emerge Blue Ant’s most successful efforts. Trope Slope, for instance, our viral pitchman platform, was based on pieces of anonymous footage being posted on the Net.”

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“So what do you expect to get out of this, if you can find out what’s in Chombo’s container?”

“No idea. None whatever. That’s exactly what makes it so interesting.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Intelligence, Hollis, is advertising turned inside out.”

“Which means?”

“Secrets,” said Bigend, gesturing toward the screen, “are cool.” On the screen appeared their images, standing beside the table, Bigend not yet seated, captured by a camera somewhere above. The Bigend on the screen took a pale blue cloth from his pocket, pulled out a chair, and began to dust its arms and back and seat. “Secrets,” said the Bigend beside her, “are the very root of cool.”

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was skeptical at first about why WG put Bigend in this book. He didn't seem to fit at all. Despite the fact that his bit about secrets and cool is one of the most awesome parts of the book. But I picked up the audio version and listened to it a couple of times, and it is Bigend's role that most intrigues me these days. I think Bigend is becoming something else. Or at least he wants to.[/qiote]
You mean like Virek or Harwood?

I like Bigend, I think he emblematic of a certain kind of emergent character in the 21st century power game of marketing, sign and signifier. But, at his core, he's banal. He likes the coolness, he brushes the bigger meanings but he puts it back into the mundane.

I think that's the alarming thing about him. that he goes to all these lengths to find out secrets, to discover things never before done and then purposes them to shoe and Chinese car ads.

He's a villain not because of his methods but because, at the end of the day, he has a severe lack of imagination.

[quote]
First, some more conventional reasons for Bigend to be in on this. Perhaps how he caught on has something do with him already exploring Locative art. When I heard about the giant squid being used for the ad in Tokyo, it seemed wrong that someone would have beaten Hubertus to the punch. Maybe he's behind Archie.

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PotatoLove sayeth: And would it surprise you if you learned that Bigend picked Hollis's hotel because it had the bonus of being on Heidie's route home? We already know that he's manipulative.

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He's an amoral explorer of the world.

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“I haven’t actually found him that personally repulsive, aside from his taste in cars, but I don’t like the sense of enormous amounts of money at the service of, of, well, I don’t know. He’s like a monstrously intelligent giant baby. Or something.”

“Angelina says he’s utterly amoral in the service of his own curiosity.”

Chapter 34 Spook Country

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Originally posted by PotatoLove:
UberDog - I'll have to think more about Virek and Harwood, but I like you're take on Bigend's villainy. Not that I really agree he's a villain. He's something else, though he is definitely monstrous. Bigend's curiosity is frightening, though it is sometimes his most redeeming quality.

I don't think Bigend would consider advertising bland. I think he sees the world in terms of desires, secrets, group behavior and powerful actors. He rightly sees shoe commercials as a big part of global reality.

I think Bigend has a lot in common with phone phreaks and hackers. He's delighted to find powerful tools, he figures out ways to use them, and he isn't that broken up about what he soils or inconveniences. Like a hacker he has great reverence for the terrain he works in, but he doesn't see that terrain in the same way others do. AT&T may not want kids playing with their switching stations, and you may not want your art co-opted to sell cars, but, you know, the street finds it's own uses for things.

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Originally posted by Eric:

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PotatoLove sayeth: And would it surprise you if you learned that Bigend picked Hollis's hotel because it had the bonus of being on Heidie's route home? We already know that he's manipulative.

I like that PL.

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Originally posted by Gustave:
Sadly, if this were a real-world story that appeared one day in mainstream media, it would probably only be a blip on the collective consiousness. Those in line to catch shit (TPTB) over it would maintain a distance of non-acknowledgement long enough for the story to be swept under the rug by the usual deluge of "celebrity X farted in church" stories.

Then? Business as usual.