Miss Musker: April 2010

Alcatraz is an absolutely amazing place. It was where people who couldn’t be allowed to escape ended up.

People like Al Capone.

The worst of the worst.

A prison on a piece of rock, surrounded by water.

A lot of water.

Once you got sent here, you weren’t going anywhere.

This must have looked like the end of your life, as the boat approached it.

The last time you were going to see the outside world.

And it gets worse.

You’re locked in your cell 23 hours a day.

The cells are stacked up in blocks 3 stories high.

There are no windows in any of the cells.

And, although you’re alone, there is absolutely no privacy.

Just a grill at one end.

For the guards to watch your every move.

The cell measure about 8 feet long by about 5 feet wide.

What does that actually mean?

The tiny bed takes up half the space.

Your head is touching the grill.

Your feet are touching the toilet.

Next to the toilet is the basin.

Attached to the wall is small shelf, eighteen inches square.

Below it is another, smaller shelf.

This is your table and chair.

All your waking hours are spent sitting at the table, or lying on the bed.

There is no room to walk.

I tried to imagine spending the rest of my life like this.

(Because, once you’re sent to Alcatraz, you never leave.)

I wanted something to remember it by.

Something to remind me what it must have felt like.>

So on the way out, I went through to the gift shop.

Just like the rest of the tourists.

And I saw a massive pile of metal cups.

Exact replicas of the ones that convicts drank from.

I wanted to buy one.

But most of them were spoiled.

They had ‘Alcatraz’ printed on them in big letters.

So they weren’t the authentic convict cups.

They were just a tourist version: a souvenier.

It ruined the illusion.

So I searched the entire pile looking for a cup without the name on.

But every cup had Alcatraz on it.

And while I was looking, dozens of people were buying them.

I went to another gift shop.

And the same thing happened there.

I looked for a cup with no name on.

While dozens of people bought cups with the name on.

As we were leaving the island I found a third, even larger gift shop.

And I went carefully through this pile too.

Just as I was giving up I found a cup with no name on.

I grabbed it before someone else saw it.

But I needn’t have bothered.

It was at the bottom because no one wanted it.

I took it to the cash register to pay.

The lady said, “Oh look, this one doesn’t have a name on. It must be defective. I’ll get you a proper one.”

I said, no thanks I want this one.

She said, “You want one without the name on?”

I said, yes please.

She said, “We really should send this back as a reject you know.”

I said, but I prefer it this way.

She said, “It isn’t any cheaper you know, I still have to charge you the same price.”

I said that was okay and did they have anymore like it?

She looked at me as if I was mad, “Without the name on? Why would anyone want it without the name on?”

It was a conversation that reminded me of something I heard recently.

Rory Sutherland was speaking at the IPA.

He said, “Creative people have a fear of the obvious, and yet they have to present their work to people who have a love of the obvious.”

Isn’t that odd?

We fear invisibility, they fear visibility.

We fear not standing out.

They fear standing out.

We seek risk.

They seek security.

Their start point is, “I want what everyone else has got.”

Our start point is “I don’t want what everyone else has got.”

Until Rory said it, it never occurred to me.>

That anyone could think the obvious, the expected, and the conventional was a good thing.
Not at the cost of visibility.

That’s why it always seemed to me that the most important sentence on the brief was never written on the brief.