Gerald Finzi, since you ask. There's an interesting Cowpat!
I though I had put 'utility' behind me but I can't help but find more intersting things to think about on the topic.
I wanted to see if I could think of a tool so basic that one would be able to choose it for utility alone without any aesthetic or cultural influences.
A stick!, I thought. A stick to stir a tin of paint. But I soon realised that there is a good deal that goes into choosing even such a simple tool. Forget size, stength, shape, length etc. and think of things that would not effect the actual paint stirring ability of the stick.
A wooden spoon from the kitchen might seem a good idea, but there are obvious problems with that.
Would I use an ebony or mahogony stick to stir paint? Of, course not.
Would I use that stick that was given me by my Beloved when we trothed our plight?
Or plighted our troth?
Whatever.
No, I could not bring myself to do that.
Would I use The Sacred Stick of Haddash Grove?
Cut from the Grove with a Golden Sickle by Local Druids.
I'd be too scared.
Viv told me she uses a chopstick to stir paint. Think of the cultural associations! and the fact that there would then be a single spare chopstick. And it is not often a one-armed Chinese comes to dinner.
So complicated are the networks of the human mind that I have come to believe that there will always be an emotional/social link somewhere in any decision.
Isn't Advertising all about finding these links and exploiting them? Perhaps human relationships in general.
The search for the purely utile is simply F utile.
But enjoyable nevertheless.
I saw a gate this morning...
That could be the start of an inspiring speech, or tract, but it is not.
The point is that the gate on a local footpath had a complicated metal latch of a kind I had never seen before. I did not have a camera, but if I return I shall take a photo for you to see.
Why such complexity when a simple device would have done, like a hook and eye latch?
That made me go down a new path.
That of overutility, when things are deliberately made more complex, or have more functions than is actually needed for the original task.
Do you have examples of your own?
BOOBS...
As I was standing at Sainsburys checkout I noticed the headline on a magazine: Lucy's Double Boob Job.
I had to look closer in case it was Lucy Liu. ( A regular reader of this blog.)
Don't do it Lucy! Not yet, I thought, You still have a few years of perfection left.
To my relief it was some soapy Lucy unknown to me,
Then I thought, Double?
Unless for medical reasons or a case of severe asymmetry aren't boob jobs always double?
Then I thought, Job?
The use of the word 'job' is interesting in several ways - apart from bringing us back to the topic of utility -. It strongly suggests, to me anyway, that whatever went on was not for medical reasons. Probably cosmetic. Now why use the word 'job' to describe cosmetic surgery? That is rather a tough question, and at the time of writing I have absolutely no idea. But I'm sure some possibilities will come later. What I am sure of is that the word 'job' is strongly connected to the idea of utility. So off we go again.
Then I thought, Boob?
What an interesting word! Usually one can make a stab at the etymology of a word, but here I drew a blank. So naturally I looked it up online.
I find none of the explanations convincing.
But I think the very shape of the word has helped it become wedged in the public vocabulary.
Aside. The bawdy associations connected to body parts is worth a book - there probably is one, but I'm not looking. Especially the degree of rudeness. Breasts/Boobs seem to be the comfortable Middle Class of such a system. A quite acceptable word to use during Christmas Dinner. Yet indisputably ribald if said in a certain tone, or with a certain look.
Here is a Family Game you can all play over the coming Festive Season.
Take the word BOOB... including the three dots, and make a Shape Poem (s)
from it. Make sure your poems almost fill one A4 sheet of paper.
Feel free to use coloured pens and paper if you like.
Please don't sent me the results, I'm not interested. I already know it proves my point.
Oh, the more intellectual among you can also write a short essay on how the above exercise relates to the concept of Utility. Not forgetting to include a mention of Flat Laxity.*
Those I would be interested in reading!
Mixed Flocking.
I went for a short walk this morning and noticed a mixed flock of oystercatchers and gulls and was reminded of the mixed flock of hibernating ladybirds. I thought mixed species flocking among birds was usually associated with the tropics, but this is perhaps because the bright colours and exotic plumage found in some tropical flocks makes them stand out more than those found in cooler latitudes.
The social and economic interactions between species in a mixed flock are fascinating and, as the linked definition says, still not fully understood.
The sadness of simply 'not liking'.
Yesterday I went out to the tiny village of Lowgill, tucked away at the head of a valley leading down from the fells.I wanted to see Jane and Mike before they left to live in Scotland. You may remember I said they had found a place by a remote(ish) loch.
Unfortunately that sale fell through, so they are taking a flat in Inverness and using that as a base to find a house in 2014. I had emailed Jane and she said they were having an 'open house' on Sunday to say goodbye to friends and neighbours.
It was already starting to get crowded when I arrived and everyone seemed to have bought some exquisite little snack for the buffet. Not a corned beef sandwich or twiglet in sight!
It is a long time since I last saw Jane, one of my first Lancaster friends, and there was a lot I wanted to ask (Not least about her new Hindburn paintings, that I think are among my favourites, though I only got to see a couple.)
So I ate as much as I dared, spoke to Jane and Mike, in breaks between the constant arrival of new friends, and then left. While emptying my plate I chatted to a recently retired woman who asked about Sulawesi - I get a little irritated with people who seem to think that I am doing it just for fun. I see it as work. I cannot afford to live without work and jobs are very hard to find in this country. I certainly hope it will be fun too!) She told me how much her son had enjoyed South East Asia and how much she would like to work abroad and how well qualified she was to do so. I suggested Cambodia and one or two other places. Then finally she said, My son says it would not suit me, I don't like heat and humidity. I resisted the temptation to make some facetiously sarcastic remark about the need for English Language teachers among the Eskimos.
Is there a more contemptible phrase in the English language than 'I don't like'?
Or rather with the implied emphasis on the I, 'I don't like.'
It seems to epitomise both the bourgeois and the egotistical philistine.
If life is anything it is not about 'liking' or 'not liking', it is about doing, enjoying and trying to understand. And those who 'don't like' are to be pitied.
I can't say I 'like' standing in the forest completely drenched in sweat with boots full of blood. But in context it is one of the most wonderful things in the world. If it was all 'like' then it would probably be empty.
Similarly, I'm sure Jane won't 'like' being eaten by midges and having only oats to eat when she finds her house in Scotland.
Stop ranting, go and meet Gill who said, 'The Hall. Coffee. THREE o'clock.'
* I get a certain amount of satisfaction that from now on a certain Mr. B will never be able to disassociate the word Boobs from the idea of Flat Laxity.