Month: March 2016

Flock – 26th Feb 2016

Every day as sunset draws near the starlings gather. Recently I’ve also noticed that the seagulls are doing so too, in larger and larger flocks. I have begun to wonder why? Is this another remarkable example of interspecies learning? Seagulls are intelligent birds and, in addition to their extraordinary adaptability to take on the diet of the average tourist (sandwiches, hot dogs, chips, cake and buns) I’ve seen them stamping the ground to attract worms in imitation of other birds who have found out how to imitate rain, drawing small invertebrates to the surface. And indeed young fledgling seagulls will poke and peck at anything, seemingly to see how it works. So why shouldn’t they have noticed how starlings gather together every day, and decided to do so too? Ok, they haven’t quite got the hang of close formation, but the results still look pretty spectacular. This has been going for a while now, and I’ve been in poetic rapture at the thought of a new sunset teeming with aerial displays in glorious pan-species exultation.

So much for poetry. I found out today that due to the time of year and it being off-season, sunset is about the time when the seafood stall dumps all its remaining fish bits, guts and mollusc scraps into the sea, to clean out the buckets before closing for the night.

? – 25th Feb 2016

“Many years ago, as I was glancing through a catalogue of jokes for parties and weddings, I saw an item, ‘An object difficult to pick up’. I haven’t the slightest idea what that ‘object’ is or what it looks like, but I like knowing that it exists and I like thinking about it.”
‘Cocteau on the film’ conversations with Jean Cocteau recorded by Andre Fraigneau

Smile! – 24th Feb 2016

Every so often you see an item on the news, or social media, with a caption something like ‘best selfie of 2015’ showing a picture of someone simultaneously wrestling a shark while extending their arm in that telltale gesture, or being photo bombed by dancing Chihuahuas, or maybe five world leaders showing they can be spontaneous and goofy while taking time off from discussing important plans to appear to do something about global warming or, or…

In all of these cases, it’s the content of the photo that earns the caption. This is all fine and well, but in placing so much emphasis on what’s in the picture we overlook one of the defining characteristics of the selfie, that of pose. To me, this is where the true quality of the new artform lies.

Therefore, I propose that from now on, any awards for best selfie of the year should take into consideration the following criteria:

Facial expression: this does not need to convey happiness, but should reflect the intentions of the photographer/subject, plus the relationship between knowingness and sincerity
Stance: very important, you are not only conveying a self-image, but are also acting as steady support for the camera – all blurring for whatever reason should be penalised
Nuance: this comprising detail in relation to the entire concert of gestures, props and clothing.
Context: highly important, but should always be subordinated to the photographer’s ideas, so kiss goodbye to the photo-bombing Chihuahuas, they weren’t intended.
Inanity: this is a difficult concept to define positively, but in the case of the selfie I think it has something to do with evidence of ‘really meaning it’ despite the banality of the form.

This is only my first attempt at distilling these key elements and will doubtless need amending. However, I believe today’s photograph exemplifies the above qualities to a conspicuous degree.

Wabi-sabi – 23rd Feb 2016

“Wabi-sabi is ambivalent about separating beauty from non-beauty or ugliness. The beauty of wabi-sabi is in one respect, the condition of coming to terms with what you consider ugly. Wabi-sabi suggests that beauty is a dynamic event that occurs between you and something else. Beauty can spontaneously occur at any moment given the proper circumstances, context, or point of view. Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.”

Leonard Koren, ‘Wabi-Sabi: for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers’

Hermits – 20th Feb 2016

In a manner not entirely dissimilar to hermit crabs who, rather than creating their own exoskeletons, rely on empty mollusc shells to provide them with protection, some trees and plants have evolved to take advantage of the small pottery containers that are now so much a part of our gardens. Of course trees and plants do not generally create armoured exteriors, relying instead on the sheer amount of ground around them to bulwark their roots. Nevertheless, evolving to take advantage of pots has given them a distinct advantage over other more stationary species, allowing them greater mobility and therefore enhanced opportunity to seek out sunlight and the more sheltered spots away from the wind.

However, like hermit crabs, this developmental ‘choice’ is not entirely free of danger: as individual plants grow they will need to change their pot from time to time. This is always a tricky moment, and like hermit crabs, not all of them make it through that moment of extreme vulnerability between shells.

Apples – 18th Feb 2016

Apple trees are called apple trees because they are the trees that produce apples, obviously. But isn’t this the wrong way round? Shouldn’t ‘apples’ refer to the trees and their fruit called apple-fruit? After all without the tree there would be no fruit. This is also the case with roses. When we say ‘rose’, we think of the flower first, the bush after; we talk about rose bushes, we don’t say “please have this bouquet of rose-flowers”. True, cauliflowers reverse this naming system, but even here I realise I’ve never heard someone mention the cauli as the definitive name for the plant, apart from, occasionally, as a diminutive.

Is this a clue to the way we think as English people? Historically, have we always placed more importance in the produce than the producer – we name the bit we have a use for – and is this how the naming of things evolved?

What about ‘oak’? To me, this name immediately brings to mind a mighty and ancient tree, one whose fruit has a completely different name: acorns (although ‘acorn’ sounds like it is related as a word, i.e. oak-corn?). The early Indo-European and Celtic (Goidelic, Brythonic?) etymology of ‘oak’ seems to be, simply, ‘tree’, suggesting that the specific species we now refer to as ‘oak’ was originally named as the most tree-like of trees; highly appropriate given the stature of the tree in European culture. But as soon as I’ve written this, I realise that for as many of us, ‘oak’ is just as likely to bring to mind big solid bits of furniture. And I have read another ancient meaning of the word ‘oak’ as simply being: ‘good’, because the tree was good for making things out of, and it also burned well – so we’re back to use again.

Matsuo Bashō, the 17th century Japanese poet, wrote under several pen-names until, in 1680, he was presented with a gift of Bashō trees, a particular species of banana. These plants he loved so much that he eventually renamed himself ‘Bashō’ after them. Several years later he wrote this:

“The leaves of the Bashō tree are large enough to cover a harp. When they are wind-broken, they remind me of the injured tale of a Phoenix, and when they are torn they remind me of a green fan ripped by the wind. The tree does bear flowers, but unlike other flowers, there is nothing gay about them. The big trunk of the tree is untouched by the axe, for it is utterly useless as building wood. I love the tree, however, for its very uselessness… I sit underneath it, and enjoy the wind and rain that blow against it.” *

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* Matsuo Bashō quoted in and translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa’s introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of ‘Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches’ Translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa, Penguin Books, 1966

Change of use – 17th Feb 2016

The one on the left is a closed down burger bar. The one on the right used to be a shop selling natural remedies and offering alternative therapies. Before these businesses, they were something else. Afterward, they will, again, be something different.

Perhaps in the same way that, in the days of early Christianity, churches were built on the sites of former temples and places of pagan worship to ‘cleanse’ these places of their former use, yet nevertheless something holy and ancient would still persist, does something of the spirit of past occupants colour these new ventures? Would fast food sold from a burger bar opened on the site of a health clinic be mysteriously better for you? (Eat all you like and never put on a pound!) Would a health shop opened on the former site of a burger bar be doomed to failure? Can we ever know these things?