Dear Diary: sympathetic magic

Sun, sun, go to hell; bring to us a rainy spell; sun, sun, go to hell; bring to us a rainy spell...
With the straw bonnet perched upon his head, and the black chevrons painted about his eyes, and the straw kilt spinning about his waist, and the bone of an indeterminate animal clutched in his hand, Albert has never looked so cool. In time to his rhyme, shaman Steven shakes the pebble-filled beer can.
‘Sun, sun, go to hell,’ he intones together with Albert. Steven too wanted to don a straw kilt and bonnet. But the store “Corn Dollies and Other Follies” had run out of stock before Steven arrived. “Got to wait for this year’s harvest to be woven into men’s desires,’ the forlorn proprietor told him. So, the shaman had to settle for a pair of tartan Bermuda shorts and Marcia’s old gardening hat. And that worthy was herself skipping about in a black bodystocking, imprinted with white skeleton markings, left over from last Halloween, no doubt.
‘What do you want to wear that for?’ I asked, when I saw it.
‘It’ll bring us closer to the spirit world: isn’t that what we want?’
As for the origin of Albert’s animal bone, don’t ask.
Plan A had been for us gals to rush through a lush meadow, clad in broderie anglaise and chanting the name of an innocuous flower, just as in a certain Marc Jacobs perfume ad. But the continuing drought means a dearth of lush meadows. So Marcia dons her skeleton kit and I sit cross-legged on the scorched grass, a dish of the scarce commodity placed at the crux of my limbs. Albert’s chanting continues, us all hoping that between us, we can generate enough spirit energy to bring the heavens down to earth.
Sun, sun, go to hell; bring to us a rainy spell...
Personally, I blame James Frazer, (1854 to 1941) you know, that Victorian geezer who devoted his life to detailing tribal and local customs the world over. In his book, The Golden Bough, Frazer writes much on the meaning of sympathetic magic. Basically this involves creating a simile or likeness of a desired happening and placing it significantly to bring about the desired effect, thus my dish of water. For example, if you wished a newly-wed couple to conceive a child, you presented them with a doll on their wedding night. North American Indians drew a likeness of someone they did not like in sand or clay and then pricked with a stick or some other sharp instrument the area of the drawing, arm, head or leg, in the belief that the subject would suffer injury in that area. And among some tribes, if that year’s crop failed then the king was tossed off his throne or even killed. Here, do not smile unless you have NEVER torn up a picture of someone that you did not like or told an adversary to ‘get lost’ or ‘drop dead’. Back in the present, the chanting and prancing continues until a pair of eyes looks over the hedge.
‘What are you doing here?’ demands a male voice. Albert stops in his tracks.
‘We are doing this for you,’ he says, ‘to make the crops grow and to feed your cattle, else you will go out of business.’
But the man interrupts him.
‘I have just bought this property and I am going to build upon it and you people are trespassing. GET OUT. Now.’
Sheepishly, we leave the field and I empty my dish of water in the hedge as we do so. Well, it’s precipitation of a sort. Later, we cut our losses. You see, if the rain dance had worked, we were going to use it to enchant a magic money tree. And it hasn’t rained yet.

I’ve got my eye on Synecdoche

We use synecdoche daily, hourly, many of us never even knowing the name of this quirky, life-enhancing art. We have all referred to champagne as ‘bubbly’, and the colours of fruits like oranges and lemons are the names of the fruits themselves and the juices derived there from. We routinely talk about the head when referring to the principal teacher of a school. Or taking a matter to the top. Or going shopping with plastic. Or shaking our heads sadly for a friend who is not on wheels It is all delightfully post modern, yet synecdoche has been enriching our speech for centuries. At the time of the French Revolution, the peasantry was referred to as the sans culottes, meaning that they didn’t wear the same kind of trousers as the men of the upper classes. In England, sharp-witted cartoonists drew hordes of rampaging French males with only long-tailed shirts to cover their nether bits. Revolutionaries were referred to as bonnets rouges, because of the characteristic red hats they wore.
In the nineteenth century, synecdoche came into its own through the pen of Charles Dickens. His novels are overflowing with verbal images like the Black-eyed, Aged Parent, and the Mercuries (footmen). Dickens himself was often – and still is – referred to as The Inimitable. And ordinary folk are often referred to as – jokingly, I trust – the
Great Unwashed. Right now, I am going to put on the kettle and then spend the evening with my feet up, before going to bed.

Confession of a snowflake

Odd weather in which to talk about snowflakes, I know. But a recent comment by an MP suggesting that those of us who simply want to slow down during this Siroccan weather are snowflakes left me seething. When I cooled down, I pondered: wherein lies the insult? Did said MP actually intend his likening of us to these beautiful, magical flakes as a compliment? Because the more I think about it, the more I liken a collection of snowflakes to the human race. On the surface, a ball of snow is just a ball of snow. Looked at under a microscope, the snowball is a collection of beautiful and precise crystals, each one as unique as a fingerprint. On its own, a snowflake melts in a heartbeat. Collectively, snowflakes form a carpet on the earth’s surface, modifying global warming, providing a facility for snow sports and inspiring creative works, from Old Master paintings to Christmas cards and songs. What snowflakes don’t do is fly the flag for rugged individualism: perhaps this is what our politician friend is missing?

We’re havin’ a heatwave...

Something about extremes of heat lends an air of unreality to everything. Heat blunts the edges of longing, softens feeling, heightens colour. It is no wonder that during certain illness, the body turns on a fever to take away the harshness of the symptoms. Or that many people flock to the warmer corners of the world when on holiday, to add another dimension to the experience of getting away from it all. A wonderful experience and yet, the effects of heat are too like those of opiate drugs, effects that make it too much of a good thing. This heady cocktail of muted colour, hushed sound and somnolent emotion can act as a wanton siren, calling one away from one’s focus, the cutting edge of purpose.

Dear Diary: family planning

The summer ploughs on; the dog days are upon us and our desire to climb on board the property ladder grows ever stronger. I turn over our conversation to you.
Albert: (looking at his phone) a government minister says that if we need more money, we got to find better-paying jobs.
Me: why didn’t we think of that before?
Steven: I did find one, actually, in an animation studio, but it is in London, where rents are higher.
Marcia: your own fault for getting a Mickey Mouse degree: why not go back to college?
Steven: And add to my student loans?
Albert: are we going to admit defeat?
Me: more research is needed, methinks.
(Six nights later and as always, Albert takes the chair.)
Albert: findings on the table, everybody. (deafening silence) Alright, I’ve just found out about the plans for fifty-year mortgages.
Me: what does it mean?
Albert: It means that we can now take out a mortgage and pay it back over fifty years instead of the normal twenty-five.
Steven: so, the payments will be lower?
Albert: you got it in one, me boy.
Me: but we might not live that long?
Albert: no problem: our children will pick up the tab.
Marcia: but we haven’t got any children?
Albert: What a bright bunch I live amongst. (winks at Marcia) Let’s get going on the breeding programme.
Steven: a great move, since it says here (looks at phone) that they are going to tax the child-free.
Albert: (winks at Marcia again) Then, we’d better get to work, quickly.
(to be continued)

Dear Diary: feeling the difference

Dear Diary
It is six months since I quit the Big Smoke for woodsmoke and boy, don’t I feel the difference that it has made! I no longer wake up in the morning, dreading the thought of the Underground. Instead, I walk across a stretch of stony ground to the teashop where I work: yes, I have found a job. I wait on tables, serving English breakfast, all day long. And heaps of sandwiches. And mountains of scones. And rivers of jam and clotted cream. And in the evening, I walk back along the stony ground, to the house in which I room. It is occupied by a number of people such as me, all rooming cheaply in order to save money so that we can buy our own houses. How exactly do we save money? Let me tell the ways.
First, we save on electric because no washing machine is plumbed into the house. Because of this, clothes’ washing could be a problem but we have the option of rinsing our towels and undies in the bath, or in the stream that runs past the back of the house, or using the local laundrette. I opt for the latter since Albert is ever lolling in the bath. And copious rodents occupy the banks of the stream. But I offset my lauderette fee against what I would have spent on electric and come out with a profit of – 2 pence. As they say, every little helps. Nor do I spend money on wastefuls such as food: Moll, the teashop proprietor, hands over the unsold sandwiches every evening, plus scones and cream and jam. I can just about subsist on this diet until about 2050, when I reckon to have raised a house deposit. And we can all manage without Netflix TV, since infotainment is via phone. But it gets better. One evening, the ever-enterprising Albert called a house meeting in which he outlined a plan by which we could buy a house sooner. Instead of the five of us trying to buy separately (he said) let us pool our pennies and buy a house together. And to help pay the mortgage, we need not bother with a plumbed washing machine or Netflix TV. And we can live on leftover food, just as we do now. I trust we will feel the difference.
(to be continued)

From Adam to Art Deco

One of my favourite places in London has ever been that facade along the Thames, on the North Bank, from roughly the east side of Hungerford Bridge to the west edge of Waterloo Bridge. I love walking along that esplanade, absorbing the jaunty, day-out-in-town atmosphere with other out and about people, and watching the boats weaving along the river. This atmosphere is helped, of course, by the glorious mix of classical and modernistic architecture on the built side of the road. And my favourite building of all is the Adelphi. Regular readers of this column will know my penchant for art deco and all that it encompasses. And this modernistic style owes its existence, in no small part, to the success and fame of Robert Adam, eighteenth-century practitioner of architecture and of the decorative arts. Though we associate art deco with modernism, the decorative friezes and moderate dimensions of the Adelphi are a nod to the Adam style.
Robert Adam was born in Edinburgh and in 1754, he set out on that requisite of every eighteenth-century gentleman, the Grand Tour of Europe. He gravitated naturally towards Italy where he met architects like Charles-Louis Clerisseau and Giovanni Piranesi, who practised in the wake of the excavation of Herculaneum. This was the sister-town to Pompeii, buried by ash and lava in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Robert was impressed by the simplicity of Roman architecture; the elegant interiors and striking wall paintings of the villas in carefully-planned streets. He returned to England in 1758 and together with his brothers, James and William, settled in London and established himself as an authority on neoclassical architecture and interiors.

From the word go, he was besieged by clients, both from the nouveau riche and the inner circle of the aristocracy, with commissions for interiors and buildings. In 1761, he gained a post as Architect to the King's Works. Classical proportioning is evident in the building at 7 Adam Street (a short distance from the Adelphi) in London, the rustications of the ground floor differentiated by blocks of cream-painted stone, with red brick reserved for the upper stories. The new Adam vocabulary eschewed the severity of the traditional Greek style, adding decorative elements in bas relief to the coursings running vertically and horizontally on the front of the building. Robert Adam had succeeded in creating a new vocabulary of architecture, while drawing from traditional sources. But it was with interiors that his firm really made its name.
The Adam interior is typified by delicacy and symmetry, unifying the rooms and echoing the classical dimensions of the house. Most particularly, Adam redefined the fireplace, with typical decorative coursings running the perimeters of the chimney place. By 1768, the Adam firm had begun their speculative scheme to build twenty-four 'first rate houses' on the north bank of Thames. But in the 1780’s, a national credit crisis put paid to the venture, and the brothers were forced to sell the plot to stave off bankruptcy. However, the Adelphi survives today in the form of the elegant art deco building on the original site. Art deco parallels the work of Adam in that it refers to ancient cultures, Mayan and Incan as opposed to Greek and Roman, and the resulting highly decorative surfaces are applied both inside and outside a building. The difference is that while Adam-style decoration makes much use of colour, art deco emerged for the electric age: witness the effects of light and shade playing upon upon the Adelphi monochrome surfaces. To appreciate the way from Adam to art deco, do take that walk along the North Bank.