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Dear Ed archive
August 2009
Dear Ed
My friend Cynthia says that words are actually symbols. Is she lying to me?Loren
Dear Loren
Your friend Cynthia is not lying to you, or at least not on this occasion. Strangely, I'm up to my eyeballs in symbols this month and it's all because of Jorge Luis Borges, but we might as well blame it on Cynthia. My aim this year is to read my way through all the books I've bought and never read. They were accumulating at such a rate that I was considering giving away all the books I've read and just keeping the books I haven't read because they were taking up more shelf space. Maybe I should discard my unwanted books on benches in the local parks, where they can be picked up and treasured as found objects.
Anyhoo, to get to the heart of the matter, I found this quote in a slim tome by Jorge Luis Borges called The Book of Sand, which has been waiting 28 years to be read: 'Words are symbols that assume a shared memory'. I stopped reading at that point, which probably wasn't Borges's intention. But what happens if that assumption is incorrect? What if you and Cynthia don't share the same memory of a very basic word, such as table? So there I was, thinking about words and symbols, when I stumbled over these gems and went sprawling in the grass.
Perspective drawings are good for communicating scale, portion and space
This is especially true when it's lunchtime and you're lined up at the deli with your nose glued to the pie warmer looking at the scale and proportions of a chunky beef pie. If you're really hungry and eat too quickly, you can lose all sense of portion and have to go back for seconds.
Cash withdrawl at the counter
Well, yeah, it was in Queenscliff. There's nothing wrong with providing service and honesty at the same time. Take out some money, talk about the weather, how the crops are going and how well and/or badly the Seagulls are playing this season, and didn't Macca take a screamer in the goal square last week?
He attempted to break the drought by firing canons into the air
I wonder if anyone asked the canons if they minded? Perhaps praying for rain would have been a more humane approach. But it was the Federation Drought, and it did go on and on and people became desperate.
Kung fu and karate are marital arts
Sorry, I'm lost for words on this one: my brain spends all its time marvelling at the imagery and no words come out. But martial arts outfits do look a bit like pyjamas.
Tom went home today with the flue
Which probably explains why the Coonara isn't working too well and the room has filled with smoke. Hopefully he'll be back tomorrow; until then, there's always the windows.
40% off Sumer clothing
They say fashion goes in cycles, but I hadn't realised that the trend started so long ago. Perhaps those early cuneiform tablets the Sumerians were so keen on were actually sales brochures. After all, civilisation started in Mesopotamia, so that probably includes shopping.
Many players do not eat adequate quantities of iron containing foods
That probably explains the busloads of footballers I see having a feed at Sims metal recyclers in Brooklyn, munching on the remains of old Comeng trains. Bulk up, boys!
Biomechanical principals are made more relevant and meaningful
It's not really fair, is it? Teachers already cop a beating for doing one of the hardest jobs on the planet, and now they're about to be replaced by Roboprofs.
You're probably wanting to know if it was worth waiting 28 years to read The Book of Sand. Mmm, not really. But it does contain two good strong stories, neither of which features footballers eating Comeng trains, and it is written in (or translated into) such clear simple English that it makes your heart sing. The Book of Sand, now with added symbols, coming soon to a park bench near you.
Cheers
Ed
In response to last month's Dear Ed ...
Dear Ed
There is no need for Gill Sans to hire a debt-collection agency to get On the Nose to pay up. As long as they still exist, the simplest method is to apply for a hearing at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Sure, it costs you $33 (or did so when I last used this method), but the moment you send the defaulter a copy of the hearing time and date, as required under the VCAT regulations, they pay up. Mine did, anyway.
Kim Lockwood