More Stuff

It’s Christmas shopping time and most everything is crap. Sorry, might as well say it; most of the stuff wrapped in boxes and mountains of paper is either poorly made or made for only a season of use. The electronic thing you buy will be obsolete before next year so you can buy another one. The toy is for 7-10 year olds; your nephew will be 11 next year and will want something else. Clothing might last a little longer but is subject to the whims of fashion.

I think, rather than enduring longer, most things seem to wear out faster (both in real terms and perception). The obvious examples are computers and digital [bleeping things]. A digital [bleeping thing] is priced low enough that, when it breaks, there is little sense in repairing it (often, by the time it does break, the manufacturer no longer services it anyway). It just gets pitched and a new one is purchased (though I would imagine there are millions of perfectly usable digital [bleeping things] sitting in closets worldwide; they have been replaced with newer better faster models). I have a decent digital [bleeping thing] from 2003. It will probably work for some time; however, should it break, there is no repairing it. Should I decide to purchase a new digital [bleeping thing], none of the accessories for this [bleeping thing] will work with the current equipment. A new purchase would mean starting from scratch. This [bleeping thing] was the price of a decent mechanical [clicking thing] several years ago; had I purchased a decent [clicking thing] in lieu of the [bleeping thing], it would still be repairable, the accessories would work with accessories now (and, no doubt, from the past), and the re-sale value would have held. (Granted there is a whole other discussion here on the cost of film and processing for the several thousand shots I’ve made with the [bleeping thing] vs. a [clicking thing]).

I do have a (way more than decent) 35mm camera. I can use lenses made from the past 50 years on it and can be reasonably sure lenses made in the future will still be compatible. It’s almost entirely mechanical and easy to service. Film, though one would think it’s about dead, keeps getting better every year—so the “sensor” in the camera gets upgraded with every new canister of film in the camera. The manufacturer has guaranteed parts and service for the current model for the next 30 years. Past models of this camera have actually increased in value. This is a made thing that will probably outlast me in usefulness; how many things do we seek that we can say this applies to?

What if, rather than aiming for the latest and shiniest thing, we carefully chose what is most needed and best made? If you are going to spend thousands of dollars over the next ten years on digital cameras, why not go ahead and buy a really good camera that will last a lifetime instead? If you wear out three pair of cheap shoes a year and hobble your feet in the process, why not spend what amounts to less money on good shoes that will last five times longer?

There is a current discussion on Worldchanging on design for 10,000 years. I can’t imagine making a coat that will last this long; however, we have to start thinking about the mounds of waste that represent our fickle wants and habits. Would it be so bad, when we go to buy a thing to think:

  1. Do I really need this thing; do I need it now?
  2. Do I need a new one of these?
  3. Is the use of this thing going to burden me with the need of other things (all the batteries, memory chips, software, fancy dress cases, and tinsel)?
  4. Is there an another way to do this with something that will last longer and cause less waste?
  5. Where did this thing come from and where is it eventually going? (Where will this thing be 100 years from now and will it be useful to anyone else then? This is, I think, an important point. If you now pick up something made 100 years ago I dare say, if it’s working, it will still do the thing it does in some useful manner. What will a 100 year old iPod do?)
  6. And…there is a question that keeps coming to my mind as I work through this master’s course…I’m starting to seriously ask how will this thing help me contribute in some positive way to society? Is the making and selling of this thing good for the future of the world? I don’t think that’s an idealist’s question; it is, in effect, the most practical question we can ask in our daily lives.

Sound and silence

I have never tolerated loud noise. As a child, I would cover my ears when someone was using a hammer or power tool; today I wear earplugs whilst using the vacuum. I’m just very sensitive to sound.

Urban environments are full of sound; they are not full of sound, of course, in the same sense that a forest is. The city is full of inescapable noise. This is mainly because cities have become places for cars to congregate and traverse, not places for people to live and walk about in. Pedestrians are usually pushed off to the side surrounding traffic and get secondary consideration.

The school is a good 45 minutes to an hour walk from my flat; I’ve been walking it often. However, unless I zigzag through back-streets (which I do sometimes), the most direct route is filled with traffic (though it’s a generally pleasant walk nonetheless). I wanted to listen to music or lectures on the way; but, unless I wear my big noise cancelling headphones (which are a bit silly looking on the street), there isn’t a ready way to do this. “Regular” headphones would have to be turned up way too loud and make even more noise in my head. So I bought a pair of in-ear monitors (these are basically earplugs with headphones built in); they reduce the outside noise by about 28db and allow one to listen to quiet music even on the insanely loud Glasgow Metro. But…

The whole point of the program I’m doing is examining how we connect to and interact with our environments and the people around us. When I lived in South Carolina, nearly everybody one passed on the street would make eye contact and say hello. One could expect to dole out and receive many dozens of hellos strolling down the avenue. In Philadelphia, for safety reasons if nothing else, one did not make eye-contact. It might be perceived as a threat or an invitation for hassle. Here, it’s not as if the people aren’t friendly, they are just doing something else than connecting with others. They are hurriedly on their way to the place that they aren’t; they are talking to someone on their mobile who is at the place they will be after they go to the place they are now not; they are listening to music or sounds from some other place than the place they currently are.

It is the rare person who quite wants to be where he or she is at the moment; this is especially true on the street. We are careful to create our own personal space and guard it carefully. My sensitivity is noise; I’ve taken measure to block it out and cover it with quiet. However, have I consequently blocked out the people and world around me? Should I face that noise straight on? Or would it just gradually deafen me till I no longer understood subtle sounds? I wonder if the loutish people one sometimes sees in the city have forgotten how to hear quietly. They shout to bridge the distance between.

My fear is that I will not hear the necessary shouting of people around me (not meaning this literally, though one must be extra cautious of traffic if it can’t be heard). We become more distant from our actual surroundings; can I hear the world around me if I’m listening to a symphony or does that make the contrast so much more apparent?

More Outward

The video I made last year for Outward Bound is now in use for their Los Angeles and Bay Area urban centres. I’m told they are really pleased with the piece and use it widely at shows and recruiting events.
I’m glad about that as I shot the whole thing in such a compressed timeframe; sometimes working under pressure is the best prod to creativity.

Observations

I flew back to the States yesterday to have some holiday time with my family. Some (rather cranky) observations:

  1. Noise seems to be inescapable; especially in American airports, there seems to be the constant drone of music and announcements. Many tend to be ominous pronouncements about security, “If you value the lives of your children, please do not leave them unattended at any time; unattended children may be confiscated and destroyed by the Transportation Security Administration.” I had a several hour layover in Chicago (which is not all that bad of an airport considering); and felt like I was under a constant aural assault from loudspeakers, squealing carts, televisions, and all manner of buzzing bleeping things.
  2. People in America are fat; every time I leave and return, I’m shocked. I’ve just finished critiquing a report on the increase of obesity in Britain; but the UK can’t yet compare with the US. For some reason, many of the TSA screeners seem especially overweight. Several of them had great globules of flab hanging over their belts; this does not bode well for their ability to chase down random baddies (though, since security are not all armed, perhaps falling perpetrators is a strategy—some sort of soft enforcement).
  3. The sensors in toilets need better artificial intelligence. I don’t know how many times I’ve been on a toilet that prematurely flushed. One yesterday flushed three times whilst I was on it. I finally discerned that, if I remained completely motionless, it would not flush. I wonder if there is a ready solution (i.e. affix a post-it-note® over the sensor)?
  4. Food on airlines (American Airlines yesterday) can, indeed, taste as horrible as food in hospitals.

Blochairn Fish Market

At 4:30 this morning I awoke to go to Glasgow’s fish market (with my Food Culture and Agriculture classmate, Kate). Fish markets are filled with bustling stalls of people, fishermen hauling in the morning’s catch straight from the sea, vendors shouting out the stock of the day—trying to get the best prices for whole fish, fishmongers wandering about trying to talk prices down between one vendor or another, everybody moving here and there to get fish as fresh as possible out in shop windows by the time people are standing in line to buy this evening’s dinner!

Or, that’s what it was like 25 years ago. This morning, as we walked into a nearly silent building, we saw a dozen or so men quietly moving Styrofoam containers filled with already filleted fish and ice into vans. Most buyers place orders electronically the night before for delivery the following morning. There were once 50 or 60 independent fishmongers in Glasgow; only a few remain today. “People don’t want to mess with fish” said one vendor, “they’d rather buy something pre-packaged and vacuum sealed from the supermarket.” The supermarkets, because of their size, bypass the fish-market altogether and buy fish at auction. This has greatly diminished the wholesale trade. “We used to have forty wholesalers here twenty years ago, now, well, look around there are only about eight of us left on the floor.”

There didn’t seem to be much on at all this morning. Everyone seemed eager to speak with us; it was as if the men lacked human contact. “It’s exciting to see a new face now and again” quipped one vendor. “It used to be filled with people, lively, you’d see your regulars; sometimes a fight to cheer things up.” One can just walk in and purchase fish directly from the vendor; but, apart from a couple Chinese fellows picking up lobster, there were few people browsing about. (The lobster were flown in from Canada! It’s apparently difficult to fish North Sea lobster in winter, but the market demand for off-season lobster is great enough to transport them by air.)

The facility has become less of a market in the traditional sense and more of a transport depot (indeed, it’s not a place one would readily walk to or stop in, it’s “outside” the realm of everyday city life just off the M8 highway). One vendor said, when he started years ago, his firm had one van for delivery. Now they run ten. It seemed more of a building for moving white boxes back and forth than a place where life and food connect. This came through in the stories of several men; “It’s soul destroying” said one. It didn’t sound like there was much draw to working in this business; where once one was part of the everyday flow of life, now there are crates and the back end of vans.

One man pulled out a (beautiful) fillet of haddock; “You know how to tell haddock, do you? Look, here the sides, see these dark patches? They’re called ‘Peter’s Prints.’ You know, from the Bible, Peter the fisherman.” The patches are on either side—marking where a human hand might hold the fish. We are losing this connection; the fish has become something distant, something we want canned or sealed and ready to serve. I head the sound of lobster claws against a Styrofoam crate; we’ve closed life and death away in insulated boxes and shipped it round the world.

Ethical Walking

Every time I ride the subway into the city from my place it’s about £2 roundtrip (a little over $4 USD). However, it only takes me 45 minutes to walk to school, so I’ve been walking most of the time. My erstwhile comfortable casual shoes (Czech made Bata) aren’t made for pounding the pavement though. So, this morning, I set out on what became a small quest for new shoes.

It’s easy to find shoes; in a given city, on a walk from here to anywhere, one is likely to pass a dozen shoes shops. Each will have full windows of the latest fashion or discount pair. It is, unfortunately, difficult to find shoes if one is looking for a pair that weren’t made in a sweatshop somewhere in Asia.

I went from shop to shop, searching and lamenting my sore feet (probably not the best idea to shoe shop with sore feet). Finally, I came upon a store stocking New Balance shoes (made in England). This was the first shoe store I’ve been in that has a “museum” to a certain type of shoe. There is a room in this store with a timeline of New Balance history, how they still manufacture their shoes in England, the innovations, etc. It was especially informative (and I feel like I may have joined some kind of cult—with 10% off on sale).

So now I have a pair of sporty English made New Balance shoes to trounce around town. We’ll see if my legs and feet fare better now.

Living by Metaphor

We had last week the first session of Food Culture and Agriculture, a course on how societies view the growth of food and the customs that surround it. “Customs” here are far-reaching; we are not merely discussing table customs, but the cycles of consumption and waste that are necessarily connected to our “modern” food “industry” (perhaps food should also be in quotes as the pre-packaged frozen salted preserved irradiated bar-coded best-by dated substance purchased in the supermarket bears little resemblance to what was once considered cuisine).

There are any number of criticisms one can raise concerning food culture; there are arguments that we have larger issues at hand to consider. However, until the Industrial Revolution, the world was based on agrarian societies. We planned our years based on agricultural cycles; we lived near the soil. Now we think of soil as something dirty. It is something dead and dusty that gets tracked into the house and must be vacuumed up and disposed of (as an aside, most of the dust in one’s home is dander or the faecal material of dust mites who have fed on sloughed off skin). At best, we look upon soil as an inert medium in which we grow plants.

We consider ourselves the benefactor of the agricultural cycle. However, we are not the end product of agriculture; plants and produce are not the final product either. Soil is the product of agriculture. Without the regeneration of soil, agriculture is impossible.

I’m going to meander and come back to this in later postings as I’m interested in the interplay between the environment and religious belief.

We all live by metaphors; societies function by the consensus of ideas (or, to be harsher, often we live by the consensus of delusion). The primary metaphor of western society is that humankind is cursed and in need of redemption; we’ve been developing the components of this metaphor for the past several thousand years and its influence and consequences have now spread over all the Earth. We are a fallen race; the consequence of the fall is this:

And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
—Genesis 3:17-19 KJV

This has been the basis for social custom and cohesion for millennia; the primary activity of humankind has been to toil in the fields. Yet, suddenly, within a few generations, we have surpassed this original curse (and burdened ourselves with a new one). These verses tend to get read through quickly, as if they are of secondary importance to the whole “we’ll be fighting against Satan till the end of time” thing. But, what we fight against is dust. The felt consequence of the curse are not primarily the fight against cosmic forces or the fact that we have to wear clothing; it’s that we will forever struggle against dust. And we are made of dust; we face an intractable situation. We are bound to tend the soil till we return to it; or, at least, we were until we unleashed the powers of industry on the world.

I wonder if the environmental and societal issues we face now are rooted in a grand attempt to abandon the metaphor of dust. What greater power could our species show than to gain the upper hand on God and his feeble curse? What greater expression of pride could we display?

Yet, in this attempt, we drain life from soil. We have replaced life with chemistry and killed the mystery. The substance of our lives is humus; but it is this substance we seem to disdain and distance ourselves from. I think that, unless we return to a closer understanding of soil and the consequences of its loss, we can never have a healthy respect for others (or for ourselves, for the future, for the environment). If we do not consider or respect the base substance of life, there can be no respect of any living thing.

Disturbing

Today I read one of the most profoundly disturbing things I’ve seen in some time. One of the big supermarket chains here in the UK is experimenting with “in-store chaplains.” It’s a way for churches to “get involved in the community.”