The Art of Waiting - Part Two

Are you still here? Good.

You may remember that we were sitting on plastic chairs watching two young men demonstrate their art with the aid of a turntable, an Apple laptop, two vinyl records, a cotton cornucopia, some haberdashery, several pincushions, threaded needles and coloured inks.

After several minutes it becomes apparent that the performance has started several minutes ago. Brown trousers has been bending over his laptop, which is connected to the turntable on which there is a vinyl record. Faint electronic sounds have emerged.

Pale blue suit, sitting at his table, has picked up a white cotton square in a round embroidery frame. As the faint electronic sounds have risen up into the cotton cornucopia and winged their way via the ragged cotton tape to his shoulders, he has picked up a threaded needle and started sewing.

He has chosen a coloured scrap of material and a hank of black fur. He has amateurishly sewn them to his sampler. He has picked up a coloured pen, and made several rhythmic marks on the sampler to the faint electronic sounds coming to him through the tape (and by conventional means, to us).

There are six or seven of us in the row of seats, and four people standing to the side. After ten more minutes the standers melt away. The other sitters look suspiciously like friends. Our faces up to now have been inscrutable.

There is an art to waiting, but there is no art in getting away.

Inferences and Implications

That doesn't sound like a muffin, frowned Pliny the Elder.

You mean my lunch the other day? Why not? I asked.

A muffin is a bread product, said Pliny, baked in small batches.

The modern muffin is more like a large cupcake, I said. That's what my lunch looked like.

But, argued Pliny, it was made from risotto.

It was shaped like a muffin, I insisted. So it was a muffin. I imagine it was baked in a muffin tray.

That does not make it a muffin, said Pliny. If I baked a lump of clay in a muffin tray, would it be a muffin?

Is this a cooking question or an art question? I asked.

I'm merely pointing out, said Pliny, that you have made an inference where no inference is due.

An object in the shape of a muffin, I said, implies a muffin tray, and a muffin tray implies a muffin.

No object implies the existence of any other, remarked Pliny.

Now that rings a bell, I said , trying to recall where I'd heard it.

Hume's Mirror, said Pliny. Don't you remember?

Embroi-der-y

A burglar, while burgling a house, takes meat out of the freezer and leaves it to defrost. He is looking for money in the freezer hidden behind the meat. People do sometimes hide money in the fridge. Burglars look for it there. It isn't surprising that a burglar would take the meat out of the freezer and not put it back. Put yourself in the place of the burglar. It's not what you would do.

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An art exhibition on Wednesday. One of the artists has embroidered four steak knives and four defrosting cuts of meat. The blades of the knives glitter sharply and blood oozes out of the meat in tiny beaded blobs, frosted fractals melt into icy pools of water under the meat, executed in tiny even stitches that the artist has learned in classes at Hampton Court.

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A moth has eaten six holes in a pale blue woollen blanket edged with slippery satin. It was looking for something to eat, that is all. Moths do sometimes eat holes in blankets when they are hungry. It isn't surprising. Put yourself in the place of the moth. It's what you would do.

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Tuesday, at the wooden table out the back. On the table, a yellow cloth embroidered with daisies. On the cloth, the pale blue woollen blanket, with six holes in the middle. An artist is darning the holes with fine strands of blue baby wool which she has previously unravelled. She weaves the strands in and out across the holes from left to right and then from top to bottom, one by one. The sun is bright. A fly sits on the blanket, she waves it away. She feels strangely happy.

Prat Maths

I'm standing in the Commonwealth Bank in Norwood waiting for my turn. I'm listening to the man in front of me talking to the teller.

Busy? he asks her.

Yes, she says.

Good to see that some people are, he says.

She doesn't reply, but gets on with stamping his cheques.

I used to work once, he continues, but I didn't like it.

You prat, I think, looking closely at his back. He is about 55, florid, with thin stubbly hair on the top of his head, wearing very clean casual clothes.

The teller doesn't take the bait.

Do you know what a Public Servant is? he perseveres.

Yes, she says, I th...i...nk so. She is very young.

It means the public are your servant, he says.

She doesn't get it. She continues stamping and moving bits of paper.

I was having dinner with a teacher last night, he goes on. And she couldn't even multiply 12 by 20. She told me she was an ART teacher.

A pregnant pause.

I just feel sorry for the kids, he ends lamely.

Then it's time for him to go.

Bye, says the teller. Next, please.

I just feel sorry for all of us.

Tedium and Uncertainty

Art takes strange forms these days said Pliny the Elder. By your account the exhibition was a series of cynical exercises in tedium and uncertainty. I prefer art to be more straightforward. A fine statue. A painting of a bunch of grapes so well executed that the birds fly down to peck at them.

That is old fashioned, I said. People still do produce art like that. There is nothing wrong with it. But imagine an amazing lifelike picture of some grapes on a vine. Imagine that over the course of a few weeks the grapes grow and ripen and eventually go rotten and shrivel up. Would not that be fascinating? That is a framed art film; you could hang it on your wall.

Or I could look out of the window, said Pliny drily. Perhaps you could have chosen a better example.