Hi all,
There’s a book called Job’s Body, kind of about how bodies work. It talks quite a bit about water, starting with this:
“What is a human being?”
“A human being is a container invented by water so that it can walk around.”
There is a good deal of truth couched in this little joke. According to one current theory, the first colloidal droplets and primitive living cells were probably formed in sea water, in which the elements and compounds necessary for the formation of organic compounds, nucleic acids, and finally amino acids — the primary proteins of living cells — were dissolved.
It goes on to posit an experiment you can do at home, or even just imagine:
We can view the body as a large bag filled with water. If the surface and the interior of this bag were perfectly uniform, like a filled balloon, then this bad would rest on the ground in the shape of a slightly flattened sphere. However, if we circle this sphere with cords and tighten them up, an interesting thing happens: the sphere is transformed into a cylinder, and can be made to stand erect.
The idea the book gets at is that while we imagine that our skeleton gives us shape, it’s actually a good deal more like this: lots of water and connective tissue.
Sometimes when thinking about culture, you start to get the feeling there’s some conspiracy by Big Water that has infiltrated absolutely everything we experience and think about. There are very few things that aren’t about water in some way or another. The advance on this theory is that actually the old philosophers were sort of right — nearly everything does come down to four or five elements.
So from one bit of the ocean to another — hello!
Rogue Wave
My neighbours had a party the other night. I saw on twitter that there has been... a rave. There have been plenty of protests too. And yet WHERE is our second wave? Is there any sign of one starting up?
No.
What I'm learning from this is that my intuition was wrong. Mass gatherings are risky, but they're risky like eating a dodgy takeaway — do it once or twice and you'll probably be fine (though some people will get unlucky). Do it regularly and you're going to get sick.
So the time to worry is when we start doing mass gatherings every day again — public transport, work, eating out, car boot sales, etc.
What I'm ALSO leaning from this is that the GLA has this kickass borough visualisation!
Look at that!!! I was like hey that looks familiar, and actually realised that it was my previous employer who contracted this design — called London Squared. You can read more about their process here. Sadly it looks like they lost the little Thames-y squiggle but you can't have everything.
Also: City of London (where I live) has had only 18 confirmed cases! CoL is famously a square mile and boasts a daytime population of ~300,000 people so initially this seems pretty good — but it actually only has ~8,000 residents, and the data above is derived from home postcodes, so I guess that makes sense.
Chin Replacements
As sure as the second wave is the inevitable first wave of mask fashion. The countries hit by SARS have already been down this road. What path is the Anglosphere likely to take?
But we've actually been experimenting with face coverings for a while now. If you've used tinder in the last half-decade you'll be familiar with this:
Perhaps this is one of the seeds for mask culture to germinate from? Hopefully we'll avoid the telescoping 'dog lick' mask though.
So far everyone I know is going with the black mask, which is neutral, doesn't look dirty after a day of pollution inhalation, and has just a a touch of the illicit to it. Other potential options: stockings over the head, the Austin Powers mask from Baby Driver, the morphsuit as a full-body mask, those heads that furries wear?
If you're interested in exploring the cutting edge, take a look at YR Masks, featuring a practically unlimited number of combinations. Here's some I invented just now:
Tag yourself I guess.
Sub Tales
You know sometimes people say we know less about the deepest reaches of the ocean than we do about outer space? I thought about this for a minute the other day and then I realised it was complete bullshit — of course we know more about the bottom of the ocean than we do about outer space!!!
That said, paragraphs like this do make my heart beat faster:
Past twenty-seven thousand feet, the pilot had gone beyond the theoretical limit for any kind of fish. (Their cells collapse at greater depths.) After thirty-five thousand feet, he began releasing a series of weights, to slow his descent. Nearly seven miles of water was pressing on the titanium sphere. If there were any imperfections, it could instantly implode.
This is the story of a rich guy who funded the creation of a deep sea submarine so he could go down to the deepest places on earth. Essentially it's Elon Musk upside down. I know there are better ways to spend money, but I do really like submarines... plus they discovered lots of new fish and nearly everyone is Scottish so you can enjoy that too.
And:
After a maintenance day, Lahey offered to take John Ramsay [the chief designer of the submarine] to the bottom of the trench. Ramsay was conflicted, but, he said, “there was this sentiment on board that if the designer doesn’t dare get in it then nobody should dare get in it.” He climbed in, and felt uncomfortable the entire way down. “It wasn’t that I actually needed to have a shit, it was this irrational fear of what happens if I do need to have a shit,” he said.
Can't argue with that. I also learned the word 'rusticle', which exactly what it sounds like.
Also
Can you believe this is completely fake! So sad. Still, the album (and the full legend) is here and a cool listen.
Hope you've had a good week. I've got next week off work! Which I am very much looking forward to.
K