To be honest, dear Marie, the more I consider this post, straining to understand and to appreciate the work of someone for whose intelligence and skills I have the very highest respect, the more confused I become, and the more my heart goes out to you in sympathetic feeling, while at the same time understanding that things like hearts and feelings probably have no place in this picture.
The photo is beautiful. Your photos are always so very, very beautiful. But it's necessary to concede that I am unable to fathom the connection between the photo and the poster and the mind of the person who took the photo and made the poster. Not meaning to pry, but still, merely to begin to understand.
To enquire as to the intentions behind a work of art is both irrelevant and unkind, so long as one is certain that it is a work of art that is up for discussion and comment.
Sometimes what seems to be a work of art is actually a veiled message, much as a note in a bottle cast away at sea, remembering that it is always possible that at sea a ship might one day come along... and someone might be curious... and...
Sometimes there is a mercy in not knowing.
Sometimes there are troubling questions in the long world night.
Sometimes it's impossible to stop the busy little neurons working away inside the cranial noodleroni from wanting to know, even when they feel it's none of their business.
But blogs are so famously and irrevocably public, after all. If the whole world is not always watching, maybe it ought to be, sometimes.
To ignore a Suitcase post may well constitute a grave offense against gratitude, courtesy and fellow-feeling. Having been guilty of so many offenses against civility over the too many long years, one wishes to tread lightly, or anyway as lightly as it is possible to tread while wearing heavy woodsman's boots to conceal congenital deformities of the pedal extremities.
But in truth, when presented by provocative visual prompts such as this poster, the questions accumulate and gnaw and nag and mingle with the unfortunate disruptions in the cranial pot-noodle produced by a persistent flu virus to produce heaven only knows what sort of strange and doubtful outcomes.
With all due respect, esteemed Marie-san, it must be admitted that, after more than just a bit of admittedly entirely unprofessional layperson's amateur research into the subject of CA2 research and the use of in vivo physiological experimentation in living mice for same, in order to then begin to grasp the meaning and implications of the post, and of the poster pictured here (which can only be regarded as an important element in a post which after all contains only two elements), conscience compels the following inevitable ad hominem queries concerning the post, and the poster: (1) all the good people in this picture, including the esteemed Dr. Tom-san (who, one suspects, may indeed be the director of the specific research project for which the poster was made), are smiling, but are the little mice smiling? (2) Who exactly is it that considers this poster, and by implication this research, "awesome"? (3) Can the terms "awesome" and "genomics" actually exist side by side in the same dictionary of human speech without causing some friction somewhere in the conscious universe? (4) Is there any tiny corner of this chart into which, like a tiny hungry mouse, human compassion might nibble in secret, leaving as evidence of its having been here only the dim memory of that other curiously contradictory (in this context) term, karma?
On the other hand (said the odd creature with the five hands), I sense that these may be merely the questions of a dimwitted, misinformed and sadly humourless old man struggling to find a way to get his dismal and limited ancient mind around what may after all be nothing more than -- dare one say it -- a lighthearted and entirely innocuous joke intended to amuse while at the same time deflecting the internalized repercussions of exacerbated job stress in a closed environment over an extended period of time.
In short, would it be a totally dumb mistake to be taking this post, in part or as a whole, as in any way serious?
I had thought to hold off on posting this comment until your conference was over and you were safely back at home again, refreshed and smiling brightly as per your wonderful generous norm.
What can it be that makes it so difficult to take this post lightly or worse, simply to ignore it cruelly and let it sit here lonely as a wee cloud and uncommented-upon by your many kind and good followers and friends, to whom you have given so much for so long?
Marie san is safely back at home. Thank you for your comments, Tom. I'm sorry if this post confused you. The first picture are the gates of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, one of my favourite places. This was just to say I'm going to Kyoto. The second one was the draft for the poster I presented at the conference. This was to say I'm going there for work. No work of art but I took it with me in the suitcase, so I thought it belonged to this blog. It is the handwriting of the-other-Tom-from-Chicago, when he was helping me with the design. "Awesome" was just his attempt at cheering up a dispirited and depressed Marie san and get her to work on it. There is too much I cannot say here, and I'm a little bit sad right now, or maybe just tired. I'll be back....
To be honest, dear Marie, the more I consider this post, straining to understand and to appreciate the work of someone for whose intelligence and skills I have the very highest respect, the more confused I become, and the more my heart goes out to you in sympathetic feeling, while at the same time understanding that things like hearts and feelings probably have no place in this picture.
ReplyDeleteThe photo is beautiful. Your photos are always so very, very beautiful. But it's necessary to concede that I am unable to fathom the connection between the photo and the poster and the mind of the person who took the photo and made the poster. Not meaning to pry, but still, merely to begin to understand.
To enquire as to the intentions behind a work of art is both irrelevant and unkind, so long as one is certain that it is a work of art that is up for discussion and comment.
Sometimes what seems to be a work of art is actually a veiled message, much as a note in a bottle cast away at sea, remembering that it is always possible that at sea a ship might one day come along... and someone might be curious... and...
Sometimes there is a mercy in not knowing.
Sometimes there are troubling questions in the long world night.
Sometimes it's impossible to stop the busy little neurons working away inside the cranial noodleroni from wanting to know, even when they feel it's none of their business.
But blogs are so famously and irrevocably public, after all. If the whole world is not always watching, maybe it ought to be, sometimes.
To ignore a Suitcase post may well constitute a grave offense against gratitude, courtesy and fellow-feeling. Having been guilty of so many offenses against civility over the too many long years, one wishes to tread lightly, or anyway as lightly as it is possible to tread while wearing heavy woodsman's boots to conceal congenital deformities of the pedal extremities.
But in truth, when presented by provocative visual prompts such as this poster, the questions accumulate and gnaw and nag and mingle with the unfortunate disruptions in the cranial pot-noodle produced by a persistent flu virus to produce heaven only knows what sort of strange and doubtful outcomes.
With all due respect, esteemed Marie-san, it must be admitted that, after more than just a bit of admittedly entirely unprofessional layperson's amateur research into the subject of CA2 research and the use of in vivo physiological experimentation in living mice for same, in order to then begin to grasp the meaning and implications of the post, and of the poster pictured here (which can only be regarded as an important element in a post which after all contains only two elements), conscience compels the following inevitable ad hominem queries concerning the post, and the poster: (1) all the good people in this picture, including the esteemed Dr. Tom-san (who, one suspects, may indeed be the director of the specific research project for which the poster was made), are smiling, but are the little mice smiling? (2) Who exactly is it that considers this poster, and by implication this research, "awesome"? (3) Can the terms "awesome" and "genomics" actually exist side by side in the same dictionary of human speech without causing some friction somewhere in the conscious universe? (4) Is there any tiny corner of this chart into which, like a tiny hungry mouse, human compassion might nibble in secret, leaving as evidence of its having been here only the dim memory of that other curiously contradictory (in this context) term, karma?
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand (said the odd creature with the five hands), I sense that these may be merely the questions of a dimwitted, misinformed and sadly humourless old man struggling to find a way to get his dismal and limited ancient mind around what may after all be nothing more than -- dare one say it -- a lighthearted and entirely innocuous joke intended to amuse while at the same time deflecting the internalized repercussions of exacerbated job stress in a closed environment over an extended period of time.
In short, would it be a totally dumb mistake to be taking this post, in part or as a whole, as in any way serious?
I had thought to hold off on posting this comment until your conference was over and you were safely back at home again, refreshed and smiling brightly as per your wonderful generous norm.
What can it be that makes it so difficult to take this post lightly or worse, simply to ignore it cruelly and let it sit here lonely as a wee cloud and uncommented-upon by your many kind and good followers and friends, to whom you have given so much for so long?
Marie san is safely back at home. Thank you for your comments, Tom. I'm sorry if this post confused you. The first picture are the gates of the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, one of my favourite places. This was just to say I'm going to Kyoto. The second one was the draft for the poster I presented at the conference. This was to say I'm going there for work. No work of art but I took it with me in the suitcase, so I thought it belonged to this blog. It is the handwriting of the-other-Tom-from-Chicago, when he was helping me with the design. "Awesome" was just his attempt at cheering up a dispirited and depressed Marie san and get her to work on it. There is too much I cannot say here, and I'm a little bit sad right now, or maybe just tired. I'll be back....
ReplyDelete