Katherine! Thank you so much. And I'm glad you're gingerly but hopefully inexorably on the mend. Breathing difficulties? The panickiest. I'm so sorry, ghagh.
As for Imperial measurements, before I researched and wrote that piece, I was firmly Team Metric - despite using inches and miles and pounds and stone without thinking. But now I feel like...like...
Well, it's the same feeling as when Europe adopted the Euro. I *know* that it makes perfect sense in 95% of cases, and it makes things easier and it's more rational and so on. But I think about the hard-to-pin-down joys of handling those new coins and notes when you go travelling, the coins with straight sides, or holes in the middle, or notes that are HUGE or all these weird colours, plastered with images I don't understand and people I don't know. I know that nobody's going to make a rational economic argument for those things, but I certainly feel there's a cultural and emotional one. There's a human one. A love of currency diversity, and the heart-racing, wide-eyed excitement it can bring. A differencing that's somewhere short of Othering.
So I suspect in 18th-Century France, I'd be one of the extremely stroppy farmers, complaining bitterly that this new "decimal" system was incredibly boring and unnatural and the whole world is going to the dogs...
I know exactly what you mean - and there is something intuitive about an inch or a foot. This is maybe another way that we don't allow ourselves to feel connected to our personal worlds? (I am on the mend btw, but it's bloody slow, and I'm very bored of getting exhausted after writing half an email. Gah.)
It’s great that you’re starting to feel better - it’s so irritating when it takes such a long time. And, yes, I saw The Lobster a very long time ago and loved it. Your description for the first link makes me think of all of the built up memories and imprints in places/spaces that we’re not aware of until we experience them - e.g., people ‘remembering’ you in a place, even though you’ve never been there before; looking at a spot and thinking that would make an interesting murder mystery story and then finding out later that someone was actually murdered there - all the unseen energy from the past that floats around, both good and bad.
Katherine! Thank you so much. And I'm glad you're gingerly but hopefully inexorably on the mend. Breathing difficulties? The panickiest. I'm so sorry, ghagh.
As for Imperial measurements, before I researched and wrote that piece, I was firmly Team Metric - despite using inches and miles and pounds and stone without thinking. But now I feel like...like...
Well, it's the same feeling as when Europe adopted the Euro. I *know* that it makes perfect sense in 95% of cases, and it makes things easier and it's more rational and so on. But I think about the hard-to-pin-down joys of handling those new coins and notes when you go travelling, the coins with straight sides, or holes in the middle, or notes that are HUGE or all these weird colours, plastered with images I don't understand and people I don't know. I know that nobody's going to make a rational economic argument for those things, but I certainly feel there's a cultural and emotional one. There's a human one. A love of currency diversity, and the heart-racing, wide-eyed excitement it can bring. A differencing that's somewhere short of Othering.
So I suspect in 18th-Century France, I'd be one of the extremely stroppy farmers, complaining bitterly that this new "decimal" system was incredibly boring and unnatural and the whole world is going to the dogs...
I know exactly what you mean - and there is something intuitive about an inch or a foot. This is maybe another way that we don't allow ourselves to feel connected to our personal worlds? (I am on the mend btw, but it's bloody slow, and I'm very bored of getting exhausted after writing half an email. Gah.)
The Lobster is one of the best movies I never want to see again 😅 The final scene still haunts me.
That is SUCH a good way of putting it!
Katherine, I can't thank you enough for sharing my work with your fantastic audience. Such a nice way to celebrate my birthday!
More importantly, I'm so glad the new meds are clearing your airways. There's no shame in using a spacer, and that's coming from an asthma veteran!
Wishing you deep, delicious lungfuls of oxygen. Be well, my friend.
Oh happy birthday Will! I now have a spacer and I love it. It’s not terribly portable though 😂
Thanks! Yeah, spacers can be bulky. You need a holster for it!
😂
It’s great that you’re starting to feel better - it’s so irritating when it takes such a long time. And, yes, I saw The Lobster a very long time ago and loved it. Your description for the first link makes me think of all of the built up memories and imprints in places/spaces that we’re not aware of until we experience them - e.g., people ‘remembering’ you in a place, even though you’ve never been there before; looking at a spot and thinking that would make an interesting murder mystery story and then finding out later that someone was actually murdered there - all the unseen energy from the past that floats around, both good and bad.