The Subtle Landscape

  Know what bugs me?  Crappy generic store branded stuff.  Like the matches of which you see some on the right above next to proud green strike anywhere Diamonds on the left.  What makes a bad match?  Thanks for asking.  I’m gonna tell ya.

  Few days back, there was an, uh, odor I hoped to dispel with first the flame and then the smoke of a struck match.  I opened the box, pulled one out and across the abrasive panel when it broke.  Next one ignited and then broke, fell onto my shirt, and burned a hole.  Oh well, work shirt. 

  Next one ignited, broke, fell onto the carpet, and seemed to have gone out.  It was in a corner and the carpet is dark and wife didn’t see.  Almost ‘oh well’ again, but didn’t want to burn the house down so dumped a glass of water on it which I did have to explain later.  (“Uh, was watering plants”) I’d by then forgotten about the odor, but in retrospect I’m pretty sure it was long gone.

  What’s more is that the cheap ones hail from a poor country in which forests are rapidly being decimated by the indiscriminate use of wood as fuel for cooking.  On the back of the box of good ones is a statement of which the following is part: “…sourced from responsibly managed Aspen forests of Minnesota…”

  Store where we mostly shop stocks only those on the right.  As of recently I should say.  There used to be a choice.  I’m no genius, but I’m sure management figured that the process of match procurement for the average consumer involves negligible consideration of price or quality.  Thus, remove the good ones, sell the replacements at the same price, and double the profit.

  Matches were invented in China* in or around AD 577 when it was found that dry sticks coated with sulfur would facilitate the sharing of an established flame.  Robert Boyle (remember Boyle’s Law?) figured out that a stick coated with sulfur would ignite when dragged across a piece of paper coated with phosphorus. 

  As further refinement a John Walker in 1826 soaked small sticks with a mixture of potassium chlorate, antimony sulfide, starch, and gum, and allowed them to dry.  Move tip across a rough surface and voila – a flame.  This solution was poisonous however and sickened factory workers.  So after some experimentation, in 1910 the Diamond Match Co substituted sesquisulfide for the phosphorus and patented the modern match.

  And now some pencil neck has taken us a few steps back.  Can’t wait to test their pharmacy…

*cf post of July 2, 2011 to read about the invention of fireworks.

**Most of the history of matches above was drawn from an article by Lisa De Nike in the Fall/Winter issue of The Boss.

  If you keep your eyes open and wits receptive, it’s amazing the cool stuff you come across.  Just yesterday, for example, I was driving by the jobsite you see above and did a double take.  At first, I thought that a piece of concrete pipe had loosed its restraints and was rolling toward disaster.

  Then, lo, a pair of steel arms lowered it to the ground gently as a nursemaid.  Beautiful bit of industrial choreography.  Had to stay to watch the whole process and was amazed at its efficiency and the economies of movement and energy.  One person unloaded the whole truck without assistance or requirement for outside power.

  Learned that the thing is a Pipemaster 100 and was invented in 1956 by Hank Schmidgall not far from here and has become an industry standard for all of the obvious reasons.  Easy one person operation – driver does it all.  Don’t have to wait for a crane or backhoe.  Thus no delays and can haul more pipe in a day. 

  Then later, on my way home, I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The Weinermobile!  I’d been struck with great good fortune twice in one day.  This bit of only-in-America was designed by Oscar Mayer’s nephew Carl in 1936.  There are now eight on the road: six built on a GMC chassis and two on that of a Mini Cooper. 

  Their horns can play the jingle (I wish I were a…) in twenty-one different genres from Cajun to Rap to Bossa Nova.  After multiple circumperambulations I drove home quickly, determined to find my Weiner Whistle.  Well, it wasn’t to be a perfect day, but one could hardly complain.

  Having been in the ER several times during the past week or so due to the aforementioned incident, I took the opportunity to sort of Rosetta Stone the placard you see above.  It was prominently mounted on a wall in every patient room I’ve visited thus far.  (Just one more visit to go!)

  Even though I’ve never had to worry about being in labor (rest assured my roommate would agree with that statement – whatever meaning you might ascribe to the phrase) the translation of that bit is what interests me most.

  I know a little Spanish and enjoy watching Despierta America (Wake up America) on Univision in the early AM.  You should watch it.  It is interesting even with the sound off, for the wonderful cultural counterpoint it conveys vis The Today Show, Good Morning America, et al.

  Anyway, the title and first phrase up to the conjunction translate easily word for word.  But then in English it says “…or are in labor…” and in Spanish “O Esta Dando A Luz” which I knew didn’t say anything about work or labor – trabajo.  I knew that Luz meant light.

  Turned to one of my research assistants, daughter #1, who informed me that the phrase does indeed mean “in labor”/giving birth, but translates literally as “…or you are giving light”.  I think that is beautiful, interesting, and further provocation for my sodium ion exchange (that’s what moves stuff along in one’s neurons).

  Had I ever have had the prospect of being in labor, I wonder if the nature of my anticipation of such an event would have differed if I’d  known it described exclusively by one or other of the phrases.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that it would have.  

  On the one hand, whatever combination of excitement, nervousness, and trepidation one might feel, to view the penultimate stage of a pregnancy in terms of work would be way different than, say, as the dawn of a new universe.

  Furthermore, that metaphor, “dando a luz” would (in my mind anyway) evolve through a series of metaphiers from the initial “giving light”, to the newborn’s astonished visage, to the acquisition of literacy, to a college mortarboard, and to a bright eyed effort to make the world a better place.

  But then I’ll never be pregnant and in all honesty the process of giving birth does not look that much like any sort of serene experience.  I would never have chosen the word “labor”.  More reminds me of William Wallace’s last experience of life in Braveheart.  Torture. I’ve watched it three times.  Birth that is.  Braveheart many more.

*Interested in metaphors and their contribution to consciousness?  Go to post of February 4, 2011