Parked about the place, doing a slow burn, has been a dubious project. It is a deconstruction of sorts wherein an ordered and functional format is scrambled.
It contains the elements of a compass including a round face. The letters designating the cardinal directions, however, are congregated in a pattern that is more self-referential than indicative of a greater orientation. The needle sits idly by, with no particular functional opportunities, or sense of direction.
No longer much of a compass, the collection of shapes seems to call for a reorganization of content and meaning. Where things are put can be an open issue. Everything, for example, could be pushed to one side, which would create it’s own associations. The cardinal points could be rearranged around the circle in some kind of a riff on the traditional design. But such a move feels trivial. The present arrangement comes across as somewhat social in spirit with the letters trying out a Robert Indiana look while the needle contemplates its northness or has turned away in disapproval. But is such a reassignment legit? What are the contexts that would allow one to humanize a compass? Maybe a compass can be seen as purely passive and entirely dependent upon a strict ordering of components, while humans exercise a degree of free will as exemplified by the funk.
I could go on, but a reasonable question might be: what would you do with this, aside from putting it in the closet?
Kipling would be shocked. Not only does East meet West, but it’s a four-way party. Those aloof-appearing letters, released, now can’t get close enough.
Perhaps the needle points to the truth regardless of our collection of names for it
Steve:
A’Kipling we shall go… Yea, it’s not just magnetic North anymore, but magnetic middle. An aside: I was thinking of tapering the needle to points as is the norm, but decided that an officious little arrow at one end would add a little character.
Byron:
Hello, glad to me you. A problem that I may mention in terms of the magnetic truth is that the poles reverse themselves every so often. In that case the truth can become its own polar opposite.
Byron:
A typo – not an invitation to a mind merge.
My association pertains to airlines, northwest, southeast – due to the shocking rise in prices on nwa.com for flights from Michigan to the East Coast.
Birgit:
Might be a little collusion there too. As long as they don’t raise the rates in flight – that would amount to a mid-air collusion.
I thought NEWS.
D.
Yes, that’s worth thinking about. I should push things around to see if a suitable NEWS can have an intermagnetic appeal. A connection would be the contrast between the valued predictability of a compass per se and the NEWS-worthiness of its letters. Time to get out the tools and cut another one.
There’s an interesting tension with things like maps, which have an “up” as typically displayed, but in fact represent something horizontal. One could play with that, as in letting the letters congregate toward the “bottom”. If the poor, pinned arrow is doing its job, the point should bend around toward wherever the N is. Though I very much like the idea of it pointing in a direction that is nowhere near N, S, E, or W. To hell with conventions!
Jay,
Like D, I too saw NEWS, even as I read your enigmatic commentary on points of the compass. Loss of brain-cells, perhaps, or perhaps a bad bit of mutton.
At any rate, it seems to me that the news feels more predictable than the compass points, given that true north isn’t north and the poles change every so often and that the north-south running mountains ranges actually run northwest/southeast, and that the sun also ranges widely north to south as the seasons vary, so that what you can see depends not just on the time of day but the day of the month of whatever year. A slighly leaning compass simply makes as much sense as does the muddle of news — both equally abstracted notions that don’t adhere much to actuality. But the news in the short run and in the very long run is more predictable. Intermediately, it perhaps resembles compass veracity.
So there! First I disappear and then I reappear with a snark. But not the usual snort, so take note.
i wish i could see this in action now .
it was great to have discovered this site , by the way .
Guys:
Like in Facebook land I’m sitting here watching a dog being walked in the snow and trying to pull myself upright one caffeinated bootstrap at a time.
Here’s what has happened in these few minutes: question: does my illustration depict what happens at one of the North or South poles? Do the directions get bunched up – in fact everything becomes one direction, either north or south – while the magnetic needle tries its best to find something specific? In response to Steve a piece of black string sporting an arrow at one end could replace our stiff needle. In fact, one option might be to put a clear plexiglass cover over the whole thing, thus creating a circular box, and allowing all of the components in question to jostle about. One would then read the contents as one might tea leaves or thrown bones. Dali’s watches – but a watch deals in conventions while a compass deals in a real thing. In response to June, I believe that a light enough gimbeled compass will tilt relative to level depending upon where it is. Also, the two intermediates between snark and snort are snart and snork. There is something Monty Pythonish about “snart” as something performed in a person’s general direction.
Yes, one could say that three directions cease to exist, and every possible step is in the same direction. If that’s not convention taken to an extreme, I don’t know what is. But I’m sure you could find a good life analogy for the situation, if you’re looking for one. Actually, as the North Pole is not at magnetic north, and the horizontal component of the field is weak, for the most part you can’t trust a compass up there at all. Now that’s a really good life analogy.
Steve:
Of course that first step is the last, so conceived, as any motion away from the pole re-establishes the NEWS – just highly distorted with a whopping S and an arbitrarily teensy W , E and N.
The NEWS in the illustration need to be smaller so as to huddle more convincingly.