Thought for the Day - Feb 21

Subject: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 12:16 PM

Handling Handles

The handle on a cup -- like a coffee cup -- presents an intriguing artistic problem. It gestures towards usefulness, towards picking up the cup, in such a way that it contrasts with the central body of the cup, which has an integral space of its own (the container). The handle beckons towards the outside world, the way the cup enfolds the inner. You can see variations on this issue in looking at Greek vases that have handles that seem to be part of the shape of the vase, and not just stuck on -- they look as if some part of the vase had been scooped out, rather than having a handle stapled on. In this way, the artist is containing -- or trying to contain -- the handle within the overall inner shape of the vase. On an opposite tack, sometimes artists glorify the otherness of the handle. In oriental vases, those with handles, you often see that the handles are made up of lizards or dragons, as if they crawled onto the cup and were frozen there.
The handleless cup, held by cupped hands, is handled differently, and feels different. It is the warm soul of the tea ceremony, or the cup of soup on a cold day: it is designed to cradle us as much as we cradle it.

Hands make us think of arms -- and are arms not handles to the body?
If we then think about teapots, of course, (following along the old nursery rhyme) we begin to move into a different problem -- the spout. The spout is an opening of the vessel, and so is an expression of the central holding space. Therefore, while it too connects the pot to the outside world, it is more integral to the core of the pot than the handle. But that is for another day: spouting off about handles is trouble enough.

(p.t. after Georg Simmel)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: GUEST,Peter T.
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 12:18 PM

I seem to have turned into a guest. Just when I was going offer people a cup of something....yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: MMario
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 12:38 PM

This is interesting, especially when you think of "handles" as internet nicknames, or CB call signs, etc. Food for thought, indeed.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 12:43 PM

aaaaayyyyyyy......I gotcher fockin spout right here man.

Seriously Peter...Your mind plumbs some truly fathomless depths and I freely admit that my own can barely break the surface tension of a mud puddle. I was about to go get another cup of coffee, but now I seem to be plagued with handlephobia.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Mbo
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 12:51 PM

Check it out! Spaw's afraid of big German/English barrels of pork and beer name Gëorg!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 12:54 PM

Have you ever poured yourself a cup of coffee and when picking up the mug, have had the handle come apart from the mug right in your hand?
It is a pretty disorienting experience.
I can handle wine glass stem detatchments much easier. But when the handle falls off an adored mug, I must search inside to find the deeper meaning of what this experience is trying to tell me.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Metchosin
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 01:05 PM

Little Neo, perhaps its trying to say you purchased a poorly constructed mug.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 01:12 PM

Your onto something there Metchosin
I think it is trying to telling me I allowed myself to settle for a mug of poor construction when I truly deserve a quality mug with one of those artsy, fartsy handles within the overall shape of the mug.
Go for quality, right?

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 01:21 PM

Well it IS probably easier than explaining to the folks at the ER how your "privates" got scalded.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 01:23 PM

Little Neo, that very thing happened this weekend- a lovely, hand-thrown mug with my favorite symbol (triskele: triple spiral) detatched from the handle. Fortunately, the glue I used seems to be working. But it did bring home how ephemeral is the material world. Or something deep like that!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 01:47 PM

The point is that we have this mindset, which naturally evolves from our constant use of our hands to deal with things, which kind of deals not with dinglikeit (I know I have misspelled that) but with the condensed and abbreviated reality called the handle. Two direct implications of noticing this are that we should give care how we design handles, so that they are true to the purpose and overall weltanschaung of the whole, functionally, aesthetically, and logically. Good mug handles do this -- when you heft them you sense in your fingers the warmth and almost the fluidity of the coffee you are carrying. The handle actually connects you, rather than just linking you physically. Poor handles (such as some teacups) make you assume unnatural postures and deny the nature of the reality they are handing you -- they impose pretense and barriers between the holder and the thing held.

The second thing to notice is that we grow inclined in various ways to use the handles as symbols, substitutes and tokens, not (sometimes) realizing that we collect so many substitutes and symbols of this kind that we become unable to find the reality behind the handle. This is true in semantic systems, in computer simulations and Power POint presentations, where the semiotics becomes an object of consideration in itself and we lose sight of the relaities inherent in the symbol's full meaning or the handle's full connection.

You, Spaw, mean so much to so many, but because of the "Spaw" handle, with all the art that has gone into it, therem ay well be large parts of the territory you really are that are unreachable through the handle we have come to love.

Here endeth the days maunder. Thanks, Peter T, for reviving my sophomore-year mindset -- it needed a dusting out. :>)

A

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 02:46 PM

Gotterdammerung!

Ich bin eine teapot, schort und schtout!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 02:52 PM

I get seven half cups of coffee a day. Two in the morning to start me heart, and the rest between shit happening.. (Always happens just when I sit down fer a coffee) If I were smart I would stop drinking it and have a quiet day...But then I've never been noted as being smart; and I do enjoy coffee. Yours,(I dont drink tea) Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 03:21 PM

So y'know a lot about handles then!

A

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Metchosin
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 03:26 PM

well "love handles" maybe.....

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Mbo
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 03:32 PM

"Mbo" IS my handle...

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Osmium
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 04:01 PM

But

"handles" are not handles in the sense that we have chosen to define them. It is afterall entirely possible to pick up a jug or cup which has handles without using said handles. So what are handles really for? I think they are the manifestation of the utensils connectivity to a higher place, that place where the universal sentient utensil knows what you are about to drink and why and decides whether you should or should not do so - and then withdraws the support of the "handle" at the most propitious moment should it deem it necessary. Take a carefull look at where your handle points next time you get a drink.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 04:52 PM

don't say it spaw don't say it spaw don't say it spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Willie-O
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 05:13 PM

so, old guy hears about Viagra, decides to try it. Goes to his doctor and talks him into giving him a prescription, fills it, and home he goes.

Next day, the doctor calls him, says, "How did it work out for you?"

Old guy says "Well, not too good. Clara found the pills in my bedside table, and took 'em and dumped em all down the well."

"Dumped them ALL down the well? Listen, This is very important. Don't drink that well water!!!"

"Drink the water? Hell, we can't get the pump handle down!"

Willie_O

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 05:31 PM

Well now that we are getting into Viagra jokes.......
An elderly man asks the pharmacist to cut his viagra pills into 1/4s. The pharmacist looks puzzles and asks him "what on earth for?"
The elderly man say, "I just want to raise it enough so I don't pee on my shoes anymore".

LN

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 05:39 PM

My love she speaks like silence
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire...

Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success or failure
And that failure's no success at all...

A

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: Mbo
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 05:42 PM

Amos, that sounds like a cool song/poem that Anuna, and subsequently, Katie McMahon does, called "Winter, Fire and Snow." Good stuff.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 21
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Feb 00 - 05:52 PM

Its "Love Minus Zero, No Limit" Meebo...and its Dylan. Funny Amos, that was going thru my mind too.

Spaw