Space currency

In case you were wondering how to pay for your drinks on the moon, here is the answer: Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination, or Quid. The Q says it all: we don’t know yet, if our alien fellow galactics will accept it as a valid currency. It brings back memories of a session I attended at the Bournemouth Theoretical Archaeology Group conference in 1997: on exo-archaeology. As an archaeologist, you have to be prepared for any future job opportunity, keeping in mind the more than average interest in archaeological matters of Star Trek’s Starfleet officers. No doubt the Quids will sooner than later turn into desirables and collector’s items. Archaeological parallels can be found in situations where the first coins introduced in areas in contact with mint based economies, often ended up in ritual contexts. Another archaeological parallel tells us that we should expect that we ourselves will end up as the main currency. But this is nothing new for those among us that already have been captured and enslaved by aliens.

The end of material culture

It seems that the rationale for this blog (see about) should be rephrased somewhat. In the latest issue of the journal Archaeological Dialogues material culture studies have more or less been declared dead. It contains a discussion article “Materials against materiality” involving some of the pioneering researchers (Christopher Tilley and Daniel Miller) in the interdisciplinary field of material culture studies in the discussion of a proclamation by Tim Ingold. There are a number of things that bother me and might be taken as a sign of a dying field. Incrowd debates are always suspicious, but probably this cannot be helped since material culture studies are firmly based at UCL. Nonetheless, there are enough other researchers working in this field who could have been involved in the discussion (it seems to be an editorial policy since the start of the journal to invite only big shots). Anyway, the result is a non-debate between leading scholars who are more concerned to promote their recent work than making any reference to work being done by other people. It seems that material culture studies are back where they started, with a small group of people talking amongst themselves (but hey, that’s science for you). Unless there is a hidden agenda … on the part of the editors of Archaeological Dialogues to get rid of material culture studies by being sloppy editors of this discussion article, or on the part of the editors of the Journal of Material Culture to tempt the editors of Archaeological Dialogues into publishing an empty shell. Because that is what the article is, a language game, not a serious attempt to engage with material, let alone archaeological material. Although an empty shell could still refer to the materiality of a shell, in this case it’s just made up of words, words, words.

Counting cigarettes

This is not an entry about me trying to quit smoking. That probably will never happen, at least not while I am writing my magnum opus. This entry is about how many cigarettes you can get into a package. You may not be aware of this, but not every package contains the same number (and I am not referring here to different sized packages of 10 15 20 or 25). In the Netherlands the latest tax raise on tabacco sneaked through, not by raising the price of a package (again), but by deducing the number of cigarettes it contains (from 20 to 19). Every time you open one, you see this gaping hole where one additional cigarette should have been. In a Mediterranean country such as Italy prices of cigarettes are generally much lower than in the northwest of Europe. To my surprise, the price of a package turned out to be almost the same in Italy as in the Netherlands. To my greater surprise, the Italians have made up for this price raise by increasing the number of cigarettes in a package (from 20 to 21), in this case not leaving a hole but cramming an additional cigarette in (which incidentally makes it more difficult to take out the first one of a new package). This seems a material metaphor of a distinction in national mentality: in the Netherlands a package of cigarettes is half empty, in Italy it is half full. But now it’s time to enjoy this richness.

Counting steps

Quite recently, scientists have found out that ants count their steps to find back their way home. I won’t comment here on the cruel scientific method of leg-cutting, for that concern find yourself an animal rights website. This animal fact came back to me, when I was enjoying a (plastic) cup of coffee outside just now and became intrigued by the procession of ants that tried to walk through where I was sitting and forced me to stand up again. As you know, when you have to count things yourself, even the minor distraction can lead you off track. What about the ants that bump into each other, will they be distracted from their step-counting and getting back home again? Or does (evolutionary) safety in numbers take over here? Scientists count your ways back to the lab!

Connecting the dots

Modern technology has lifted wildlife conservation to a new level. A range of species have been tagged with transmitters by which they can be tracked. Taking a closer look at the turtle in this picture (source: BBC), it shows that it has been turned into a hybrid creature, a cyborg, by attaching the transmitter on top of its shield, thus bridging (or denying) the nature-culture divide. Walruses are another species that in a recent project can be tracked for a couple of months (as long as the transmitters stick into their skins) following the dots on a map. In this respect, there is not much of a difference between wildlife conservation and hunting in terms of material culture (a crossbow, a CO2-powered gun, and a harpoon) or behaviour (silent approaches, tracking). It’s not a coincidence that many wildlife conservation projects depend on training native hunters, in the hope that they will refrain from hunting endangered species. If you want to be pessimistic, this could mean that hunting will be lifted to a new level as well.

Used books

As a librarian of a small university department library I have spent countless hours erasing pencil marks from books. There’s always a sense of eradicating other people’s efforts, when I do this. I have to say that I have been tempted to mark the process of reading one of my own books only once , but I always find comfort reading other books used in this way. Part of this comfort lies in the fact that the book has been read already and that your reading it adds to its lifecourse. At the other extreme lies the excitement of being the first to open uncut books (an activity which I’ve also spent countless hours on in my job as a librarian). Another part of the comfort in reading this category of used books is that the underlining of sentences helps you to work your way through it, especially if its contents challenge your intellectual capacity. If there’s a coincidence in emphasis between earlier readers’ (re)marks and your own thoughts, there’s a sense of comprehension that goes beyond simple understanding of the author: I’m not alone, so there must be more to it. On the other hand, if parts that you would have emphasized are not marked, there is a sense of discovery: am I the first to recognise this as a significant part?, which creates a sense of privilege in understanding the author. This experience becomes even more intense, if you know the person who did the underlining, and sometimes even made remarks in the margin. I’ve been lucky enough to read and also get a lot of books as a gift from my (under)graduate supervisor, who doesn’t have the same reservations about marking books as I have. When I’m reading one of his books, with critical remarks in his handwriting, there’s always this enhanced sense of connection. Save one book, my master’s dissertation with his comments, which I haven’t touched ever since I got it. There should only be so much sense of connection.

Thrill of expectation

For the amount of books in my daily environment – I work as a librarian in a small university library and also cherish a lot of books both in my other office and my home – I have delayed a post on these creatures long enough. One of my favourite authors is Jonathan Carroll, and in addition to his books, I enjoy reading his blog. He is one of those gifted authors who can give you a new outlook on the world, and incorporates a lot of engagements with the material world in his work and blog. Incidentally, he produces the only books in the genre of fantasy that I like, as it is grounded in the everyday world, which makes it significantly less fantasy. It’s always a pleasure to find out that he is still productive and another of his novels has been published.

Although his last book was published in October 2005, I only read it last December. That’s one of my peculiarities, call it a principle: I don’t buy books through the internet (except for books related to my studies, to make the habit even more peculiar). Call me old-fashioned, but for some reason I think that books deserve to be found and bought in bookshops. In fact, it adds to the thrill of anticipation in looking for something and then eventually finding it (or not). Jonathan Carroll’s books are not widely, or rather: hardly available in Dutch bookshops, which increases the sense of anticipation on my behalf, existing in the expectation of the new book of one of my favourite authors.

Until now, it had usually only been a matter of half a year, when the quest for the new book could be accomplished. In this case, there had already been a big thrill after a couple of months in December 2005, when I encountered a pile of the Italian translation of the book “Zuppa di vetro” in a bookstore in Rome (I had never seen more than four or five of his books together, except on my own shelves, so imagine my thrill). I decided not to indulge myself in the extra, but definitely rewarding effort of reading the book in Italian. But it turned out that I had to wait for another opportunity for a long time. Only after one year of expectation, the anticipated thrill of finding “Glass soup” occurred a month ago in a bookshop in a small English town. I managed to prolong the thrill for a week, but then read the book in one go. Now, with a sense of relief that I still like his work, I’m waiting for a new sense of anticipation to grow, while he is teasing his readers by putting tiny excerpts of the new book that he’s working on, on his blog.

Dutch mail boxes

Mail boxes are one of the landmarks in contemporary urban landscapes. They constitute nodes in a network, where people can leave their messages to be sent to somebody else, thus creating and reinstating the network itself. Recently, the final step in the privatisation of mail services in the Netherlands took place: the restyling of the Dutch mail box. It’s not so much its new form that attracts the attention, as the change of its colour. It used to be bright red, but now it has been turned into orange. Every household in the Netherlands received several letters to mark this change, one of these contained an orange envelope to be sent free of charge. The company stresses the Dutch royal connotations of the colour to present the change as an improvement. But i will miss the screaming red landmarks and may even forget where they used to be, despite the fact that their place has been taken over by their subtle orange spin-offs.

Source images:

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brievenbus

matter matters

Material culture studies have proven to be a successful interdisciplinary enterprise in the Humanities and Social Sciences. One of the attractions is that personal experiences of engaging with the material world can be incorporated in scientific discourse. This provides a good starting-point for a blog. Hence: MATTER MATTERS!