False Start #17
So you’d ask:
What’s the best metaphor to describe what plaid is like? I mean, the essence of it. Irrigation canals? Chicken wire? Warps through space and time? Fabrics on a loom? Mathematical grids in Euclidean space?
I would say:
No, no. I can’t say. They’re all good, but really, I mean, do you expect me to be able to take our friend plaid out of its context? Chicken farmers, jailers, carnies working at a glass bottle shooting range all wear chicken wire plaid. Farmers, civil engineers, ditch-diggers wear irrigation canals. Astronauts, tripping professors, and forward minded novelists all wear warps. Minervan mermaids, spinster grannies, looming threats of men all wear looms. Devotees of Descartes, reckoners, and city planners wear grids…
You’d respond:
But you fail to see what I’m saying . We’re talking about the essence here.
I would say:
No, we are grasping at it, touching its edges, its corners. This is the best we get, we humans, a taste of the essential.