the collaboration charabanc

it's a jolly wee life just now sitting in my workspace, finishing off a couple of paintings, listening away to whatever internet radio takes my fancy but there;s always that temptation to look away, click on the internetathimgumajiggy and lose a bit of time. worse, it can lead to the guardian, the tabloid broadsheet of those middle classes of whom i am so very much one.

first off this catches my eye. so far, so dandy you might say, i am after all the one who likes all the collaboration and what not. so why then do i find this article so profoundly depressing? i'm all about the science, history of it and all of that. i like marc quinn, i was all happy when blood head made an appearance in kick-ass. and yet when i see a title like 'we share our chemistry with the stars' i can't help but think that it's all a bit leadenly simplistic.

sure the whole art/science thing is in vogue just now. i guess it's a chance for the science types to step a bit outside themselves for a wee while but it seems a whole lot more to do with the arts types to feel just a wee bit (even more) self important. lavinia greenlaw may feel she's 'ridiculously analytical' but, and respect to her point of view, really, she's not.

maybe i'm just a wee bit jealous and hey, who wouldn't be, to get a chance to do all this cool stuff but at the same time, there just seems to be a lack of rigour. and, dare i say it, elegance? i remember it from my time as a science boy, that kind of unfolding, deep satisfaction at recreating an elegant experiment, or interpretation of a set of data, the instinctual (i'm rubbish at maths) pleasure the vision of a well laid out set of equations, exactly the same feeling as i get when i look at a painting or read a poem.

i think someone says it in the comments section - artists are not scientists and scientists are not artists - it's a statement that doesn't stand up (tho it's nowhere near the ridiculousness of say, irigaray's gendered equation nonsense!) but surely, these days, there are enough people who do both? certainly the two fields didn't used to be exclusive. or maybe i'm just being just a tad precious and up on my soapbox!

in which case back to the guardian! old words being retired? what's this? for a start i can't quite see how they make the leap to 'retiring' succedaneum even if it is for this particular use rather than the caput succedaneum with which i'm far more familiar (can you hear the soapbox being dragged back out?). aerodrome? i refuse to believe that the word aerodrome isn't appearing often enough for collins to include it and even if it isn't they should keep it because it's such a perfect word. back when i was really young and first going up in gliders we did so from an aerodrome. such a place is not an 'airport' by any means but a place of grass, of sunlight and buttercups, of struts and hangers, magical in a way that the non spaces of a terminal can never be. but worst of all - charabanc? that must be the lexicographical equivalent of a human rights crime. charabanc is one of my favourite words and a language without it is all the poorer.

which leads neatly to a finally and the sort of story that's a nap for guardian readers. the cafe that borges used to go to taken over by nike. i very much suspect that the average guardian reader views borges a bit like one of their five a day vegetables - they know they should but when it comes right down to it they just don't, even if they like to slip borgesian in as an adjective every now and again. all of which is kind of like shooting fish in a barrel - fun but not fair! i've never been to buenos aires but if i was to you can be sure i'd want to be doing some sort of borgesian (see what i did there!) tour. and while yes, things change and all that, there seems sufficient evidence on the strength of the article to suggest the developers knew exactly what they were about. shame.

oh well, that's a nice half hour passed. back to work....