Footnotes to a Conversation, January 6, 2025

“If people never did silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.” – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Janus Words

January is named after the Roman god, Janus, who was, fittingly enough, the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings. He is traditionally depicted with two faces, one looking ahead to the future and one back to remember the past. He was the doorkeeper of all entrances; the word ‘janitor’ has the same Latin root. [Wikipedia]

Janus words are ones that have two diametrically opposed meanings:

Fast: firmly fixed, very quick

Clip: to attach something, to cut off

Custom: usually, specially made

Dust: to make free of dust, to sprinkle with dust

Screen: to hide from view, to show

Left: went away from, remaining [Susie Dent, Word Perfect]

Silent Treatment

I am often irritated by the need to make polite conversation in a taxi or at a hair salon. More and more establishments in Japan are offering a conversation-less option. Hair Works Credo offers 3 options: normal talking, less talking, and no talking. The owner says, “In 2014, there were no other hair salons in Japan offering this unique option … At first I thought I’d be catering exclusively to introverts and bad communicators, but over the years I’ve learned that some people just feel like having an introverted day.” (Japan Times)

Shopping for Food

I walked to a local store yesterday morning to buy yogurt, a pleasant walk in a residential neighbourhood. I have two bakeries and several coffee shops within easy walking distance as well. I housesit in Oak Bay where I can walk to a collection of stores that includes a grocery store, restaurants, bakery, wine, and a really excellent ice cream store. Another housesit puts me in close vicinity to Cook Street Village. In addition to a green grocer/grocery store, there are restaurants, coffee shops, an independent clothing store, and a bookshop (bonus!). Picking up a few groceries is a relaxing outing instead of an unpleasant chore. Contrast this with big box stores that “come at societal costs. Hurting small businesses, promoting car dependency, and creating inequity are only a few of the consequences of the current grocery store paradigm.” Big box stores also come with super-sized parking lots, and each of those parking spaces costs $24,000, a cost that is passed along to consumers. [Planetizen]

Food prices are increasing. So are supermarket chain profits. Farmers’ markets offer a local alternative to globalized supply chains that are vulnerable and slow to recover from disruptions. A survey points to another key difference between farmers’ markets and supermarkets. “In interviews, farmers’ market vendors cited rising input costs as a driver of price increases. However, unlike large retailers, they noted that their profit margins were shrinking as they absorbed costs instead of passing the full burden onto consumers … While the absorption of these costs is unsustainable for many local producers, it speaks to the increased accountability vendors feel when they are selling to the communities they themselves are embedded in. In this sense, farmers’ markets demonstrated greater resilience as they adapted to the shock of the pandemic but maintained the core function of the food system — ensuring access to food.” [The Conversation]

Footnotes to a Conversation is a weekly Monday feature covering an assortment of topics that I’ve come across in the preceding week – books, art, travel, food, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I also post occasional articles on other dates, including frequent book reviews and travel tales.

If you share my love of nature, check out EcoFriendly West, an online publication encouraging environmental initiatives in Western Canada, and Nature Companion, a free nature app for Canada’s four western provinces.