Footnotes to a Conversation, July 17, 2023
The novel “teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question.” – Milan Kundera
Textile Art Leaps the Divide Between Traditional and Modern
Three American artists have turned to traditional crafts but reinvented them in a bold, new modern style. Bisa Butler’s quilt portraits incorporate a kaleidoscope of colours in a wide variety of fabrics (rhinestone-studded lace, sparkle vinyl, hand-dyed batik, sequins). Marques Hanalei Marzan creates contemporary weavings using traditional Hawaiian materials and techniques. Janice Arnold designs huge felt installations grounded in the knowledge she acquired while travelling in Mongolia, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Turkey to study the history and cultural significance of felting. [Smithsonian Magazine]
Home
Where and what is home? Some people value highly their ties to a particular town, province, or country. Others of us, me included, have ties and roots in various different places. I’ve often wondered if this was a personal weakness and envied people with strong local ties. Although I haven’t read any books by Milan Kundera, I was interested by a review outlining some of his thoughts on this subject.
Kundera believed that a national culture was essential “to justify and preserve our national identity.” But he also stated that an “inability to see one’s own culture in the larger context” was “provincialism.” He went on to say, “I wonder if we are not victims of that myth. I wonder if our ideas of having roots – d’être enraciné – is simply a fiction we cling to.”
“What Kundera is wrestling with in all this is the issue that continually confronts us today: that of trying to make sense of the relationship between the local and the global, between the particular and the universal, between finding refuge in inward-looking identities frequently rooted in intolerance and exclusion and embracing a cosmopolitanism that often celebrates the erosion of community and democracy. In the ambiguities and paradoxes of his writing, in the questions he poses as much as in the answers he provides, Kundera warns against being fixated by one side of that relationship to the neglect of the other.” [The Guardian]
Poop Scoop
Wastewater surveillance spread quickly to countries around the world during the pandemic. I used the Saskatoon’s weekly wastewater reports to judge the levels of Covid in my community. Houston used the information to avoid scheduling elective surgery when levels were high. They also conducted pinpoint testing from sewers outside schools, assisted living centres, jails, and homeless shelters. As a result, there were far fewer deaths in long-term care facilities. Some cities are now using the results to track illnesses ranging from flu to polio, but other communities are ignoring this opportunity for early detection. Knowledge can be a power for good or for evil - in this case, it’s most welcome. [Mother Jones]
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.