No earth shattering news today.
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Costco shopped on the way home from work. We always purchase stuff for the food bank. Other than eggs and peanut butter, most of what we buy is focused on small children and women. Feminine products, diapers and mostly formula. Damn that stuff is expensive!
The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. All art is quite useless.” —Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Carl has a project, or several, through which he shares arcane facts with his baseball buddies. Today’s fact was about George somebody, who once hit a home run on Carl’s birthday, and today was his (George something’s) birthday.
In looking for items of interest to share about George, he found that he was a backup to a player who earned the title, the human fan, while playing in Japan, because his ability to hit the ball deserted him. The player who was the human fan was Gary Thomasson. Not willing to play backup to a human fan, George asked to be traded. But the really fun story follows Thomasson.
A Japanese artist, Akasegawa Genpei, decided to call objects that are completely useless but still carefully maintained a Thomasson. He had noticed architectural objects that no longer served a purpose, but continued to be maintained. Stairways to nothing. A gate with no fence. Of course, this happened to us at work when somebody stole the fence around one of our sewer lift stations, and only the gate was left.
In order to be a Thomasson, an object must be cared for even though it’s completely pointless. I think I will have to keep my eyes open for a Thomasson.
Raincharm's Weblog 
January 26, 2023 at 3:16 pm |
That was an interesting book. I wonder how many of us would like that portrait of ourselves and what it would show. A Thomasson! I’ll be on the look-out for one.
January 26, 2023 at 7:37 pm |
The best I had for a recent Thomasson sighting was an old street sign base in the sidewalk. Only about 1″ left, and I tripped on it, bloodying both knees (through jeans) and hands. I reported it to the city through Find it, Fix it, twice. I thought they would cut it down flush, or dig it out. They did neither, instead putting up a new No Parking sign (it’s next to a bike lane), so no longer even a chance of being a Thomasson.