Oranges 1
In the far corner of the garden which I cleared of ivy [eorþ-ifig] last year, so that the wall was uncluttered, bare, a bit shocking, suddenly shaved as if for surgery or chemotherapy or contemporary body aesthetics, I have decided to work with oranges. They are, themselves, bald.
Shaved.
Actually I had set myself the intention of finding a place to work with oranges because I had written a short play on Sunday, called:
The Oranges of Seville
A clump of people are sitting around lackadaisically on chairs.
A (observant, down-to-earth, pragmatic): There is a pile of oranges at the foot of the stairs.
B (with a tendency to react/respond; slightly critical tone): As if stairs had feet. Or even a single foot - like an ammonite or belemnite or any other cephalopod.
C (also sneery, tending to differentiate self from others by focusing on mistakes that they may have made or be about to make): It's hardly a pile. More like a scattering or smattering . Or some other attering word.
D (a careless rhymer): Which you choose is hardly mattering.
E (a sometimes wistful French wordsmith): What is the collective noun for oranges? A murmuration? A congregation? Perhaps an amberley of oranges?
F (one of few words): A marmalade?
G (one of many words): I often imagining a Marmalade butterfly. It would be a little like a Tortoiseshell but stickier. It would look sticky and it would actually be sticky, which would be disconcerting because dust and other particles of leaf and pollen would cling to it so that you would need to find a newly fledged Marmalade in order to see it in its unsullied glory.
B: I think there is glory in sullying. I wonder what is the derivation of the word. There are people called Sully, aren't there?
E: It is from souiller, meaning 'to make grubby'. Just as nuance is from nuer, meaning 'to shade or make cloudy'. Both suggest blurring, a loss of clarity.
F: There is a marmalade cat. And a marmalade confection.
B: I like the idea of a confection - of a human being as a confection. Rather than as a performance. A sweet putting-together and making-together. A human being as a marmalade confection, confected in a social and ecological confectory. And marmalade is a good confection - somewhat sweet and somewhat bitter, with options for bits, large or small, fine or coarse, lemon, lime or orange.
C: And marmalade can go wrong. It can be over- or under-heated. It can be a little too runny or a little too sweet or a little too thick.
I wonder if this could be the beginning of a new phase in my project - one that gathers the others into a domestic drama. From this scripted starting point, the seven self-selecting cast members could improvise a play about desire.
Anyway, today the royalties can wait and that manuscript I promised to return. I wish to bear oranges, one at a time, to the horizon wall. The wall that looks out and retains. The wall that faces in and deters. The wall that will one day slip down to be wave-licked into oblivion. The desire wall.
Shaved.
Actually I had set myself the intention of finding a place to work with oranges because I had written a short play on Sunday, called:
The Oranges of Seville
A clump of people are sitting around lackadaisically on chairs.
A (observant, down-to-earth, pragmatic): There is a pile of oranges at the foot of the stairs.
B (with a tendency to react/respond; slightly critical tone): As if stairs had feet. Or even a single foot - like an ammonite or belemnite or any other cephalopod.
C (also sneery, tending to differentiate self from others by focusing on mistakes that they may have made or be about to make): It's hardly a pile. More like a scattering or smattering . Or some other attering word.
D (a careless rhymer): Which you choose is hardly mattering.
E (a sometimes wistful French wordsmith): What is the collective noun for oranges? A murmuration? A congregation? Perhaps an amberley of oranges?
F (one of few words): A marmalade?
G (one of many words): I often imagining a Marmalade butterfly. It would be a little like a Tortoiseshell but stickier. It would look sticky and it would actually be sticky, which would be disconcerting because dust and other particles of leaf and pollen would cling to it so that you would need to find a newly fledged Marmalade in order to see it in its unsullied glory.
B: I think there is glory in sullying. I wonder what is the derivation of the word. There are people called Sully, aren't there?
E: It is from souiller, meaning 'to make grubby'. Just as nuance is from nuer, meaning 'to shade or make cloudy'. Both suggest blurring, a loss of clarity.
F: There is a marmalade cat. And a marmalade confection.
B: I like the idea of a confection - of a human being as a confection. Rather than as a performance. A sweet putting-together and making-together. A human being as a marmalade confection, confected in a social and ecological confectory. And marmalade is a good confection - somewhat sweet and somewhat bitter, with options for bits, large or small, fine or coarse, lemon, lime or orange.
C: And marmalade can go wrong. It can be over- or under-heated. It can be a little too runny or a little too sweet or a little too thick.
I wonder if this could be the beginning of a new phase in my project - one that gathers the others into a domestic drama. From this scripted starting point, the seven self-selecting cast members could improvise a play about desire.
Anyway, today the royalties can wait and that manuscript I promised to return. I wish to bear oranges, one at a time, to the horizon wall. The wall that looks out and retains. The wall that faces in and deters. The wall that will one day slip down to be wave-licked into oblivion. The desire wall.
Oranges 2
In fact I carry them all out straight away on a tray. The intention to carry them one-by-one, measuring my steps and noticing whether my pace and my mood quicken as I become impatient with the process of carrying them... that patient intention is immediately overwritten/overridden by the anticipation of frustration.n fact I carry them all out straight away on a tray. The intention to carry them one-by-one, measuring my steps and noticing whether my pace and my mood quicken as I become impatient with the process of carrying them... that patient intention is immediately overwritten/overridden by the anticipation of frustration.
So I could say that my desire is for instant gratification. But that's not quite right because the desire to get the oranges to the wall (Desire A) is only one desire. The other (Desire B) was to carry them painstakingly. One desire beat the other. Or perhaps the member of cast identified with Desire A is simply beefier than the cast member possessed by Desire B.
So I could say that my desire is for instant gratification. But that's not quite right because the desire to get the oranges to the wall (Desire A) is only one desire. The other (Desire B) was to carry them painstakingly. One desire beat the other. Or perhaps the member of cast identified with Desire A is simply beefier than the cast member possessed by Desire B.
Oranges 3
This feels very familiar. Wall, horizon. Nothing original. Must my desire be original? What is the desire for the repetition of desire? Can repetition be creative?
In fact, the oranges are already created. Already shaped and coloured. Seeing them out here they seem faintly ludicrous. They are far less possible than my clay balls. Almost at once I am back with the creationist doubt that such things could possibly have evolved. I slap down the thought. I remember to watch my thoughts arise. But what about the bad ones? The creationist ones?
I stay with the oranges, relishing their squishiness. They mould themselves to the wall and I can imagine that they will be less likely to roll off than the clay. But the dull desire to simply pile them one on top of the other reappears. Can I not think of something interesting to do with them?
Perhaps if I pile them, something else will emerge.
In fact, the oranges are already created. Already shaped and coloured. Seeing them out here they seem faintly ludicrous. They are far less possible than my clay balls. Almost at once I am back with the creationist doubt that such things could possibly have evolved. I slap down the thought. I remember to watch my thoughts arise. But what about the bad ones? The creationist ones?
I stay with the oranges, relishing their squishiness. They mould themselves to the wall and I can imagine that they will be less likely to roll off than the clay. But the dull desire to simply pile them one on top of the other reappears. Can I not think of something interesting to do with them?
Perhaps if I pile them, something else will emerge.
Oranges 4
I got to four.
As I took the last photograph, one pair rolled slowly over the edge. Inevitably. But there is that slight opening. The parting of the orange skins, where they meet and separate, where the light shows through. Is it enough to persist with? Can I call it a new ritual? Can I just go on and allow something else to happen? Is there any conceivable merit?
I go for sellotape. It isn't sticky enough. I go for gaffer tape, folding it three times like Blue Peter taught me. The tape shows. I go for smaller, electrical tape and try that. Instead of repeated walks to fetch the oranges, I find that I am undertaking repeated walks in search of technical solutions. Shouldn't art (or desire) be far from technical solutions?
Well, I get to six. The horizon slices them.
I cannot peel them because they may still be marmalade.
As I took the last photograph, one pair rolled slowly over the edge. Inevitably. But there is that slight opening. The parting of the orange skins, where they meet and separate, where the light shows through. Is it enough to persist with? Can I call it a new ritual? Can I just go on and allow something else to happen? Is there any conceivable merit?
I go for sellotape. It isn't sticky enough. I go for gaffer tape, folding it three times like Blue Peter taught me. The tape shows. I go for smaller, electrical tape and try that. Instead of repeated walks to fetch the oranges, I find that I am undertaking repeated walks in search of technical solutions. Shouldn't art (or desire) be far from technical solutions?
Well, I get to six. The horizon slices them.
I cannot peel them because they may still be marmalade.
Oranges 5
The tape could not hold them. They will be bruised marmalade. Oranges now scattered in the field. where they make less sense than they did on the wall.
In fact, oranges make no sense at all. They even make no sense on orange trees. Here in the grass they want to be blossoms and cannot be.
In fact, oranges make no sense at all. They even make no sense on orange trees. Here in the grass they want to be blossoms and cannot be.
Oranges 6
I go for toothpicks. Another technical solution. Cannot find any because Colin is not here. I return with panel pins but realise at the last minute that the head is too blunt to push into an orange. I go back for dressmaking pins. These will do. Pinning the oranges at an angle, I can hide the pinheads and maybe they can still be used for marmalade.
Suddenly the air is filled with the intense smell of oranges. Could there be attar of oranges? The oranges become a little sticky as the juice runs from the punctures.
Now there is dependence. These old souls can lean into one another, sustain one another. From where I stand, they are gazing out, looking back in their looking forward. There is space for the winds of the heavens to dance between them, but only just. And if one goes down, the other follows.
Suddenly the air is filled with the intense smell of oranges. Could there be attar of oranges? The oranges become a little sticky as the juice runs from the punctures.
Now there is dependence. These old souls can lean into one another, sustain one another. From where I stand, they are gazing out, looking back in their looking forward. There is space for the winds of the heavens to dance between them, but only just. And if one goes down, the other follows.
Mary's wonderful response is here.
Oranges 7
Let's call it nested co-dependence. A way forward. A metaphor for an individuating world blundering in multiple isolations into catastrophe.
Oh. Catastrophe. The omnicrisis. Climate change. Population. Water. Extinction. Here we are. In my talking and ruminating, I am not aware of being troubled by these. Well, I am philosophically troubled. Profoundly. But I do not think of myself as psychologically or emotionally troubled. But my writing reveals a preoccupation with all this. My writing speaks more clearly than my speaking. It speaks more clearly than my thinking. How is that?
Am I one of those poor souls traumatised by our abuse of the world? In need of ecopsychology?
Oh god.
Oh. Catastrophe. The omnicrisis. Climate change. Population. Water. Extinction. Here we are. In my talking and ruminating, I am not aware of being troubled by these. Well, I am philosophically troubled. Profoundly. But I do not think of myself as psychologically or emotionally troubled. But my writing reveals a preoccupation with all this. My writing speaks more clearly than my speaking. It speaks more clearly than my thinking. How is that?
Am I one of those poor souls traumatised by our abuse of the world? In need of ecopsychology?
Oh god.
Oranges 8
Multiple attempts confirm that the Law of Four, which I have devised, applies here. Seville oranges cannot stand more than four tall, even pinned. They tilt. Topple. Plummet.
In Sevillian terms, these are the Limits to Growth. It did not take the Club of Rome to identify these limits.
In Sevillian terms, these are the Limits to Growth. It did not take the Club of Rome to identify these limits.
Oranges 9
But the Limits to Growth, like rancid capitalism and climate change, provoke frantic attempts to find technological solutions. The world need not end at four.
As five-for-silver magpies cluck and mutter by, with a sixth-for-gold some way behind, I am seized by a desire to kill them. Plague birds that raid nests, ravage the extinguishing population of lovable birds, I detest them.
They fly back the other way. Gold has caught up. I remember the ravenous species I am a part of.
Perhaps a bastion of oranges will keep the omnicrisis at bay.
As five-for-silver magpies cluck and mutter by, with a sixth-for-gold some way behind, I am seized by a desire to kill them. Plague birds that raid nests, ravage the extinguishing population of lovable birds, I detest them.
They fly back the other way. Gold has caught up. I remember the ravenous species I am a part of.
Perhaps a bastion of oranges will keep the omnicrisis at bay.
Oranges 10
I go out to collect up the fallen.
What are these desires that keep me here? To be an artist? To be wise? To become associated with something, like Miss Smilla with snow? I could give interviews in which I modestly, but accurately, explain that the oranges placed themselves. That I had no artistic agency.
What is the desire? Is it simply that old desire to have an impact? Tread softly but create the odd striking image with oranges?
I experiment with flower arranging...
What are these desires that keep me here? To be an artist? To be wise? To become associated with something, like Miss Smilla with snow? I could give interviews in which I modestly, but accurately, explain that the oranges placed themselves. That I had no artistic agency.
What is the desire? Is it simply that old desire to have an impact? Tread softly but create the odd striking image with oranges?
I experiment with flower arranging...
with gravity...
with needlepoint...
with alignment...
with gatecraft...
Oranges 11
But it all seems very serried. Once again, I am building neat little towers, forming lines, balancing. I have come to find this desire for precision and balancing tedious. It's just trainspotting. Stamp collecting. Where's my juice?
Rounding them up, I have one last try.
Rounding them up, I have one last try.
But this is history repeating itself. The clay balls all over again. Although I have dispensed with any concern for the horizontal.
Which is something.... but not very much.
Which is something.... but not very much.
Oranges 12
On my way indoors I spot a problem with the drain.
At least here I can be useful, though desire retches in the pipe to the septic tank.