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Is practical judgment valuable?
Dec. 7th, 2019 09:30 pmThursday evening I went to the launch of the 2020 season at the local theatre. The first half of the launch is the theatre director introducing all the shows that are coming to the theatre next year, including a modern dance piece in which a group of people dressed in hospital gowns with shower caps pulled down over their faces danced to plinky electronic music in piles of salt. Not for me, that one.
After the interval there was a bonus performance, this year by three women doing feminist poetry and kitchen-based acrobatics. Two of them were quite young, but the third was quite a lot older. I guessed fifty; my mother guessed sixty ("you can tell by her sinewy legs"); a friend I ran into on the way out said seventy. I don't think she was that old, but she was certainly doing a lot of flipping about that I couldn't do now (or ever, to be honest), much less in another decade or so.
The old man sitting behind me was very much not into the poetry. He was very impressed by the acrobatics. So they'd be clambering about on furniture naming all the things that were keeping them awake at night, then doing a handstand or whatever. One of them would shout, "PAP SMEAR!" and the man behind me would quietly groan. Then she would somersault off a chair that was on a chair on a chair on a table on a table, and he would say, "Ooh!" Over and over again, like verbal whiplash.
The youngest acrobat rode a tricycle on her head. Like, with her head on the seat, pedalling with her hands, with her legs splayed in the air and a balloon with a smily face pinned to her crotch. I mean, it's a way to get around.
Friday afternoon was my work's year end lunch. Just the local staff, so that was okay. They all said some nice things about those of us who are leaving. Friday evening was the annual dinner with a group of my mother's old neighbours in the village she used to live in. This year it was at Jan and Mike's, where I got to meet their new dog, Ziggy. He's very young and very exuberant and very friendly, but once he wound down he decided to go to sleep on my foot.
And that is about 50% of my annual socialising done in a day and a half. So many people (and a very nice dog). I need a rest.
After the interval there was a bonus performance, this year by three women doing feminist poetry and kitchen-based acrobatics. Two of them were quite young, but the third was quite a lot older. I guessed fifty; my mother guessed sixty ("you can tell by her sinewy legs"); a friend I ran into on the way out said seventy. I don't think she was that old, but she was certainly doing a lot of flipping about that I couldn't do now (or ever, to be honest), much less in another decade or so.
The old man sitting behind me was very much not into the poetry. He was very impressed by the acrobatics. So they'd be clambering about on furniture naming all the things that were keeping them awake at night, then doing a handstand or whatever. One of them would shout, "PAP SMEAR!" and the man behind me would quietly groan. Then she would somersault off a chair that was on a chair on a chair on a table on a table, and he would say, "Ooh!" Over and over again, like verbal whiplash.
The youngest acrobat rode a tricycle on her head. Like, with her head on the seat, pedalling with her hands, with her legs splayed in the air and a balloon with a smily face pinned to her crotch. I mean, it's a way to get around.
Friday afternoon was my work's year end lunch. Just the local staff, so that was okay. They all said some nice things about those of us who are leaving. Friday evening was the annual dinner with a group of my mother's old neighbours in the village she used to live in. This year it was at Jan and Mike's, where I got to meet their new dog, Ziggy. He's very young and very exuberant and very friendly, but once he wound down he decided to go to sleep on my foot.
And that is about 50% of my annual socialising done in a day and a half. So many people (and a very nice dog). I need a rest.