COMFORT OR CLUTTER?
So. I decided to study visual space in locker rooms. I started somewhat inadvertently in the Men’s by wandering into it by accident. Dazed, I watched men grapple with modest shock for their invisible fig leaves, protesting with accusatory, wounded glances – poor deer in the headlights.
Not a little embarrassed, I fled to the Women’s locker room, where shared space is a silent, seething bugbear on everyone’s mind. Who is really the encroacher – the stripper or the "strippee"? Why should I avert my gaze and limit what is my rightful visual territory when someone flaunts her unsolicited nakedness? If I looked, wouldn’t their space be just as violated? To this, American comedian and writer Rich Hall has a solution: The “P Spot”, a place on the wall which men in washrooms meditate upon, fearing that a glance in any other direction might arouse suspicion.
On the eye, space is as much a comfort to some as clutter is to others. The Japanese worship minimalism, treating space itself as an object. Perhaps this also explains the white plate rage in restaurants, used to display the art of food. My own obsessive-compulsive preferences demand sitting away from the clutter of cutlery and the crowdedness of corridors – God forbid washrooms – when I dine at a restaurant. "Princess", they call me, but why doesn’t it sound like a compliment?
"Princess" wears block colors, never prints - no matter how pretty. Princess also has mirrors on her walls in place of pictures; with space reflecting space. Compare that to a fridge crowded with magnets and attempts at art by children of proud glowing parents. Who’s to say what’s right?
My pet peeve is space in wine glasses. Nothing offends my sensibilities more than a glass of wine filled to the unsightly brim. If anything needs to breathe, it’s Wine. In addition to "Breathability", there needs to be room for "Swirlability". How will you perceive the rim, and read its difference from the core? How will you allow it to tell its story of Viscosity through its tears?
This is where I bow gracefully out of your visual space and ask you to fill mine with your thoughts.
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