I chose this site as my #6 link for my linking project. Frankly, I chose it because Tyler’s conundrums (but not his outcomes) were the same as my own. And his clear shock at his realizations were so stark and raw they made me laugh out loud . . . so did my own. Carving the letters out and realizing what a time-consuming process this was and just how tough it would be to do in school; realizing that you’re using a massive knife for the task (although I’m a bit of a knife snob and did use a 2-man Henckel while noting Tyler’s PC version) and so another reason it’s not going to happen in the classroom; his 4-letter word problem . . . I thought the entire experience was hilarious, and his closing lines had me in hysterics: “I feel that the mechanization of writing has improved the human race so much, thankfully we don’t write by stamping anymore. I couldn’t imagine the old printing press where they had to create letters and print newspapers.” I could feel the relief in his voice. I also loved how the word he’d created–snowy–was on a strip in wix.com and could be scrolled over his prairie summer backdrop . . . you could smell the sunshine and fresh cut hay, but hints of winter are almost always present in that landscape and his juxtaposition of snowy over that shot reminded me of bitter winters in Winnipeg . . . that began in August and were still hinting in June . . .
My own experience was also challenging, but my conclusion is not the same as Tyler’s. For me, I didn’t care that the job was not very good or that it took a long time. I loved the smell of the raw potato as I cut (mixed with the blood on my fingers as I cut them too) and I loved holding the cloth–it was so white and fresh–and I loved pressing my very badly cut out words on to the surface of the cloth and lifting it off to see . . . an illegible word with the “l” upside down . . . lol . . . which left me in hysterics over the whole thing. For several days I had the stain of food coloring on my fingers. That reminded me of when I was much younger and took my notes by hand. I had ink-stained fingers most of the time, but it reminded me of the labor it can take to produce the written word, and how much more words, books, and written artifacts may have meant at some point, because of the human labor required of the task.
I am a trained artisan viennoisserie baker, although I do not bake any longer. But I charged a lot of money for my products when I did that work. And it was for several reasons–I used local ingredients (right down to the flour) and unsalted butter, I let my doughs rise for 2 days before baking the product, I used all real ingredients including my own vanilla extract–and the labor. One bread I made at Christmas, Panettone, took 30 days to prepare the yeast I used in the bread and 1 week to prepare the grand marnier-soaked lemons and oranges. That bread was sublime, and I could never tire of its tall beauty and complex flavor notes. That kind of skill and perfection is hard to find now, but I found the print-task and my former bread-making along those same lines of what human labor can produce that mass production simply cannot emulate. Perhaps that’s why I decry those television shows where competitors throw foods together as fast as they can . . . food has such beauty and grandeur . . . why rush its pleasure?