Hanging on the Telephone

Mr Watson - come here - I want to see you ...

These days, when everyone and their dog has a smartphone, the idea that an old-fashioned landline might once have seemed a real novelty and something of a luxury item, seems ludicrous. But, as this Polaroid of my father taken in the early 1970s shows, that's how it was; the installation of a home phone was a big deal; an event, indeed, worth getting dressed up for.

Not that my father cared about new technology or status symbols: we were one of the last households on Harold Hill to get a colour TV or a telephone line and, much to my mother's chagrin, we never did own a car (my father couldn't drive and had no interest in learning).

I'm convinced, therefore, that the posing of this picture was my mother's idea. I very much doubt there was anyone on the other end and struggle to recall an occasion on which my father ever picked up the handset again. And, always worried about the expense, of course my mother didn't allow me or my sister to use it either. The phone was strictly for show and emergencies.   

Perhaps this explains my own reluctance to make or take calls. I wouldn't go so far as to describe my aversion as a phobia, nor do I consider it a form of social anxiety. But, nevertheless, I've always hated conducting a conversation with a distant, disembodied, and virtual voice. Not only do I find it boring, but have what might be termed philosophical issues ... 

Thus, I'm far happier texting or emailing than speaking on the blower - much to the irritation of certain friends (sorry Zed). Indeed, if truth be told, I still very much miss the writing and receiving of letters. The sound of something coming through the letter box is infinitely preferable to the persistent (and intrusive) ringing of a telephone.

(It's worth noting that even Alexander Graham Bell refused to have a dog at home, considering it an unwelcome and unnecessary distraction.)

In Memory of My Father

John S. Hall (1912-2000) 

On June 6th my thoughts turn to my father, who died on this date seventeen years ago.

Here he is looking quite dapper at the end of the War, in October 1945, still a relatively young man in his early-thirties, though doubtless this was regarded as mature middle-age back then.

Fuck knows what he's thinking about - if anything.

Perhaps my mother, who would have been nineteen when this picture was taken; a picture he signed on the back and gave to her, so he must have been relatively pleased with the likeness. Possibly it was taken on his birthday, though I don't know that any more than I know where the photo was taken or by whom.       

One presumes it was taken in Newcastle, his hometown. For he and my mother only moved south, to London, after they were married in 1948. But, again, I can't say for sure. As far as I'm aware, my family history isn't full of dark secrets. But it lacks transparency and documentation and my father hardly ever spoke about his past - which is a shame, as, by the time I was born, that was the greater part of his life.

Having said that, I've always been grateful not to be overburdened with memories and free from extended family ties; to feel neither love nor loyalty to any relatives or ancestors. I think never having met any of my grandparents, for example, helped me as a philosopher to feel untimely and experience something of the joy of orphans who gain through loss.

But still, it's nice to recall my father at least once a year and thereby allow a little sentimentality to creep into this blog as a counter-theoretical form of discourse which, as Barthes says, is a necessary transgression that serves to prevent writing from becoming too puritanical (i.e. lacking in the warmth and softness of feeling that is often responsible for the pleasure of the text).  

Notes on the Material Remains of My Father

I respect and admire the fact that my father walked naked and light his entire life; owning nothing and leaving nothing behind when he died; no great legacy, no treasured possessions, not even an urn full of ashes.

In fact, his material remains pretty much amass to no more than a few black and white photographs, an old radio (or wireless, as he always called it), a pack of playing cards, and some rusty little tins in the garden shed covered in cobwebs containing assorted nails, tacks, and screws.

What's astonishing about these objects - particularly the old tobacco tins - is how powerfully they resonate when I draw close to them. Even though just humble, everyday, mass-produced items they have an authenticity to them, or a thingness, that any Heideggerean would instantly recognise and appreciate.    

Lawrence describes this as quickness - a quality that can be contrasted to deadness, but which doesn't only belong to living, organic or natural objects. That is to say, even a rather ridiculous-looking iron stove, for example, can be quick. Or, as in this case, an old tin of 2" nails.

Why? Because it exists in perfect relationship to its environment and to the rest of the things in the shed; a pair of garden gloves, a rake, a crack in the wall, a box of matches, a house-spider ... etc.

Further, the tobacco tin has had what Lawrence terms soft life invested in it via years of use and transferred touch. It has become one of those lovely old things that sparkles with magical allure and which remains warm with the spirit of a kind and quiet man who loved a smoke.  

This Be the Post

They fuck you up, your mum and dad. 
They may not mean to, but they do. 

From my mother I get: 

My urgency, my phobias, my obsessive character, my estrangement from the world and my prejudices (I do not eat tins of tuna, buy things from a market stall, or trust Cockneys). In a word, from my mother I get my complexity.

From my father I get:

My passivity and lack of worldly desire or ambition, my inability to prosper and almost Christ-like unconcern for those things belonging unto Caesar. In a word, from my father I get my saintliness.