Wednesday, 26 February 2014

Careful, Now



Don't ask me, it just appeared overnight, taped to a utility cabin on campus.  It's been silk-screened onto fabric, so there may be more around.  There are Student Union elections at the moment: maybe Hermione Purple-Howlinghound is standing for something?  I keep squinting to see if it's one of those rabbit-duck illusions, but -- no -- it's a dog.  Though one uncannily similar to the lion image I posted a while ago (Life with the Lions).  Mysterious.


Sometimes a barricade is not so much mysterious, as redundant.  "Careful, don't attempt to walk through this broken tree blocking the path" is not a message that would need reinforcing on a university campus, you would have thought.  On reflection, though, that's probably exactly what it needs. There should probably also be tape in front of the tape: "Careful, don't stumble over this tape preventing you from trying to walk through the broken tree ahead".  And maybe one in front of that one, too, and...  I suppose that may well be how you end up with this glorious abundance, from a few posts back, if you remember it.

Which reminds me of the useful phrase, mise en abyme, which -- after many years of assuming it must mean something like "dropped in a very deep hole" -- I finally looked up.  It turns out to be much more interesting than that, but you might as well read the Wikipedia article yourself.

2 comments:

Struan said...

Could be a one-man abbatis. You can never be too careful.

Mike C. said...

Struan,

No, it's definitely a dog.

Mike