(The Mystery of)
The Coffee Circle
Throw pillows are pillows that are not placed, as most objects are placed. Throw pillows are thrown. The appeal is in the pillows but also on the casualness of their arrangement. Being beyond arms length, as a result of being thrown, you are at a sufficient distance to have an overview and therefore to be more objective than an under arm’s length viewing distance produces, which is tainted by subjective considerations.Throwing would normally imply an inaccuracy of placement as if care generated an automatic virtue. Placed throw pillows ALWAYS look wrong.
In the past, litterers threw their waste, deriving a similar gestural pleasure as the pillow throwers enjoyed without ever enjoying the visual outcome of their actions.
Littering used to be wild, indiscriminate and antisocial.
That was before.
Littering is now always placed. Empty cans are always placed alone and left vertical. The new antisocial is placing litter. Now, there is only guilt without pleasure.
Placed litter
There is solid waste and there are other wastes. What do you do with left over coffee, when the last half cup won’t go down? Do you gutter it? No. Do you put it in the bin with the coffee still in? No. You can't throw liquid.
What you can do is make a ring of it on the road. It dries and the stain of it is permanent. Liquid waste, a new hardware. They look like coffee rings left on tables, but enlarged. They are big from the arm's length of pouring and also on the availability of large quantities of ink. The carelessness of them is only virtual.
The dried fat from the milk glints in the afternoon sun which makes them look semi-precious. Without the gestural pleasure of throwing though, the pleasure of the new litterer is
DISPLACED.
