..a
priority for humankind since the year dot. Wikipedia tells us that: 'The first
mirrors used by people were most likely pools of dark, still water, or water
collected in a primitive vessel of some sort. The earliest manufactured mirrors
were pieces of polished stone such as obsidian, a naturally occurring volcanic
glass. Examples of obsidian mirrors found in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) have
been dated to around 6000 BC.'
It therefore may not be totally crazy to suggest that some sort of polished
stone mirror was in common use by cave persons, (perhaps to adjust the birdsnest
hair style before visitors arrived), even before fire was appropriated from
Nature to warm the cave hearth and cook the odd mammoth steak - and certainly
before the invention of the wheel. Well, maybe not
certainly then,
but you get where I’m coming from. The tale of Narcissus says a mouthful
about human nature and why we’ve arrived in the 21st century with every
second person on the planet broadcasting their own precious image to every other
second person on the planet – ‘Pete Scurvy has updated his profile
picture’ must be the most common message on FaceBook.. (Don’t bother
sending me your tiresome dredged-up factoid that contradicts my perfectly interesting
theory).
Last March I accompanied my good friend Maria to the
Love and Devotion from
Persia and beyond exhibition at the Victorian State Library. There was
a lot of historical information to absorb along with the fantastical works of
Persian miniatures and poetry that I previously knew virtually nothing about
and, while I don’t have the precise details of this particular story,
(or I may have dreamt the whole thing up I suppose), I think you’ll appreciate
the journey at least as much as navigating a deviated septum for instance.
Another extract from Wikipedia states: 'In China, people began making mirrors
with the use of silver-mercury amalgams as early as 500 AD'. Perhaps it was
this development in reflective technology that caught the eye of the Persian
court, but for whatever reason, probably trade, an artist paint-off was arranged
between a Persian court painter and a visiting Chinese ‘artist’.
The painter began to paint, presumably in his typically detailed and fantastically
illuminated Persian style – while the Chinese gentleman simply stood behind
him with his latest invention and reflected it to the assembled audience, apparently
to general acclaim.
There’s a strong and surprising whiff of the Da-Da-esque to this tale,
like patchouli oil at a classical concert, but also something that is painfully
familiar to us in the 21st century, where the serious artist is sidelined by
the latest in-yer-face gadgetry and the great unwashed are again seduced into
believing all the glisters is indeed gold.
Smoke and mirrors indeed.
There’s a worthy program on ABC1 TV called
Big Ideas which I
can generally recommend. When I remember I record various episodes and dip into
them later at my leisure. I dropped into this particular episode of
Big
Ideas by chance as it was being broadcast and I’d already missed
the first two-thirds. A fierce looking fellow wearing a pin-stripe suit jacket
over a red T-shirt was delivering a diatribe that immediately had me pinned
to the back of my off-pink modular sofa quivering in trepidation – and
this is despite my getting the overall impression that he was actually on my
side, if I can be considered as an Australian musician, which I’m happy
to claim when asked my occupation.
The fierce gentleman in question turned out to be Michael Kieran-Harvey, whose
name I’ve heard often enough on ABC Classic Radio. He was delivering the
annual New Music Network Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address at the Sydney Conservatorium
of Music, and the talk was entitled ‘What Would Peggy Do?’ (I’ve
heard of Peggy Glanville-Hicks too, but I know very little about her).
I’ve subsequently visited the ABC
Big
Ideas site and so I’m now aware that in company with Alison Morgan
he presented an extract from Peggy’s opera,
Sappho and played
a very impressive rendition of Piano Sonata No.1 written by Australian composer,
Nigel Westlake before he began his speech.
Michael’s principal target was music competitions against which he made
several compelling arguments. I was once struck by the very same thing with
poetry competitions, which I thought even more patently ludicrous. That anybody
famous (like TS Elliott) actually won or was involved with these competitions
doesn’t lend these sorts of competitions credence, although it might properly
lead you to re-evaluate their work.
In my area of music, or perhaps more correctly, entertainment, the
Australian
Idol phenomenon (or competition by any other name) is largely understood
to be the dying gasp of the doomed and moribund recording industry. Funding
of the Arts will always carry a heavy price. Whether classical music, living
or dead, will ever be ready to be cut loose from public funding is perhaps another
question, but it’s agitators like MKH who keep on probing and criticising
and generally biting the hand that feeds them that may terrify somebody or some
body into ensuring there’s something vital and Australian worth supporting
in the meantime.
I almost forgot. Nothing much has happened with actual mirrors since the 16th
century, so I’m presenting you, my discerning reader, with a priceless
innovative idea that will forever revolutionise the mirror industry on the one
hand and make it conform to 21st century social norms on the other. I don’t
know about you, but in fact I do, because we all must’ve wished we could
see ourselves as others see us instead of back-to-front as the mirror would
have us.
The solution is to replace the bathroom mirror we use to shave, put on our lipstick
etc. with a TV screen and camera. We can see ourselves on the screen in reverse
as with a mirror, but with the press of a button we see our face the same as
the camera does or as others do. Of course you’ll be able to zoom in on
trouble spots, watch the news and send e-mails etc. This idea will catch on
so quickly that my name will be forgotten, that’s if it were ever known,
as the miracam’s inventor almost instantly.