Silver Lamé

Jan 10 2016

In the future

we are all futuristically dressed.

Like science fiction

from the 1950s,

practical

uniform

unisex.

As if humans will no longer care

to be creative, or unique.

As if vanity

will meet an improbable end.

But in this winter

of gizmos and gadgets

and distracting stuff,

which should feel futuristic, but never does

people resist

that utilitarian vision.

On a sunny day, on wind-swept fields of white

a kaleidoscope

of primary colours.

Flashy hats

loud mufflers

gaudy gloves.

Deer-skin boots

tawny, and supple.

Goose-down parkas

bright red against the snow.

Coats, studded with beadwork

hand-stitched art,

holiday cardigans

rainbow scarves.

And puffy jackets

with fur-trimmed hoods,

fox, mink, marten.

As well as toddlers, bundled in pink,

all-black teens

too lightly dressed.

We are eager

for the future to come,

too full of desire.

But blind

to the wonder of now.

Like found poems

or wildflowers, too small to notice

there is beauty in the everyday.

Which the utopians missed

when they predicted lycra-stretch

identical silver-lamé.

One-of-a-kind

our outerwear stubbornly declares.

An antidote to snow's

stifling white conformity.

An odd poem for someone who is not only mostly oblivious to fashion, but often contemptuous of it.

(In my defence, my contempt is not for its creativity and fun, or for the self-respect and respect for others it can express, but rather for the consumerism that disposable fashion betrays: materialism, waste, built-in obsolescence; insecurity, conformity, the seeking of status.)

The dog and I were walking the trails on a beautiful winter day: that clean cold of full sun and fresh snow. We came to a large clearing and happened to intersect a group of other dog-walkers. The brilliance and variety of their winter outerwear jumped out at me; especially against the background of monochrome white. In a country of well over 30 million eager consumers, I'm sure no one dresses the same. And in this bleak season, the creativity and colour act like a rebuke to winter: we are even more gaudy now than in the warm season.

What else came to mind was the contrast between this view, and how the future was "supposed" to look. At least, how it was supposed to look all those decades ago, recalling the "future" of my youth: when I found science-fiction fascinating, and when Hollywood's special effects were campily crude. In those old films and TV shows, which may very well have been black and white, the single unmistakable signifier of the "the future" were the clothes: uniform, "futuristic", and usually skin-tight.

And when I look back all those decades from the rarefied distance of now, it starts to feel as if we actually are -- finally! -- living in "the future". But as the poem says, we "should" feel that way, but never really do. Because the future is always just out of reach, invariably receding at a steady rate. And also because as much as goods change and culture evolves, we are and will remain essentially the same as our stone-age ancestors: afflicted by the same diurnal concerns, the same existential angst. A good example is technology. It may undergo revolutionary change, but we quickly accommodate to the new normal: it becomes ho-hum and boring; it not only loses its magic, but disappoints our expectation that it will transform us. So just as geography can offer the illusion of escape, so does time: the geographical cure has us flying off someplace, only to find we haven't escaped ourselves; while the passage of time renders things superficially different, but the same at the core.

If the future is -- by definition -- better, then we can never be satisfied with the present. And if we are so pre-occupied with looking ahead, we will miss the now. As the poem says, too full of desire for our own good. This belief in the future is a relatively modern conceit. Because for most of human history, nothing much changed. For most of human history and pre-history, life was cyclic, not linear: we co-existed with our dead ancestors; the future was now. And later, when the Church ruled, temporal life was unimportant, anyway: the only future that mattered was heaven, the afterlife. It was only with the Enlightenment that "future" acquired meaning. (Not that I won't take the Enlightenment over the Church any day!)

The opening of the poem is a fun tautology: that is, its circular logic answers the implied question of the future with futuristically; which isn't an answer at all! And yet it is, because I think every reader knows exactly what I'm talking about. So I get to combine two of my favourite things: being cheeky; and letting the reader do some of the work.

Something else I quite like is to appeal to the senses. The list of clothing tries to do a little of this. It not only has colour, but also texture and shape. Not to mention cold: those all-black teens, casually stepping out in their skimpy jackets and torn jeans.