I love talking to people who come at my subject from a different angle completely to me; war gamers, collectors, blacksmiths, costumers, replicators. People who use google maps and an algorithm to work out whether the Persian army could have covered x distance in y days. People who run down beaches naked and then wearing armour to see how fast they can go. People who build swords, who run campaigns in scale, who cook pies. I don't understand objects or things, I like stories. But I've never seen anyone explain to me so clearly how an object can /be/ a story, how one can re-tell an object the same way one can re-tell a story. I have a feeling I'm going to be thinking about this video for a while.
Adam Savage (of Mythbusters) on his obsession with the Maltese Falcon -
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/488
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I love - I *love* - how many of his statements are things like "And then I" did something totally wacky "on eBay".
Objects are amazing. I don't entirely get the "make yourself a millimetrically-precise replica" thing - I mean, ok, I kind of do, but not to that extent? But handling an object of great age... a Roman pot that was broken and then mended by someone two thousand years ago, or a well-worn child's toy, or, hell, even the wind-up watch I am wearing right at this moment, which was bought by my grandfather some time before I was born... there is *so much* history there, right in the object, and that's really the whole reason I fell in love with archaeology in the first place. Stories can be lies, but objects are objects.
Although, then, bringing it back to Savage... if an object can *be* a story, then it can also be a lie. Which of those Maltese Falcons is "real"? The Swedish cup, the Falcon-made-of-words, the prop resin, any of his replicas...
Hmm. Interesting indeed.
I thought of you when I saw that! I have a long personal history with the Maltese Falcon, which made that "talk" all the more endearing to me...
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