Mundanely Exquisite

I dread the mundane and have actively tried to live outside of it

I perceive it as boring, vanilla, common, cookie cutter

Same, same - sheep

Possibly due to, overwhelmingly at times, living the day to day to day of life 

Never a dull moment, yet most of them are mundane.

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Common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative

Not my favorite qualities

I have felt alien and yet at home so often in my life

Not remembering the dialects of the region, bus system, 

local fads - Pet rocks, “in” or “out”

There was no reason to live in the mundane - particularly in the unimaginative

Being always the new kid I was already outside the lines

so why not make those lines have just a little more color

In doing so I uncovered in lowly normalness

A dwelling place for common poetic beauty

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Simplicity, routine, reassurance, steadfastness, not giving any lip

Some great qualities

Background noise to the self import, auto-updating techno gadgets, 

With their bings, blips, and custom ringtones

The hanger can’t compare to an Iphone - just can’t

Without the hanger closets would inevitably be in a constant state of disarray

But no iphone? No photos, no texts, no apps, no music and yes no phone

Both essential in their role and place of order in our lives, 

We certainly don’t give a hanger its deserved regard

Without the mundane all worlds would truly collapse

And the exquisite couldn’t exist in its comparison

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Household Mundane:

• Spoons

• Nail polish

• White bread

• Humidifiers

• Laundry soap

• Dog brushes

• Ash

• Omelets

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Shoelaces:

The tender banal shoelace, the routine of daily gliding aglet smoothly into eyelet

Holding it all together, hanging the bunny, until it isn’t  - with that always unexpected snap!

Critical thinking is forced to kick in 

No more taking for granted the humdrum bits 

Immediately initiating creativity, tie them together? 

Discard broken one and work with what ya got?

Their undoing is our undoing

Like so many similar items they are critical to proper movement, protection and to our most common form of functionality

Ian (aka Professor Shoelace) the founder of the Internet's #1 website about shoelaces,

found the ethereal in what most of us perceive as a boring shoe lace.

“Bringing you the fun, fashion & science of shoelaces” 

Ian of Ian's Shoelace Site – https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/

Complete with suggested lengths, knots, laces rating, and lacing photos.  Home of the Ian Knot!

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The Necessities:

Are the basics of life, the essentials, as a rule, inherently mundane?  

Is a car mundane?  Depends upon the car? The driver? The passenger? The destination?

Everytime that key turns or that finger pushes that button with ease

The trigger of the ignition of the engine’s nearly inaudible rumble, 

all the moving parts bolting to life

we don’t usually give a little thank you prayer for this daily miracle

maybe we have had “that car” at one time in our life, 

the car we pray starts regularly and without drama 

but today, we slap it into drive and go 

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Heart’s Mundane:

• Scent of a baby’s head

• Touch of puppy ears

• Cupids, cherubs, angels

• ojas, nectar of a baby’s cheeks

• The desert 

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While pondering the mundane now for weeks 

I couldn’t help but find my copy of 

Encyclopedia of the Exquisite by Jessica Kerwin Jenkins

“An anecdotal history of elegant delights”

Most of them being those daily lovely elegant charming rare items

The E.O.E. being the antithesis to the mundane

But what is one without the other

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Phenomenally Mundane:

• Childhood jewelry box 

• Twirling ballerina inside on a spring

• Playing clinky Tchaikovsky 

• Hand in continuous non motion

• Toe shoes always tied

• Stiff tulle tutu popping out in perfection

• Filled with pink satin fabric and small compartments for pet rocks

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Mannequins, and their viral video craze 2016 challenge,

standing still in time, camera encircles the frozen action 

Black Beatles beat booming as the backdrop

Androgynous, fashion display, almost inappropriate to see not fulfilling their intended job

• Fashion

• Art drawing

• Red cross - infant and CPR

• Body doubles

• Substitutes

• Crash test dummies

• Computer simulation 

Eyes painted on in a perpetual state of surprise 

Attempting to represent human form, 

anatomically correct with synthetic hair

I prefer it left to my imagination

No distinguishing features please 

Just simple blank sockets for eyes

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Signs and Signals

Everywhere

Drive ten feet there are thousands of instructions

Labeling, locating, notifying, informing, regulating

Number limits of your speed

White guy saying cross

Red hand saying not

Car yields to bike sign to pedestrian sign - hierarchy of yielding

Possible to literally assimilate them all?

Or to rely solely on symbolism, arrow, structure, color, shape, intuition

Deer with a hula hoop - pedestrian crossing with stenciled balloon in hand

Bumper stickers in my daily coursing through the back streets

Are the entertainment of driving - life snippets at a stop sign

Signs and signals the well-intended overly informative

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Life Signs:

• Stop 

• No parking any time

• Love

• Fine doubled

• Breathe

• Dead end

• Stop

• No U Turn

• One way

• Road work ahead

• Alternate routes advised (my personal favorite)

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The allure of Gabriel Orozco's exhibit at the Guggenheim in 2012

His exquisite journey through the mundane

“Using his visually appealing yet ultimately banal systems of organization, the artist exhales a refreshing breath of unadulterated beauty contemporary art rarely sees.”*

1,200 found objects, including wood, metal, glass, paper, plastic, Styrofoam, rock, rope, rubber, 

Creating artistnal asterisms, the small parts that makes up the whole

The big dipper as part of Ursa Major

Can one exist without the other?

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Exquisite Mundane:  

• Tassels

• Caftans

• Fitted above elbow leather gloves with buttons

• A beautifully crafted handbag, shoe, boot

• Tea

• Gold wedding band

• Linen Sheets

• Swimming in natural bodies of water

• Homemade with love tollhouse cookies

• Turbans

• Love Notes

• British murder mystery series

• Down comforters

• Perfect red lipstick (still unfound)

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As German Philosopher Novalis wrote in  1772 “... to see the ordinary as extraordinary, 

the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite” 

Common, lovely, ordinary, elegant, banal, charming, unimaginative, rare 

Authentic qualities of day to day to day to day living

Finding balance of both the exquisite and the mundane, simultaneously, in each other

merging the two, the union of an ordinary extraordinary life - 

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*11/23/2012 08:36 am ET Updated Dec 06, 2017 Huffpost

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