The Potatoes Woman - Online Book

This is an online version of The Potatoes Woman. If you would like to buy a printed version of this story then go to http://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/167619979/the-potatoes-woman-by-paul-timoney?ref=shop_home_active  

   

            

things pretending to be other things...

The year was recently. A lad with a common enough name…John or Jim or Tom or something…aged between 16 and 50…with black or blond curls…or straights…on his handsome/average/ugly head was living in the west of Ireland. He was apprentice to a stonewall builder…an ancient fellow whose expert fingers’ beauty lingers in many miles of handmade wall throughout the Burren…

One day as the two worked together on either side of a two-foot thick…John or Jim or Jack or Pat or Larry had a lapse and looking back upon his morning’s labour he noticed a mistake…an almost hole…a hernia that if left unfixed might evolve into collapse, injury, shame, loss of sleep or/and an unpleasant rollicking from his old age master.

Pat or Larry or Gus or Pete said ‘Ah I might stretch me legs for a minute’ and off he went left or right to find the rock that would repair his omission. But he could not discover a right sized one. So he turned about and walked left or right in the other direction…but still he did not locate the form and mass he had in mind.

“What are you at?” roared the old man.

Gus or Pete or Madge or Paul came clean…as they say. “I made a blunder…I was tryin’ to keep it quiet…but I am after puttin’ a weakness in our wall…I’m sorry…I was lookin’ for a yolk to fill the gap.”

“Ah” sighed the old man smiling angrily…and he reached down and picked up a stone…and then another and again and one more which made a fourth. He shoved them in a clump to make the fix…and secured them with a couple of kicks or a few belts of his forearm “Now,” said he, “she’s grand”…then pause…”the thing you need is next to your hand”…and again…”the thing you need is always next to your hand.”

‘THINGS PRETENDING TO BE OTHER THINGS’ is an interactive performance in which visitors to the show are invited to take on a character and play their part in a virtual world constructed from ordinary objects that have been dismantled and re-jigged in interesting and amusing ways…and kind of in accordance with the notion that the thing you need is next to your hand.

Q. What exactly does this show entail?

A. Well…people come to the show…they might be alone or in a group. They can simply look at the objects as they would at any other exhibition…or they can choose to participate in an interactive performance with the artist…

Q. How do people ‘play their part’?

A. They are offered the opportunity to use the objects as props in short improvised sketches that have been devised by the artist.

Q. Can you give some examples?

A. Surely…the introductory sketches are relatively simple. One entails participants pretending to wash their hands and face at a sink constructed from an old school desk, a basin, two plastic bottles, an umbrella handle and some other stuff. If people want to experience more complex imaginary scenarios they can become a shopkeeper in a corner store that sells hand drawn cans of baked beans and tangerines made out of scrunched up paper…in situations that could involve coping with a very lonely customer who does not want to leave…or getting fired by their cross employer. There are also many more.

Q. What is the point of these ‘interactions’?

A. Participants tend to find them quite enjoyable and playful and nice. The artist is wanting to make videos of all the various interactions and then edit them together to form one coherent story…a movie of sorts…

Q. It sounds pretty weird. Are you sure you can pull this off?

A. It has gone very well so far...