8 - 14 November 2001
Issue No.559
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 8 - 14 November 2001 Issue No.559 |
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Losing their marbles
I think it is safe to say that the study of 'O' level geology has left few lasting marks on my character. There is, though, a certain erudition one can convincingly fake in front of those -- and they are many -- who know even less than I know.
Now, you may well suppose that an urban conglomeration like Cairo is the least promising of places in which to wear such knowledge on one's sleeve. Easier by far, it might be thought, to point knowingly at some heap of twisted rock in the distance and mumble gneiss under one's breath; easier to encourage one's day-tripping companions to slide down a slight incline -- this was always one of the highlights of 'O' level geology field trips, at least in my day -- and then explain to them the geological reasons behind the creation of this particular sink hole.
But no, you would be wrong, for the city is a perfect place in which to bluff your way, and no more perfect than on its main thoroughfares, lined with shops clad ever more glitzily in shining, polished granite.
Feldspar crystals are always a good starting point. Goodness, you say to whoever happens to be strolling with you, just look at those enormous feldspar crystals. With any luck they will then look at you blankly, or perhaps with faint concern, your cue to drag them closer to the slab of polished granite that is adorning the facade of whichever shop you happen to be in front of, and then point to those fleshy-pink splodges that punctuate the grey and black background.
photo: Yves Paris
These pink splodges, in case you have ever wondered, are feldspar crystals. They form as the granite cools in a magma chamber, that huge reservoir of molten rock that lies underneath a volcano. And the slower the chamber cools, then the larger the crystals that develop during the cooling process. (This, at least, is what I remember from those Tuesday afternoons of my youth, though I concede they were long ago, and it is quite likely that my memory is faulty.) This, then, is the knowledge that you can now impart to your unfortunate but captive companion, before setting off briskly to your destination.
Feldspar crystals are a good starting point, but if you are really lucky you might come across a piece of polished stone that actually contains a fossil or two, the discovery of which not only affords a further opportunity for a display of erudition, but will also stand as testimony to your generally acute powers of observation.
This latter quality, I must confess, was shockingly absent on my part when a house guest pointed out two large ammonites, perfectly bisected, in the polished stone that fronts the building in which I have lived for several years. Since that fortuitous time, of course, I have capitalised on his discovery by pointing them out to every visitor that has ever crossed my doorstep.
There has been one difficulty. In the year that I happened to be doing my 'O' levels the examination board had set the trilobyte as its fossil of choice, a not very glamorous, cockroach type thing that had a hard shell and an unfortunate habit of curling itself into a ball before the process of fossilisation began. The result is that most specimens are really no more than nuggets of stone, little pebbles that at some point in the past had been stones that crawled. Not that they didn't have a fascinating life cycle: if only I had kept my notes from those far off days I could have provided you with some of the details. As it is, all I can recall is that they had a particularly interesting facial suture, a kind of curly line that in the examination we were required to place correctly on the outline provided. About the private life of the ammonite, though, I know absolutely nothing. Still, the name, so my dictionary informs me, is from cornu Ammonis, the horn of Ammon, and is given to these fossils because of their resemblance to the involuted horn of Jupiter. And imparting that piece of information usually does the trick, even in the absence of salacious details.
So you see, the street can be the perfect venue in which to display snippets of geological wisdom. You simply have to make sure, by means of discrete enquiry, that your interlocutor is even less well-informed than you.
If a modicum of geological knowledge is enough in the jungle of Plexiglas and polished stone that comprise Cairo's major shopping thoroughfares, beyond these are other possible venues for the display of unlikely knowledge. And one of the most profitable veins to be mined (see how deeply embedded a little geology can be) are the plethora of non Plexiglas signs and advertisements that can still be found in backstreets, away from the more familiar retail names. Currently, on Ramsis Street, a large painted hoarding is advertising Swordfish, a film over the provenance of which I can cast no light. It is, though, a large image, in grisaille, a kind of office scene, with thrusting young executive types, one poring over a laptop, all completed with a cartoon strip clarity. And it is astonishingly reminiscent of the work of David Salle, an American painter who became something of a celebrity at around the same time as Julian Schnabel, and whose paintings for a short, heady time were very much the flavour of the month. Whatever happened to Salle I don't know, but for a few years, in the early to mid eighties, he raked in the cash, and was hyped to the heavens. The painter of this particular bill board is, needless to say, anonymous, and he has not, as was Salle's wont, included a forensically pornographic miniature in the corner of his painting. But it is there that the difference stops. And I think I prefer the billboard.
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