I sent an off-list message to Tom Walker about his new occupational
description and in his reply hew wrote:
If you suspect the lurking masses on futurework (futurelurk?)
might find the above edifying, amusing or persuasive please feel
free to forward the message.
I have already found it edifying and amusing because I've had a brief
look around for enlightenment on the notion of "flaneur" and found:
There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but
there was also the flanneur who demanded elbow room and was
unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His
leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the
division of labour which makes people into specialists. It was
also his protest against their industriousness. Around 1840 it
was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the
arcades. The flaneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for
them. (http://dept.english.upenn.edu/~ov/gpeaker/Flaneur.html)
So I'm passing it on to futurelurkers.
- Mike
---
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/
---
--- An exchange with the "Sandwichman and Deconsultant" ---
On Mon, 31 Jul 2000, Mike Spencer wrote:
> Yo!
>
> I have to say I'm much taken with your new professional designation.
> Indeed, I surmise that a plain "deconsultant" might be handicapped to
> the point of nonfunctionality without the levity of sandwichmanhood.
Yo ho ho, indeed! Did you mean to say levity or leaven? Yes, without the
sandwich, deconsulting would be purely contemplative.
There is a story -- several stories to be exact -- behind (or within) the
sandwichman motif. There is a novel from the 1930s by Walter Brierley in
which the protagonist, an unemployed coalminer who had done some
university courses, takes work first as a sandwichman (oh the
humiliation!) and then as a short-term lecturer in a university extension
course (oh the exhileration!). The narration makes clear that the
precariousness of the two jobs exhibits a much deeper link than any
superficial difference in pay or social prestige.
There is also an article by Susan Buck-Morss (I studied with her at
Cornell in '87) called "The flaneur, the sandwichman and the whore" in a
1986 New German Critique. The article discusses Walter Benjamin's
selection of those three "social types" to exemplify the subjective
experience of what might be called service sector labour (my gloss, not
Susan's).
In Benjamin's notes and essays, the 19th century flaneur serves as the
prototype of the modern "man of letters" who comes to the marketplace
ostensibly to observe but really to find a buyer. For this literati-for-
hire the distinctions between information, entertainment and advertising
are blurred. Benjamin described the indigent sandwichman of the 1930s
depression as "the last incarnation of the flaneur."
In continuing my research on sandwichmanhood/sandwichwomanhood I was
delighted to discover another connection. It turns out that
"sandwiching" was the principal means that the women's suffragists in
London at the turn of the (last) century used to promote and sell their
magazines (and hence their cause). Both the movement and the tactic
dovetail with the circle of literary modernists, collected around the
English Review circa 1908.
In her account of her life during those years, Violet Hunt, relates two
incidents with sandwichboards. The first was an occasion on which she went
out in the street with a friend "to beg" in support of votes for women. "I
fancy whe felt as I did -- as if we had suddenly been stripped naked, with
a cross-sensation of being drowned in a tank and gasping for breath." The
second was an encounter with a sandwichboard headlining a "sex
scandal" featuring herself and Ford Madox Hueffer (later Ford), the editor
of the ER.
There are two images of sandwichmen in the Buck-Morss article. One is of a
tall, gaunt but uniformed and sandwiched fellow leafleting on a Paris
street. The other is of a Jewish man being escorted by armed Nazi guards
and wearing the sign, "I am a Jew but I have no complaints about the
Nazis."
One final image of the sandwichman is a photomontage by John Heartfield
from 1932 (a year before the above-mentioned parade). A photo of a man
wearing a sign proclaiming "Nehme jede ARBEIT an" is superimposed standing
on the train of an expensive wedding gown over the caption, "The finest
products of capitalism". Heartfield's juxtaposition of the gown was, of
course, superfluous.
> It would be interesting to hear about your experiences as a
> sandwichman. I would suppose that the default expectation upon seeing
> a sandwichman in the street would be that he's selling somthing,
> probably somthing of little value and in dubious taste -- sensation,
> salvation or sex. But selling an Idea? An *economics* idea?! Egad!
All of the above, I hope, especially the sex and salvation! So far I've
been out four times for a total of perhaps 10-12 hours and, yes, it is
fascinating. Strange as it seems to me, there are people who
"get it" spontaneously and respond ecstatically. Although visually
attractive, my boards are not what I would consider "unequivocally
clear."
Temps Walker
Sandwichman and Deconsultant
p.s. I'm replying off-list since your comments were off-list. If you
suspect the lurking masses on futurework (futurelurk?) might find the
above edifying, amusing or persuasive please feel free to forward
the message.
