Tat Usher: Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty
Blog Category:
Re:Write
Posted Thu 19 Aug 2010
Reading Billy Letford’s blog entry about roof poetry made me think of the well-known phrase about practicing random kindnesses and senseless acts of beauty. I Googled it and found out from Wikipedia that, “The phrase… may have been coined by peace activist Anne Herbert. Herbert says she wrote it on a place mat at a Sausalito restaurant in 1982 or 1983.”I like the vagueness of this. Did she leave the place mat in the Sausalito restaurant as a senseless act of beauty, I wonder? And how did her phrase find its way from the place mat into popular culture? Leaving a poem under a roof slate seems to me to be both a random kindness and a senseless act of beauty, especially as it appears that Billy hadn’t thought of keeping a record of the poems he left. He just let them go, to be found or not found, appreciated or not appreciated.
Sometime last year I came home and noticed that my friend Straggleweed had built Stragglehenge on the shore outside my house. I don’t think he ever mentioned it to me or asked for acknowledgement, but every time I see it, I feel a rush of gratitude and elation. It’s a beautiful thing.
I’ve always tended towards the view that ‘art’ and ‘being an artist’ is about far more than words published or a sculpture in a gallery or any kind of publicly acknowledged record.
I think that art is everywhere and can be almost anything, that there are endless possibilities for art, and that even if the artist is the only person who ever notices or appreciates it, it’s still art, dammit! Of course, it might be comforting to have this notion if you’re someone who’s never had their words published or had their sculpture in a gallery or made any kind of publicly acknowledged record, but I like to think that it’s more than a consolation for the artistically unsuccessful. I reckon that random acts of art help to keep us alive.
About twenty years ago I had a postcard stuck to my bedroom wall showing a photo of a man leaping down a flight of stone steps wearing a T-shirt that said, ‘I am the best artist!’ He looked as if he was bounding forth into the world to create art, and I loved the exuberance and arrogance and optimism of it. I lost the postcard somewhere along the way, but still when I think of it I want to bound forth into the world and create art. Who knows? I might even finish my novel one of these days…
The concept of "random acts
The concept of "random acts of kindness & senseless acts of beauty" goes way further back than the early 80s. I already adopted the phrase - & lived out the concept - by the early 1970s. It may have come from the Situationist movement's "happenings". - A favourite random act of kindness is to stick a part-used parking ticket over the coin-slot of the ticket machine &/or give it to someone looking for a parking space, thus serving the double purpose of saving the new "parker" some money, & doing the local council out of revenue.... An integral part of RAKs is to subvert The System.
A lovely senseless act of beauty I came across recently was a drawing of a mermaid on a Tiree beach. Senseless because the tide would soon carry it away...?
Spooky Coincidence at Scottish Book Trust
On Monday our Venue Manager Mike received a postcard from a man who wanted to thank him for helping him out during a recent event. I remember saying how nice it was that the man had taken some time out to write a postcard to thank someone he didn’t really know (the postcard was addressed to ‘the young man from Arizona born in 1978’). One might even say it was a random act of kindness. I didn’t think anything of it until our Press Officer Olivier pointed out that it was the very same postcard that Tat mentions in her blog! I checked the postmark and it was posted on the same date that the blog was posted. We have scanned the postcard and sent it to Tat so it will hopefully inspire her once again.
Tat Usher's Blog
I came across this blog just after finishing my Qi Gong. It complemented my ambient relaxed mood perfectly. Thought inspiring writing that took me off to a thoughtful contemplative place. The picture of stragglehenge just fitted perfectly.
I also liked the link to William Letford's blog, poetry under the roof tiles! I had a friend who when stripping wallpaper in her new house found a love verse written by the previous owners on the plaster board. She left it there to look at for a time because she too had just got married. At first she felt as if she had intruded but later, when she had put up her own wallpaper, she was comforted to know it was there.
Tat Usher's post reminded me of how we are all connected and I find comfort in that thought.
Tat Usher's blog
I liked the freshness of Tat's ideas about found art, her easy style. Her humour and her openness & generousity when linking with another bloggers' post was really entertaining and feels so inclusive. As a reader only, I got a sense of what it is to belong within a community of younger writers in Scotland today. I look forward to following the Tatblog & hope to see her novel appear soon too!
Rosie C
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