From the Geil Archive (23)—Geil, An Intellectual Bricoleur

Click here for the "From the Geil Archive" Resource Center

To learn more about William Edgar Geil, click here for the Accidental Ethnographer Resource Center

A year ago on Round and Square (9 October 2012)—La Pensée Cyclique: Rural Religion in China (17)

Two years ago on Round and Square (9 October 2011)—Hurtin', Leavin' and Longin' (23): Here in the Real World

[a] A sense of Geil's personal papers DHS

Click here for other posts written by Guest Contributor Amara Pugens:

1-About Me                                      2-Unlike the Others                      3-One of Earth's Travelers       
4-Don't Call Me Reverend               5-Intellectual Bricoleur

Today's Guest Contributor on Round and Square is Amara Pugens. Amara is from Brookfield, Wisconsin, and recently  graduated from Beloit College with a B.A. in history and anthropology and a minor in museum studies. She is currently working with four other Beloit College graduates to digitize, process, and research the William Edgar Geil Collection at the Doylestown Historical Society in Pennsylvania.

 ***  ***

Please note that all items marked "DHS" are property of the Doylestown Historical Society, and used with DHS permission. If you wish to use an image, you need permission of the Society. Please contact Robert LaFleur (lafleur@beloit.edu), and he will put you in contact with the appropriate people.

Now over a month into this project at the Doylestown Historical Society, I have a sense of Geil's personal papers--the mathers and items he chose to collect. And trust me when I say there is a lot--he collected and preserved enough material to fill three large cabinets with four drawers each. At first glance, Geil could be described as a hoarder, but you, Round and Square readers, know better. Geil wasn't a hoarder, but a type of bricoleur.

[b] Drawer One DHS

As readers of Professor LaFleur's blog, you are aware of the concept of bricoleur (and in case you don't know or don't remember, click here for the introductory post "Bricolage and the Bricoleur"). Because bricolage is quite similiar to hoarding, it also can be positive or negative. A bricoleur could think everything has purpose and therefore keep everything--the negative; or he could know the basics and kept the essentials--the positive. For example, a positive bricoleur would keep a fabric bandage for any future injuries. A negative bricoleur, however, would keep the empty bandage box as a reference. In this sense of the idea, Geil is a positive bricoleur. Although he does not collect items--a great achivement for a turn-of-the-century explorer, he did collect data and kept them all throughout his life. Over time, the concept evolved to a mindset.

While his wife Constance was the one to protect the papers after his death, Geil made sure he preserved his documents by keeping them all together. He held on to all his papers and photographs, even after the publication of his books; he was practicing a type of intellectual bricolage.

As Geil acquired ideas and images of communities and societies around the world, he developed a repertoire of information--recording his thoughts and observations in the form of handwritten notes. This kind of research became the basis for his works. After using these notes, however, he kept the original documents. While some would dispose of the used notes, Geil filed them away, even keeping the notes he did not use in his publications.

[c] "For 5 years..." DHS

While this idea of keeping originals may seem obvious, it is not always instinctual for a traveler or explorer--especially at the turn of the twentieth century. French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss used bricolage to explain mythical thought, a concept where a person re-uses available material to solve new problems. Geil perhaps believed that while unimportant for his books or lectures, his unused documents might hold significance in a different study. He used an entire sheet of paper to write down his personal reasons, thoughts and feelings for collecting and keeping his work:

        For 5 years, I have piled up book material until it is high
        The eye of a single man will miss much - but what I have been at
        work recording for may days I have not the heart to throw away +
        have gathered it up until now it is piled into a heap. At least it will
        be useful to light a fire -

Hopefully only joking about burning his papers, this message shows Geil's bricolage mindset in organizing and piling materials together. In fact, he would have needed to think like a bricoleur in order to organize it at all. How he documented, organized and preserved his research shows his handyman nature.

[d] Junk Drawer RF

Bricolage Bibliothèque (1)—Bike Seat

One year ago on Round and Square (27 June 2011)—Flowers Bloom: The Introduction

Click here for the Bricolage Bibliothèque Resource Center
Click here for the introduction to Bricolage Bibliothèque 

[a] Seat bones RF

Even Americans who have not watched much television are probably vaguely familiar with a certain hefty figure—a UPS driver with formidable appetites—who came to be known as the King of Queens. You might think you know where this post is going, but, well, you don't. I am not much interested in the show, and was just zapping through channels aimlessly the other night (I am on the road and the hotel channel-changer was relentless) when I saw the following scene. Thank heavens and the Internet for YouTube. Here is an entire episode, but all that you need takes place in forty-five seconds between 17:45 and 18:30. Check it out.

Bike Seat Bricolage (at 18:05)

[b] Comfort RF

O.k., now we're talkin'. Have you ever tried to ride without a bike seat? "Unpleasant" doesn't even begin to express it. Even to approximate it, we would have to look for new terms such a "road proctology" and "Chevrolet Impal...in'." I do a great deal of cycling, and it feels good to sit back on the ol' polyurethane and pedal from a position of strength and comfort. I pretty much take it for granted these days.

In fact, bike seat technology has made enormous strides in the last few decades, and the best companies have created perfect, light, and anatomically resonant behind-receptacles that would make me blush if I thought about it too much. Like Japanese bathroom technology, so much advanced scientific work has gone into their creation that it feels mildly obscene to explain it all. Today's advanced bike seat is a thing of beauty, though. I find the best of them so extraordinary that I even have an elegant Selle Italia racing seat sitting on my bookshelf next to my writing desk like as a work of art.

O.k., that's just me.

[c] Fashioned RF

Kevin James's character has a problem, though. Someone stole his bike seat. The next scene is the very point of this new series on Round and Square called "Bricolage Bibliothèque," or, maybe, the jack-of-all-trades library. It deals with the way that people fashion solutions from nature and culture in the face of technical challenges. 

If you are unfamiliar with the concept of bricolage, please take a read through the full coverage of it in Round and Square's "Theory Corner" series. It will explain everything you need to know about an idea you never knew you needed (but you do).

Here is our challenge today, though, and it requires using the underused Round and Square "comment" section if you are to contribute. Don't be shy. Imagine the following challenge. It is not hard to do if you have looked at 18:05 of the King of Queens episode:

          You return to your bike and find the seat stolen. Let's say that you have 

          five or more miles until you are "home." You will pay like the devil in your

          nether regions if you do nothing. How will you "fashion" a bike seat from 

          the world of material around you?

[d] Hmmm RF

Go ahead and imagine your situation any way you want. You could be, like Kevin James, outside a store (perhaps with a Staples or Office Max nearby—don't begrudge this suggestion). On the other hand, you might be pedaling through the Mongolian countryside, with only rocks and yak horns (such as there are) in your midst. Get creative. Use your abilities with bricolage to create a bike seat comfortable enough to get you home. 

I have my own ideas, but it is your turn. I laughed out loud when I saw the sandwich going on the seat post in the King of Queens episode. That is one of the best moments in the history of television, from my perspective, and I just saw it a few minutes ago. Now it is your turn to run with it. How would you make a bike seat with enough je ne sais quoi to get you home in one "peace?"

I will be waiting by the comment section. Fashion yourself a bike seat, fasten it to the seat tube, and write a comment. I'll pick a winner on August 1st. The winner gets a copy of the new Penguin Classics version of Claude Lévi-Strauss's classic Tristes Tropiques—a muse...of sorts...from the most articulate voice of bricolage in history. It is a great read (one of the best books ever written). It could serve as a makeshift bike seat in a pinch, too.

[e] Elegance Rex Rectal RF

Bricolage Bibliothèque—Introduction

One year ago on Round and Square (1 July 2011)—Flowers Bloom: "Growing Up History"
Click here for the Bricolage Bibliothèque Resource Center

[a] Alles doing RF

Bricolage? What's that?

There is plenty of stuff for you to review here, but let's get to the heart of the matter. A French anthropologist named Claude Lévi-Strauss made a point five decades ago about how we craft culture. Let's simplify it down to its key roots: we take stuff from the world around us and we fashion or craft solutions. Let me go even further. You see a problem in "your world." Let's say that your favorite coffee cup has a broken handle. Think about that. You love the cup, and you want to drink your coffee in it. The problem is that you have always used the handle, and don't want to burn your fingers. So what do you do? Do you stay with your coffee cup and try to find a way to "handle" it or do you find a different cup?

The bricoleur finds a way to fashion or craft a solution.

[b] Opposable RF

If you really want to understand this stuff, you need to go to Round and Square posts that have been on the "airwaves" for over a year. They will give you all of the background that you need to understand where the concept came from and how it developed. It is required reading in these here parts.

Bricolage 1

Bricolage 2

Bricolage 3

This series will take real world issues and try to understand how we fashion solutions to those little problems that bother us every single day. What happens if your bike seat gets stolen, but you still need to ride five miles home? What happens if the cover of your paperback (these existed regularly before 2005) gets ripped off of the book you're reading? And what happens if your tailpipe just falls out from under your car?

Duct tape. Bricolage is all about duct tape.

Although I am serious, there is more to discuss here. We "do" bricolage all of the time. The only thing difficult about it is thinking about it. You can't help but fall right into the human condition of fashioning solutions to low-level engineering problems, though. That big ol' football of a brain and those opposable thumbs make it just too tempting (and natural). Ever since that day, long ago, when Grog decided to mix a little water and ochre together and discovered cave painting, humans have crafted the world around them. Grog took it a step further. He found himself a mastodon tail, stuck it on a twig, and called it "brush." Then he painted the world around him and left technicalities—such as gathering herbs and finding new sources of protein—to his kinsmen.

[c] Plastic RF

Today we call it "art."

That's bricolage, and so is that antenna you made out of a coat hanger for your television back in 1965. Bricolage is also at work when you sit down to read your iPad at Starbucks and notice that the table has already come close to wobbling your decaf skim triple-shot latté all over the Apple logo. What do you do? Maybe you move to another table, but let's just say that you got the last one. One remedy known to generations of avid reader-drinkers is to grab a wad of napkins and stuff them under the "low point" of the tabular dynamic. Some of us have learned not to waste paper in that manner, and the lesson has been made easier with the realization that napkins never work. I have tried just about everything from business cards and CD holders to newspapers and even a plastic tray.

It's all bricolage. Success rates vary widely.

Years ago, on a long mountain bike ride, I punctured my front tube and did not have any more spares. I could walk, or I could try to fashion a solution (are you noticing that I like that phrase?) to the problem. There was no compressed air—and no rubber tubes—around. The patch kit had gone dry (in a time when this was relevant). I had heard once of a cyclist who had stuffed leaves into the space where the inner tube goes. I had always loved the idea of riding home with wads of terroir jammed between rim and tire. I gathered wet leaves, small bits of bark, and prairie grasses, pressing them into the tire as best I could. It held...sort of. As long as I rode slowly on the flat parts of the trail, it was acceptable. Uphill was a challenge, and I got scared on the downhills. I walked most of the way home.

It's all bricolage. Success rates vary widely.

My wife just told me about various uses of pantyhose. They make a great gunk catcher on old washing machines, and serve as formidable lint traps in dryers. She said that she once used them to tie up tomato plants in her mom's garden in Texas. Mom wasn't amused. Distance runners (and one quarterback) of a certain age know well that pantyhose provided warmth on winter workouts in an age before Spandex®. And, on top of it all, pantyhose will always provide a nasty-looking Halloween mask in a pinch. Just don't stop off at your local bank branch for extra cash before the party. There might be misunderstandings.

[d] Fashion(ing) RF

It's all bricolage. Success rates vary widely.

So, welcome to the Round and Square series I am calling "Bricolage Bibliothèqe." It's the Library of Fashion(ing) or the Makeshift Media Center. We will look at the many ways that we craft our culture—often imperfectly—from things that are at hand. I hope that you are already thinking about ways you have repaired a suitcase mid-journey or reminiscing about that overloaded trailer you dragged fifty miles between apartments before you had "proper" transportation. And we won't even begin to speak of that heaping "one trip only" plate of lettuce, cucumbers, garbanzo beans, and bacon bits you brought back from the salad bar last week.

It's all bricolage. Success rates vary wildly. Come join us.

[e] Crafted RF

Theory Corner (1c)—Bricolage and Change

Read the Introduction to the "Theory Corner" series (here).

Click here for the Theory Corner Resource Center
 See key pronunciations used in the Round and Square blog.
Click below for the other posts on bricolage in the Theory Corner series:

Bricolage 1               Bricolage 2               Bricolage 3

[a] Truck change (see below)

Bricolage, Time, and Change
We have spent some time the last few days in our little Theory Corner examining a(n) historical form (le bricoleur) and a cultural pattern (bricolage).  As Lévi-Strauss noted, the concepts have been shaped by—and even embedded in—history.  Anthropologists have struggled since the beginning of the discipline with ways to show both how cultures "work" and how they change.  This is not a simple matter for historians, either.  Today I wish to show a few examples of how we might think of history, culture, and change. Our new companion Bricky the Bricoleur will be our guide through time and change.

[b] Æthelthryth's Tawdries

Let's take a look at how we might start to "historicize" Lévi-Strauss's account of the bricoleur.  He himself gives a bit of historical context, if you think back to our first bricolage entry, by saying that the word bricoler was related to ball games, hunting, shooting and riding.  It referred to "extraneous movement," such as a ball angling off the side of the table or a rider swerving to avoid something in its path. [1]  Here, culture meets etymology, and we can see that the "modern" word bricoleur has roots in an earlier concept.  So far, so good.  English speakers might think of an example such as "tawdry," which has gone through several meaning changes over time, beginning with a kind of lace.

[c] Bricky c. 1970 (more stuff; still limited)

What Lévi-Strauss does not do in his account of bricolage is give a nuanced "reading" of the artisan we have named "Bricky" over the course of the last hundred years.  If you recall, I gave the approximate years of 1870-1970 for the kind of bricoleur (our "Bricky") of whom Lévi-Strauss writes.  I have my own interpretive reasons for those dates, but that isn't central to the point here. [2]

Let's break down that century in a straightforward manner that nonetheless will give us a sense of change even during the period to which Lévi-Strauss alluded. 

Changing Times

[c] Donkey cart

[d] Bicycle cart

Imagine Bricky, his tools, and his "stuff" in three different eras.  In 1870, he rides a donkey, and his things are loaded onto the back of a donkey cart.  All over France, roads are being built in and around cities and towns; many of the streets are wider and grander than before. In short, great change is afoot, even as Bricky continues to fit rubber plugs into drain holes.

[f] O-rings (the precise kind)

[f] Milk carton meets O-ring (sort of)

Now, let's skip ahead to 1920.  The Great War has ended, and Europe is going through an uneasy rebuilding (and rethinking) process.  For Bricky, though, tubs still need drain plugs, and he still carries his tools and supplies. The only major difference is that now he rides a bicycle—the vehicle that transformed Europe in the early twentieth century. [3]  The cart is behind it, and he goes about his business in much the way that his father did before him and his sons would do after him. He finds a "problem," sorts through his "stuff," and fashions new from old.

Now let's skip ahead fifty more years to about the time that Lévi-Strauss wrote about bricolage.  It is 1970.  Bricky is a rarity, much like a typewriter repairman in 2011.  He and a handful of others are still working, though—making O-rings and drain plugs out of milk cartons and rubber tubes. [4]  He may have a few more tools than "Great Grandpa Bricky" had in 1870, but the biggest difference is that he is driving around in a little diesel-powered truck...with all of his "stuff" still in the back, just like grandpa (bicycle) and great-grandpa (donkey).

[h] The changing face of bricolage

Times change, and that never changes.  Historians are good at the kind of account that I have just given.  They describe with ease various slices of time as they have piled over one another like so many dishes after a Knights of Columbus picnic.  Anthropologist have gotten pretty good at this kind of explanation, too (it wasn't always this way).  It is hard, for example, for an anthropologist to avoid the realization that her own fieldwork is "historical" when she goes back and reads her notes from, say, 1960, 1980, 2000, and yesterday.  The same kind of historical consciousness as I described above with donkeys, bicycles, and trucks is at work when we read our fieldnotes. [5]  What is much more difficult to explain, however, is how things are changing right now, like a swirling bundle of fireflies that don't emit quite enough light to see exactly where we are going.  And bricolage is nothing if not changing—before our eyes, and beyond our comprehension.

[i] Gendered tools and fuel

Think back to what Lévi-Strauss wrote of the bricoleur, and of my examples of bricolage, bathtub drains, and thought (American Pie, in particular).  It is a "fashioning" of new meaning, in new "narrative form, from elements ("stuff") that is lying "out there" in the culture (or the garbage heap).  The bricoleur picks it up and makes something from it.  As we saw, this is the opposite of the engineer, who seeks a precise tool for a precise operation.  One uses a fly-swatter instead of a sledgehammer to complete a common, though cruel, operation.  Think for a moment of a time in which you sought to complete the same operation without a flyswatter available.  You know what I mean; don't pretend you haven't at least thought about it. You were a bricoleur. So, bricolage is as opposed to absolute precision of instruments as cream is to skim (sort of). 

[j] Jacques of all trades

Times Changing
Little did Professor Lévi-Strauss realize that he was an agent of historical and cultural change.  He was as responsible as anyone for popularizing the word bricolage during the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.  He did not do it alone, of course.  A bunch of us who read him liked the concept and applied it in every possible situation where it might even remotely seem to fit (I spoke of Chinese historiography as bricolage back in my undergraduate thesis—and I still think I'm right). It connected in popular culture, as well. And then, as though through some kind of enveloping economic force, it flowed into thriving, entrepreneurial channels.  Before long, we rubbed our eyes, and bricolage was everywhere.

 [k] A Homespun Depot of Engineering Possibilities

We had the home improvement superstore, Mr. Bricolage.

I was unaware of this until, one sunny early autumn afternoon on a trip through southern France, I spied a sight similar to the one below.  I was struck by the oddity of the concept.  It was a place with "all the right tools" named after its clunky, tool-limited sidekick "Bricky."  I also thought that the honorific "Mr." was a little funny (whatever happened to Monsieur Bricolage?), considering the seriousness with which the French Ministry of Education has always taken these matters.

So engineer and bricoleur are compelled to meet—down at the store.  In yesterday's entry, we thought that never those twain would do this, but history works in powerful ways—making a concept, at least here, into its opposite.

[l] A British game—globalized and (re)translated

And there is more.  We have video games, and two words that anthropologists today adore (and can't seem to avoid for more than a paragraph at a time)—commodification and globalization.  I'll have more to say about those concepts in a later "corner," but it should not be lost on you that bricolage has "gone global" and become very much an idea that can be sold.
 

Bob le Bricoleur 1:00

Bob the Builder 0:47

Bob der Bauermeister 0:46 

Bob l'aggiustatutto 0:46

You will note that "Bob" has many technological advantages over our "Bricky" and his donkey cart (or bicycle, or truck).  He has specific tools for specific tasks.  We might ask if he is not (in Lévi-Strauss's terms)  Eddie l'Ingénieur rather than Bobric(oleur).  In any case, we have a concept that, like St. Audrey's tawdry lace, is in flux right before us.  Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose—except when they don't, which is the whole point. [6]

And, finally, there is MacGyver—a fifth generation "Bricky."  Draw your own conclusions.

[m] MacGyver et le nouveau bricolage

[n] MacGyver, paper clip, alles.

[o] Patty and Selma get goosebumps in Theory Corner

Notes

[1] Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 16-17.

[2] I am thinking of a hundred years of change that cemented a kind of national consciousness in France, during which earlier eras were transformed by larger, "linking" (and alienating) institutions.  There are several excellent books on the topic, including the very accessible The Discovery of France and the absolutely magisterial historical work Peasants into Frenchmen.

[3] The bicycle changed everything (for a while).  See, in particular, Steven Kern's The Culture of Time and Space, 1880-1918.

[4] A good friend of mine in Maine—he sells and maintains pools, and is the quintessential professional—told me an elaborate story about creating an O-ring out of a milk carton that allowed a family to fill the hot tub and have a weekend party (before he was able to get the precise part the next week). Engineer meets bricoleur.

[5] The "Fieldnotes from History" entries on the Round and Square blog are an example of this process. 

[6] The more things change, the more they stay the same—except when they don't, which is the whole point.

Click below for the other posts on bricolage in the Theory Corner series:

Bricolage 1               Bricolage 2               Bricolage 3

 

Theory Corner (1b)—Bricolage and Thought (and American Pie)

Read the Introduction to the "Theory Corner" series (here).
Click here for the Theory Corner Resource Center
See key pronunciations used in the Round and Square blog.
Click below for the other posts on bricolage in the Theory Corner series:

Bricolage 1               Bricolage 2               Bricolage 3

 

Bricolage and Thought (and American Pie)

In this entry I expand upon the picture of our bricoleur from yesterday. I have provided further reflections on bricolage from Claude Lévi-Strauss, followed by my own explication...employing the greatest of recent myths, American Pie (the song). 华

Claude Lévi-Strauss, La pensée sauvage

[a] MacGyver starter kit

Like "bricolage" on the technical plane, mythical reflection can reach brilliant unforeseen results on the intellectual plane...The "bricoleur" is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but, unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived for the purpose of the project. His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with "whatever is at hand," that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular project, but is the contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain it with the remains of previous constructions or destructions. 

[b] Potential

The set of the "bricoleur's" means cannot therefore be defined in terms of a project (which would presuppose besides, that, as in the case of the engineer, there were, at least in theory, as many sets of tools and materials or "instrumental sets," as there are different kinds of projects). It is to be defined only by its potential use or, putting this another way and in the language of the "bricoleur" himself, because the elements are collected or retained on the principle that "they may always come in handy." Such elements are specialized up to a point, sufficiently for the "bricoleur" not to need the equipment and knowledge of all trades and professions, but not enough for each of them to have only one definite and determinate use. They each represent a set of actual and possible relations; they are "operators" but they can be used for any operations of the same type...[1]

[c] Handy

Mythical thought, that "bricoleur," builds up structures by fitting together events, or rather the remains of events, while science, "in operation" simply by virtue of coming into being, creates its means and results in the form of events, thanks to the structures which it is constantly elaborating and which are its hypotheses and theories. But it is important not to make the mistake of thinking that these are two stages or phases in the evolution of knowledge. Both approaches are equally valid....Mythical thought for its part is imprisoned in the events and experiences which it never tires of ordering and reordering in its search to find them a meaning. But it also acts as a liberator by its protest against the idea that anything can be meaningless with which science at first resigned itself to a compromise. [2]

American Myth-pie

[d] The first three volumes of Mythologiques

As with household repairs, so it is with thought—the intellectual "bricoleur" crafts new messages from a limited repertoire of shared ideas. Lest anyone think that Lévi-Strauss created small wisps of insight only to move quickly toward other ideas, it might be useful to consider the four volumes (2,200 pages in English translation) of his Mythologiques—a painstaking analytical and literary monument to the idea of bricolage. There, he builds a complex portrait of the mythmaking process that examines both the structural categories of South (and North) American myth and various aspects of their narration.

[e] Structural categories in myth

Let's look at a quick example that parallels the story of Bricky and the bathtub plug in our first Theory Corner entry. We shall explore the myth of American Pie—an epic "telling" that blends disparate elements of shared history and culture in a narrative that could easily be retold in countless satisfying ways.  The only "difference" between the song "American Pie" and what might well have been a myth (in a preliterate culture that depended on many Don McLeans to entertain and shape our thinking) is that the one was fixed and carved into vinyl, while myth is ever-changing and ever retold). 

Please repress Madonna memories here.  

Take a listen to an American myth (now or later). It will take about ten minutes, so be careful with your schedule. 

American Pie

[e] Myth etched into vinyl

American Pie begins with stock elements of shared cultural and temporal values, as well as contingent fragments of individual narration (stuff that just happened to happen to the singer). 

A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And, maybe, they'd be happy for a while. 

It calls to mind a wide variety of cultural forms with powerful, shared qualities—especially the quality of a good beginning. 

            Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns 

            driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

            the hallowed heights of Troy.

            In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. 

            Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

            Call me Ishmael. 

[d] Writing culture

The tale is sung by the poet following the narrative progression ("beginning" to "end" with satisfying chunks of "stuff" in-between) that is expected in virtually all human verbal interaction. Think of Don McLean as a bricoleur, now.  He links key elements of shared experience as though they were plucked from the back of his intellectual donkey cart.  He reshapes them (axe, saw, penknife, and hunting knife—employed by the mind) into an elaborate, story-form...bathtub plug.  As though starting from the question/problem "how might we think about this turbulent decade?"—instead of "how might I plug this tub?"—the poet grasps his tools and begins to sort through his "stuff" as he contrives to craft an answer.  McLean's retro-fitted "plug" fits beautifully for many listeners, and we achieve a kind of satisfaction from the "myth" that "answers" many aspects of the core question (what do we make of this turbulent decade?).  We do all of this without really "knowing" precisely what it all of the elements "mean."  And without having a "core" question. It was just a device for moving us along in our thinking; now we must abandon it.

Myth is like that. 

             But February made me shiver
             With every paper I'd deliver.
             Bad news on the doorstep;
             I couldn't take one more step.

             I can't remember if I cried

             When I read about his widowed bride,
             But something touched me deep inside
             The day the music died. 

[e] Quests for "the" meaning

This is the "engineer's" flaw when dealing with myth (or "American Pie").  People who attempt to master the lyrics, to tame them with literalism, end up frustrated, ludicrous, or (usually) both. They make the fundamental error of which  Lévi-Strauss warned—substituting the scientific for the mythical, the engineer's approach for the bricoleur's.  The consequences of this mismatch range from silliness ("was 'Lennon' or 'Lenin' reading a book on Marx...or Mark's...Marcus, or marks?)... Running to printed versions of the lyrics will only further confuse the "reading engineer."  For example, I always "hear" the lyrics in a way not rendered in the text (you may well do this, too).  You see, the force of the song/myth is verbal, and chasing written text will only mire a person further in messy issues of authorial intent and intentional authority.  The sensible mythographer (and listener) will follow the flow of the narrative, the "shape" of the images, and the musicality of the telling.  It is as much about rhyme and cadence as it is about details. 

            So bye-bye, Miss American Pie.
            Drove my Chevy to the levee,
            But the levee was dry.
            And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye
            Singin', "this'll be the day that I die...
            this'll be the day that I die."

[g] Engineer meets bricoleur

We all know the kind of mind that seeks to track down every reference in the quest to find the "real" meaning (often arguing in a superior tone with those who "just want to enjoy the song").  Many pleasant repasts have been ruined by such conduct.  People spend vast amounts of time arguing "which one is right."  For Lévi-Strauss, it is a false question.  They are fundamentally different.  They are two kinds of thought, each amenable to its own kinds of questions—and quite clunky when dealing with the others.  Ask a bricoleur to "fix" a computer's circuitry; ask an engineer to make a bike wheel from a tree stump.  The former is incapable of meeting the challenge; the latter is capable, but perhaps disdainful.  There is an almost perfect analogy here to the perception that we have today—in literate, "modern" societies—to intellect, thought, education, and knowledge.

Engineer and bricoleur...rarely the twain do meet.

NEXT
Theory Corner 1c—History and Change 

Notes

[1] Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 17-18. Italics mine.
[2] The Savage Mind, 22. Italics mine.

Click below for the other posts on bricolage in the Theory Corner series:

Bricolage 1               Bricolage 2               Bricolage 3