Getting it Right

摘要

Two years ago at Earth and Fire, Rufford I had a stall. Minding my business in the vaguely disinterested way one does in order to give space for people to nose about feeling unpreyed upon, I registered a woman and a man, a couple, aggressively disagreeing sotto voce about my pots. '…I do think they're lovely', she said. 'They're awful,' he hissed back, small bowl in hand, 'look…'It went on. Thinking to intercede gently, I laughed and said I didn't think any pot of mine was worth a domestic row. It seemed it wasn't. The man turned on me, told me I had no idea what I was doing and no right to do it. It being a fine day, I left the bait, probably said something like 'Oh' trusting, in the way of inconclusive party conversation, he would move on. I would have, but then there were all the pots to lug with me. What did move on was sotto voce. And we were developing an audience. He said he had spent years in Japan studying the tea ceremony, i.e. who was I? I thought to myself: western icon messer-about, thank you; there has always been a whole aspect of play and change in 'tea' that you're missing, mack; I'm not interested in this. I also knew he was attacking something I worry about and that I wasn't ready or really able to justify. I incline to let be tedious debate often exercised like an adolescent dog.