Commuting on Eames by Lisa Rohrer

commuting on eames a book of travel poems that take place at home

lisa rohrer

Copyright ÂŠ 2020 Lisa Rohrer. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Photography by Lisa Rohrer.

table of contents 01 07 09 11 13 15 17 19 21 23

introduction ode to the armchair ode to the no. 14 ode to the jefferon swivel ode to the tandem sling ode to the adirondack ode to the pew bench ode to the bicycle saddle ode to the student desk chair ode to the eames sidechair

introduction In Gaston Bachelard’s ethereal text The Poetics of Space, he locates the home as a container—an object that “shelters daydreaming, … protects the dreamer”, and enables us to collect localized memories through forming habits associated with the intimate space of the home (Bachelard 2014, 28). His oneiric exploration of space, intimacy, and memory encourages the reader to consider how “the house … in which we were alone, furnished the framework for an interminable dream, one that poetry alone, through the creation of a poetic work, could succeed in achieving completely” (Bachelard 2014, 37). It is through this poetic lens that I have surveyed the topography of my own home. The daydream acts as a commuter landscape—a plane upon which I can move here and there, up and down, back and forth, without physically leaving a single site. Such a landscape is discussed often today. As I write this work, the world is experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic which has reorganised our 1

contemporary models for moving to and from work. The modern separation of home and work had already experienced a disruption from the 21st century “paradigm shift” of media convergence (Jenkins 2006, 5). The terminology of convergence is often employed to describe a movement from multiple media to a single medium—an all-in-one “black box” that enables users to play, work, read, and be entertained by accessing just one tool. However, as Jenkins points out, this definition limits convergence solely to a question of technology. In reality, we continue to use many of these “black boxes” which are individually converging but still work separately from one another to “suit your needs for accessing content depending on … your situated context” (Jenkins 2006, 15). In the year 2020, I reflect on my personal commuting habits—a history of driving, public transport, cycling, and walking—all of which have provided me an in-between space among the space I call “home” and the space I call “work”. Commuting provides an in-between plane upon which I do not fall into one fixed category. Rather than acting as a liminal space that is “other” from work and home, commuting space acts as a container in which all other spheres, be they home or work or leisure, converge. De Certeau clarifies this distinction in his discussion of frontiers versus bridges by referring to Morgenstern’s zwischenraum poem: “The theoretical and practical problem of the frontier: to whom does it belong? … Passing by, an architect suddenly appropriates this ‘in-between space’ and builds a great edifice on it … Transformation of the void into a plenitude, of the in-between into an established place” (de Certeau 1980, 127). This bridge-building, so to speak, echoes what tourism scholars Minca and Oakes emphasize when they say that “despite the assumption or even hope that we might escape place to become ‘strangers’ …, place travels along with us—it is never left behind” (2006, 19). And yet, just as Jenkins confronts the black box theory as something of a fallacy, we also have not abandoned all other chairs in our homes or office spaces in favor of the subway seat. 2

Instead, in this heightened season of convergence, we assign new values to these alternative seats—either turning them into sites of extreme convergence (by writing emails and talking on the phone whilst sitting on our toilets) or setting them apart as sacred spaces (for example, refusing to bring our work computers into our beds). With these ideas in mind, I suggest that the act of commuting is the bridge that is built at the frontier of the workplace and the homeplace. When the physical site of the commute is no longer available to us, due to the reordering of remote work during the present pandemic, how do we reincarnate such memories of movement into activities unbound by physical space? The former commuting landscapes in which the subway seat (or car seat, bicycle saddle, etc.) acts as both a real and symbolic poly-functional space now describe our work-from-home spaces and, quite possibly, the entire physical space of our homes as we re-make them into environments that serve all realms of life. What does it mean to understand the commute not as the separation of “home” and “work” but as a period that combines notions of home and work? When we consider the chairs we sit in to conduct specific activities (be it working, dining, resting, reading, producing, etc.) we have, since the 20th century, created boundaries: the home chair in which we lounge and the work chair in which we produce. Such boundaries construct frontiers which require a physical transference in order to escape the one and join the other. The subway seat is the convergence of these seemingly oppositional frontiers because it is a seat in which both, as well as many other, things occur. With this in mind, we can consider every seat in our home during COVID-19 as a commuter seat in which ideas of rest and work are intertwined. Commuting on Eames is a collection of poetry that emphasizes the practice of the commute as an oneiric space—a dream landscape—in order to complicate the home/work dichotomy. 3

The chair is not merely the theme, motif, or setting for these stories; rather, it is the story itself. It is not only the object of affection or frustration, but the embodiment of the introduction, climax, and conclusion of the narrative. In doing so, each sonnet emphasizes “sitting” as an imaginatively-physical action by which an individual poetically oscillates from one realm to another, only to find herself in the same physical space a moment later. As these sonnets are my own, the plane I find beneath me time after time is the bowled frame of a white, plastic Eames sidechair, whose advertising so perfectly describes itself as “a simple, gracious form that fits any body and every place” (hermanmiller.com). As Kingwell has described: “Furniture structures space, making what is otherwise undifferentiated into something meaningful. I place a couch in an empty room and it acquires a new significance: the air now shimmers with the possibilities of conversation or napping or seduction” (Kingwell 2006, 177). If this is the case, then we must return once more to the place of the home, that intimate structure that “shelters daydream[s]”. As a collection, these sonnets reveal how the dwelling place does not merely mold into a site where one works from home. More profoundly, during this unique season we ask our homes to act as the settings of creative and imaginative stories—ones in which a simple plastic chair can transform into a throne, a reading nook, and a bed for dreaming.

Notes Bachelard, Gaston. 2014 [1958] The Poetics of Space. New York: Penguin Group. de Certeau, Michel. 2002 [1984] “Spatial Stories” in The Practice of Everyday Life. Translated by Steven Rendall. University of California Press. 115–130. “Eames Molded Plastic Chairs.” Retrieved 15 May 2020 from https://www. hermanmiller.com/en_lac/products/seating/side-chairs/eames-moldedplastic-chairs/ Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. NYU Press Kingwell, Mark. 2006 [2002]. “Tables, Chairs, and Other Machines for Thinking” in Intimus, edited by Mark Taylor and Julieanna Preston. West Sussex:

ode to the armchair The morning light clothes you in rosy hues. My body takes its refuge on your chest. My arms are free to relax and lay loose, your arms engulf me, granting me to rest. Alone, the corner shades us from the view of passersby and neighbors in the street. Out there they swing their bodies, two by two; in here we close our eyes and gently meet. Just as my spine curves softly in your lap I find myself oblivious to thee. Time does not let me steal from you a nap, space prohibits your touch from reaching me. This seat does not have upper limbs of care. I loathe you, plastic, white, procrustean chair.

ode to the no. 14 How many times I pulled you close to me from where I found you—abandoned and still. I gathered you from underneath the tree and brought you right beside the window sill. Together, observing people, we’d be content with all the world parading by. And when the servers brought out the coffee your gracious dual-curved frame would satisfy. The smell of Kenyan espresso rises. I tilt you back upon your heels and beam. But something hits your back which compromises the landscape of my picturesque daydream You’re not the Thonet vision I prepared. I loathe you, plastic, white, procrustean chair.

ode to the jefferson swivel If only Rodin thought ahead of time to grant his thinker somewhere else to sit. For if he wants to ponder and recline then in you he would find the perfect fit. Your swivel and your ergonomic ways assisted me in reading McLuhan, and, ever since those young collegiate days, I’ve dreamed of our scholastic reuinion. Your Windsor frame kept mind and body straight, your placemant by the bookshelf was ideal. When light would fade, you stayed with me ‘til late but only through nostalgia are you real. Extensive contemplation you can’t bear. I loathe you, plastic, white, procrustean chair.

ode to the tandem sling Whenever I consider time away (from banal tasks and weekday liturgies) I think of all the memories we’ve made— your smooth, flexible seat creased at my knees. Kilometers away from home and care, My six-ounce shampoo bottle made me late. I think I only have one hour to spare; instead we’re given three hours at the gate. Despite the tempting looks from duty-free, despite the fact your arms don’t let me lay, I stay with you until “economy” is granted passage onto the gangway. Arrivals and departures now are rare. I loathe you, plastic, white, procrustean chair.

ode to the adirondack I met you on the front porch at age nine. At seventeen we laid out in the sun. By twenty-two you were the spot divine for long chats on the beach when days were done. White sand between your legs and in my toes. Fictional pages flapping in the breeze. Your body arched so my skin stayed exposed. Your lap angled to prop up sunkissed knees. I longed to see you this year, just as last. I hoped youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d find my back and shoulders loose. I imagined our fond times in the past; instead I feel emotional abuse. With strict concerns around global healthcare Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m bathing on my white procustean chair.

ode to the pew bench At weekâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end, when the work is laid aside, and thirst and hunger stir within our heart, within the welcome walls arrives Christâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bride, who file into rows so they can start. You brace the elderly as they lament. You comfort newborns graciously renamed. You invite Jew and Greek to come repent and rest on you while good news is proclaimed. Though firm and upright, you enable me, when hymns of everlasting feasts are sung to clasp my hands upon your back stabily or kneel if lavish grace leaves me undone. No more secular. You are, I declare, a sacred, plastic white procustean chair.

ode to the bicycle saddle A child very rarely will forget the first time that her foot and pedal meet. Once figuring a balanced way to sit she takes a curious comfort in your seat. While perched upon your double-spring saddle I find myself upright and confident there is no crossing I could not battle, no street with too uneven of pavement. Most days I cycled on Park through the Fan, and carefully avoided Boulevard. I might stop off for coffee at Black Hand or wave to Erik watering his yard. Today I feel no cool breeze through my hair I loathe you, plastic, white procrustean chair

ode to the student deskchair Nestled in the fourth column from the door, and tucked comfortably behind row one, I chose you because you were near the board but far from dreaded, cold-call coercion. You filled a two-for-one requirement through which my sole profession was agreed: a seat with book basket to complement an attached desktop where one can succeed. We managed well, each fulfilling our part: you remained firm and cold; I wrote my best. But as soon as the bell rings we depart and, liberated, I can take a rest. My work is done but I have gone nowhere. I loathe you, plastic, white, procrustean chair.

ode to the eames sidechair You became popular mid-century and for seventy years have yet to cease at “Getting the most of the best to the greatest number of people for the least.” I wake up to your subtle, gentle curves, though often place a cushion between us, for whatever awards your shape deserves, ten weeks of intimacy is too much. Your authentic plastic coated in white was something I had much admired, dear. But one late evening after working, I found “made in China” tattoed on your rear. Alas, you’ve stuck through triumphs and despair. You’ll always be my white procrustean chair.