Here’s a little guessing game. This is a salt or pepper shaker: So what do you think its companion shaker might be? I suspect that most people would guess the other part of this pair would be another similarly doughy creature–possibly, in the light of the associations between salt and pepper and black and white,Continue reading “For a Spicy Experience, First Take the Pants Off”
Tag Archives: Robin Bernstein
Shake Your Booty
In recent posts, I’ve been talking about animals and other objects depicted in salt and pepper shakers as wearing various items of human clothing. This time, I’m going to look at a set that depicts a more or less human-like being who isn’t wearing quite enough clothing. I begin with the actual shakers: Readers whoContinue reading “Shake Your Booty”
Exotic and Smashable Fragility
I’ve previously written a number of posts about the racial stereotypes represented in my salt and pepper shaker collection: lazy Mexicans, but especially adorable Native North Americans and jolly overweight African Americans. This time, it’s the turn of the Asians. This set sums up one significant branch of the Asian world as it is depictedContinue reading “Exotic and Smashable Fragility”
Shaking
In my explorations of the scriptive actions of salt and pepper shakers over the past while, I’ve considered everything but the most obvious action they imply–the one implied by their name: shaking. Salt and pepper shakers are made to be shaken. Furthermore, as I think about it, I see that the act of shaking isContinue reading “Shaking”
Shit, Kitsch, and Other Things that Stink
In my last post, I suggested that one of the actions scripted by novelty salt and pepper shakers is conversing about them as artistic objects: the invitation to “observe them more closely–perhaps in something like the way we look at paintings or other art objects, with an eye to understanding both what they represent andContinue reading “Shit, Kitsch, and Other Things that Stink”
Scriptive Things, Fifth Verse: A Little Bit Louder, A Little Bit Diverse
The question remains the same. Generally speaking, what actions or responses do novelty salt and pepper shakers invite when they appear as part of a table setting for a meal? Most obviously of course, they invite those at the table to shake them, i.e., to put salt and/or pepper on their food–and whatever kind ofContinue reading “Scriptive Things, Fifth Verse: A Little Bit Louder, A Little Bit Diverse”
Binaries as Scriptive Things
Before I head onwards towards a consideration of the novelty aspects of shaker sets as scriptive things, I think there’s one other aspect of salt-and-pepper sets generally that needs to be considered: their implications as a coupled pair. The question here is not just, why salt and pepper, but also, why salt and pepper together?Continue reading “Binaries as Scriptive Things”
Scriptive Things Again
As promised in my post of June 22, I embark now on an exploration of how novelty salt and pepper shaker sets like those in my collection might be illuminated by means of Robin Bernstein’s concept of “scriptive things.” So what scripts for performance by their potential users do such shakers imply or invite? I’llContinue reading “Scriptive Things Again”
Infinite Loopiness and Racial Segregation
This link will take you to the blog Robin Bernstein’s keeps in relation to her book Racial Innocence, which I discussed in my last post, and from which I’m borrowing her concept of “scriptive things” as a potential way of understanding more about salt and pepper shaker sets. Once you get there, you’ll discover thatContinue reading “Infinite Loopiness and Racial Segregation”
Scriptive Things
I n her recent book Racial Innocence: Performing American Childhood from Slavery to Civil Rights, Robin Bernstein offers an insightful and innovative analysis of the ways in which ideas about childhood, texts about and for children, and objects representing children and/or intended to be used in their play intersected with and were inflected by ideasContinue reading “Scriptive Things”
Perry Nodelman 