There are repetitive patterns that appear in nature. The spines of a porcupine, the growth lines of a tree or seashell, our own fingerprints, and the petals of a flower are only a few examples of the many thousands out there. They intrigue. Those are not our main topic today. But see our first image where erosion by wind and water has done the job for us.
Readers may suspect we intend to veer off into human repetitive behavior patterns, especially in the political space. We do not. Over many years, we have stumbled across mostly manmade objects arranged in a pattern or just duplicated as if having come from an assembly line. Some of those may be seen in our second image.
Such mass production underlies the economy and the society it supports. These items are purchased, or installed by tradesmen, or utilized as is by the general public. This is a personal fascination of mine. When coming across these arrays, camera in hand, I’ll snap pics such as those you see in the figures above and below. One might think repetition is interesting at first but then later would be quite boring. True! But the items themselves vary greatly. They may have a story to tell. Where made and by whom? Have they been exposed to the elements and what are the signs? When the arrays are regular, we want to know if that was intentional or due to the natural interleaving of the objects’ identical shapes.
Architecture
Buildings are full of repeating patterns. Except for the most avant-garde designs, they rely on patterns for both style and strength.
Haphazard
Some objects of similar shape are nevertheless tossed onto piles and never achieve a regular pattern. Still, they elicit questions about origins and futures.
The tiled floor or wall is always composed of regular arrays, usually of squares or rectangles, and only occasionally parallelograms or trapezoids. In some way, those designs avoid distraction and are seen, but with no particular notice.
Counterpoint
I recall when a large expanse of office space where I worked was cleared of all furniture and cubicle dividers so the aging carpeting could be replaced. The new carpet sported an attractive repetitive design with subdued colors. Several colleagues, when viewing the wall-to-wall expansive result, became quite dizzy and disoriented. There must be a limit to our senses’ tolerance, our interpretive abilities, for repetition in the extreme.
Contrarily, what if your restroom’s floor were tiled with irregular shapes? No discernible repetition. I would invest considerable effort into searching for any rhyme or reason for the design and for any evidence that tiles were reused but reoriented to confuse. Such is the fascination with haphazard arrangements. Somewhere between the regular and haphazard are the common cases where the individual objects are the same or similar, yet not found displayed in a regular array.
We are compelled to show you a few more examples. They don’t complete our journey into the repetitive or tie a neat bow on a story about scenes everyone’s seen. They are just a few I did not want to leave behind.
We’re not done yet
One image, our last, deserves to stand alone.
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Often in popular magazines, especially in end-of-year issues, puzzles are offered wherein readers are given a page of pictures of people and an unordered list of names. They are to associate each name with each picture. Below is a list of edited titles of the images appearing in this post. This is not a test and there are no grades or prizes. It is for your amusement only. But those who are truly puzzled may send a note asking for more information.
Nota Bene: Others may ruminate differently. But be warned: In my case, seeing or hearing something quite trivial -- a saying, a store clerk’s mannerisms, or bad grammar on a food product’s label – triggers a stream-of-consciousness extrapolation toward grander notions and generalizations. That is what often happens in these posts. ADDENDUM: Those subscribers who have been here for a while will have noticed that at times ruminations have veered into diatribes. I make no apology. I just want my readers to know that it’s quite intentional. When events come close to making the ‘blood boil,’ that discontent bubbles up here.
Disclaimer: Any and all opinions expressed here are my own at the time of writing with no expectation that they will hold beyond my next review of this article. Opinions are like a river, winding hither and yon, encountering obstacles and rapids, and suffering turbulent mixing of silts from its depths and detritus from its banks. But just as a river has its clear headwaters and a fertile delta, so do opinions, notwithstanding any intervening missteps and uncertainties.
Reminder: You can visit the Cycloid Fathom Technical Publishing website at cycloid-fathom.com and the gallery at cycloid-fathom.com/gallery.
Forthcoming posts (unless life intervenes)
Conflict Zones
…Sticks and stones…
Sched 5/6/2024
Quantify me
…metiri, aestimare, iudicare aliquid* (…measure, estimate, judge something)
Sched 5/13/2024
The Last Resort
…Still searching for the magic nostrum
Sched 5/20/2024
Let me count the ways*
……Once, it was only love
Sched 5/27/2024
No more mass XXXs, No más XXXs masivos
…In my day it was duck and cover, now it’s run, hide, fight
Sched 6/3/2024
Celebrity
…Bonum et malum et medium (The good and the bad and the in-between)
Sched 6/10/2024
Derivatives
…Integral to our progress, or not?
Sched 6/17/2024