Short Talk on Housing July 8, 2014 For days these words have been resting on my tongue, slowly dissolving.The lines have begun to settle into my hips. Here is one thing you can do if youhave no house. Wear several hats - maybe three, four. In the event of rainor snow, remove the one(s) that get(s)wet. Secondly, to be a householder is amatter of rituals. Rituals function chiefly to differentiate horizontal from vertical. To begin the day in your houseis to ‘get up’. At night you will ‘liedown’. When old Tio Pedro comesover for tea you will ‘speak up’, forthese days his hearing is ‘on thedecline’. If his wife is with him you willbe sure to have ‘cleaned up’ thekitchen and parlour so as not to ‘fall’ in her opinion. Watching the two ofthem, as they sit side by side on thecouch smoking one cigarette, you feelyour “heart lift’. These patterns of upand down can be imitated, outside thehouse, in vertical and horizontaldesigns upon the clothing. The linesare not hard to make. Hats do not need to be so decorated for they will’pile up’ on your head, in and of them-selves, qua hats, if you have understoodmy original instruction. — "Short Talk on Housing" by Anne Carson MORE: RESEARCH (from THE LAB) or find posts from all categories of THE LAB below.