He Fa on Bataille

Over the heavy herringbone coat, a patterned scarf overlaps close to the neck. It does more than keep out the wind: it creates a tangle of lines across the chest that cannot easily be assigned a single direction. This Bataille outfit makes me want to talk about excess: once the scarf already provides warmth, what does one more turn add to life?

Arranged solely around minimum needs, a person could wear something simpler and perhaps move with less trouble. Yet the pleasure brought by pattern and layering is real, as is the time spent looking at them. What has no practical justification may leave a delight in the day that need not immediately become output. Requiring every inch of cloth to prove its efficiency would leave enjoyment nowhere even to speak.

My somewhat sleepy face does not launch a grand carnival on the scarf's behalf; it merely occupies the space above it quietly. Excess can therefore be small—a color, a little drape—without continually escalating. If pleasure counts as sufficient only when it grows more expensive, people soon return to competition. The life meant to loosen up finds itself pursued by a new set of measures instead.

Harder to avoid is the fact that the cost may not be borne by the person enjoying it alone. Time, labor and clearing up may all be borrowed from others. An absence of utilitarian purpose does not make something automatically innocent. In asking whom an occasion has pleased, we also need to ask who has not rested. Preserving the freedom of excess means putting these less glamorous accounts on the table as well.

So I am in no hurry to cut away that length of pattern, nor do I endorse every addition without limit. The scarf may take one more turn, as long as the body can still breathe and those tending to it also get a chance to stop. The most concrete measure of abundance is that, once enjoyment is over, no one is forced to keep feeling cold on someone else's behalf.