He Fa on the Square-Shouldered Professor

Houndstooth has stretched my shoulders into a table laid sideways. A peacock-blue high collar emerges from the center, while a purple scarf trails a long line below the knee. The professor's outline has acquired a disproportionate width. From the front, I seem ready to contain a great deal of knowledge. Yet greater capacity does not ensure that a sentence can be understood by the person beside me. I want to place this body in a room with fixed seating. Its box-shaped shoulders would overhang the armrests, and wide sleeves would easily brush a neighbor's paper. The image does not actually show this collision, but permits a particular hypothesis: when an image of knowledge requires others continually to move aside, public speech is charging a spatial fee that usually goes uncounted.

Houndstooth repeats the same small pattern in good order, while the jacket retains buttons, pockets and a collar. Exaggeration has not cost it a wearable structure. This makes me believe that complex language, too, can have entrances: it can be unfastened or put away for a while. If I treat broad shoulders alone as proof of broad thought, I miss precisely these small structures that allow use.

Demanding that speakers continually shrink also has a cost. A new question may really need more space than the old seat provides; unfamiliar terms cannot all become everyday language at once. I do not want consideration for a neighbor to prohibit stretching. The difficulty is distinguishing whether the question has grown, or I simply enjoy seeing others make way for my coat.

So I would first lift the overlong purple scarf, then invite others to sit a little closer. It can remain vivid, and the shoulders need not immediately return to normal. What truly needs adjustment is the rule of seating: who may spread out, who may voice discomfort, and who need not first prove extensive knowledge to deserve a half-chair not occupied by tweed?