Tag: Harmony

Good Odds

 

Gardeners may have heard it’s best to use odd numbers of similar plants in groupings and wondered why odd numbers are supposed to be more aesthetically pleasing than even numbers. Perhaps some authoritative figure in garden design plucked that rule out of the air and everyone has followed it blindly ever since. The rule doesn’t apply in situations where pairs work best, such as one columnar arbor vitae on each side of an entrance. A gardener would have to be daft to try to force another arbor vitae in there somewhere in order to obey the odd number rule, disrupting the natural harmony of pairs at entrances, gates, and arbors, where the architectural feature itself presents a third, central element.
Plumeria (Frangipani) flowers
Plumeria (frangipani) flowers in Don Tao, Si Phan Don, Laos. Photo by Basile Morin. Humans and other animals often present paired symmetries of even numbers, while plants more often than not have odd numbers of parts, as in the five petals of these frangipani flowers.

No one seems to know for sure why odd numbers in plant groupings are more pleasing, at least in an informal garden. Informality could be the key, since some people find the formality of even numbered groupings pleasing, but that appreciation doesn’t appear to come naturally to our brains, which look for a central focus in a grouping, something that presents itself naturally in odd numbered groupings. More than seven plants in a grouping starts to lose coherence and people can only vaguely get an idea of the center, rather than zeroing in on a central plant.

In a 2008 appearance on Sesame Street, Feist sings her song “1234” with help from groups of Muppets. Four is of course an even number, but you may note as you enjoy the music whether the presence of Feist herself changes the dynamic from even to odd groupings, dissimilar as she is to a Muppet. There’s certainly nothing stiff or formal about the presentation.

Experiment with different numbered groupings of similar shrubs, perennials, or annuals, and you will most likely find that without thinking about it you find odd numbers more pleasing and natural if you prefer a less formal garden, and even numbers naturally create a more formal feeling. These are arrangements nature appears to have adopted, like golden section proportions and Fibonacci spirals. The patterns most prevalent in nature seem to bypass our reason and appeal directly to our core because it’s what we are immersed in from birth, and that still begs the question of why nature prefers some patterns over others. Efficiency? Possibly that’s a part of it. Beyond that is a mystery, like the appeal of music. Many observable patterns are essentially visual representations of music, and we enjoy them because we typically enjoy harmony. When gardening, it helps to listen as well as look.
— Izzy

 

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Living in Harmony

 

When Mary Tyler Moore died on January 25, a few days after the Women’s March on Washington, it seemed all that Ms. Moore and the women of her generation had fought for and won needed to be fought for all over again. Ms. Moore was never the most outspoken advocate for women’s rights, but for many younger women she led by example. With her supremely well-written and acted television comedy The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s, Ms. Moore seemed to ride the crest of a wave of change for women’s prospects which was only going to get bigger and better. Since then, an overtaking wave of conservatism swelled in the 1980s and swamped political and cultural life in 2016, and it appears a belligerent subset of men (and some women) continue to resent outspoken, powerful women, and after 2016 they feel emboldened to hurl vulgar insults and even threaten violence.

Mary Tyler Moore Valerie Harper Cloris Leachman Last Mary Tyler Moore show 1977
Valerie Harper (left) as Rhoda, Cloris Leachman (middle) as Phyllis, and Mary Tyler Moore (right) as Mary Richards, reunite in a scene from the last episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1977. All three were apparently good friends in their own lives as well.

In the United States there was the presidential election in 2016, and in the United Kingdom there was the Brexit referendum earlier in the year that also served to open the vents for a sullen, resentful minority. It’s surprising then to some people that conservatives do not hold a monopoly on nursing sexist sentiments. After last week’s general election in the United Kingdom, author J.K. Rowling expressed her disgust with supposedly liberal men making denigrating personal remarks about Prime Minister Theresa May. According to Rowling, their remarks had nothing to with the Prime Minister’s policies in and of themselves, and everything to do with those policies being pressed forward by a powerful, outspoken woman. The conservative movement has spilled over, and now everyone with a social media account feels encouraged to be on their worst behavior.

Great harmony by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in a melancholy song.

For an all too brief period in the 1960s and 70s it wasn’t that way, and it seemed things would only get better. But “better” is a personal perspective, and apparently there has always been bubbling beneath the surface of humanity a foul stew of visceral hatreds and resentments. It was a delusion to think it had gone away. There were people for whom “better” was a bitter pill to choke down, upsetting to their righteous way of life, and they bided their time until they could turn back the clock. The general population always knew these people existed, and assumed they were a conservative minority whose grasp on power was slipping away and would eventually disappear. It turns out, however, that gender and racial resentments cross political party lines and their grasp on some people has strengthened, not weakened. Not everyone is as he or she seems, and while in public they may appear to tolerate new social norms, when they get home and start tweeting and facebooking, they release their bottled up anger and things get ugly.

Newscaster Ted Baxter, played by Ted Knight, was not mean-spirited like the internet trolls of today, merely clueless.

Live and let live. What is so very hard about hewing to that old maxim? If you have respect for yourself, respect for others will follow. One of the best features of Mary Tyler Moore’s two hit television shows, and by all accounts of her own personality, was respect for the characters and for the audience, which was reflected in intelligent, good-natured writing and presentation. The Dick Van Dyke Show in the 1960s was almost entirely put together by men, while The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970s had more women writers than any other show before it. Both shows were excellent reflections of their times, though more optimistic and usually showing the better side of our natures. They were comedies, after all. They are still models of a better life for men and women.

Great harmony by Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore in a happy song.
― Ed.

 

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