The Bricoleur

Claude Levi-Strauss  referred to more esoteric ideas, including analysis of mythology, in his book The Savage Mind.   I must admit that I have not been able to read this book; however, I did pick it up a few times---I think I even bought it---and somehow (perhaps by osmosis?) I picked up a term from his native French, "Bricoleur," which perhaps in some more unsophisticated way shed light on my own interests, in Micronesia.    The Savage Mind. The book was TLDR for me, and I was unable to grasp even those passages I was able to understand;  but I took with ferocity to his discussion of the Bricoleur---at least the practical description.   I recall the advice of my Anthropogist Mentor, Tom Harding, who was fond of quoting "A man's reach should exceed his grasp." 

A simplistic definition of Bricoleur, in English, is Handyman.  However, the translator of an English edition of The Savage Mind left the following compelling note: 

The “bricoleur” has no precise equivalent in English. He is a man who undertakes odd jobs and is a Jack of all trades or a kind of professional do-it-
yourself man, but, as the text (see the following) makes clear, he is of a different standing from, for instance, the English “odd job man,” or handyman.

I have extracted a short part  of Levi-Strauss's discussion in which he references the bricoleur, because I think it is relevant to the philosophy of Making Do, and I hope to share it here:

The bricoleur is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but,
unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability
of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the
project. His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are
always to make do with whatever is at hand, that is to say with a set of
tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because
what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any
particular project, but is the contingent result of all the occasions there have
been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain it with the remains of
previous constructions or destructions. The set of the bricoleur’s means
cannot therefore be defined in terms of a project (which would presuppose
besides, that, as in the case of the engineer, there were, at least in theory, as
many sets of tools and materials or instrumental sets, as there are different
kinds of projects). It is to be defined only by its potential use or, putting
this another way and in the language of the bricoleur himself, because the
elements are collected or retained on the principle that they may always
come in handy. Such elements are specialized up to a point, sufficiently for
the bricoleur not to need the equipment and knowledge of all trades and
professions, but not enough for each of them to have only one definite and
determinate use. They each represent a set of actual and possible relations;
they are operators but they can be used for any operations of the same
type.

 I fear it is much to my discredit that I have not digested his work.  I just stumbled upon the following page in the Web-o-Sphere, that may be helpful: 

https://literariness.org/2016/03/21/claude-levi-strauss-concept-of-bricolage/

 

 

In search of a cork borer

 

What's the point?

   I need a cork borer, possibly two.  The other option is to build a slide-ringing turn-table.  Any sharp tube would do.

 Someone sent some material to me some years ago, a small jar of "General Electric Silicon Gum, SE30".  It is marked as non-toxic, and the use is for making little wells on microscope slides that can be covered with a coverslip, and kept for a long time with a drop of water full of protozoa and small aquatic (and marine) animals.  The procedure is like this:

1. roll up a small ball of silicon gum, about the size of a pea

   2. wet another clean slide, and smash the ball between the two slides

   3. Flatten the material evenly. 

   4. With a cork borer or other means cut a circle clear though the pancake of silicon gum.

   5. Peel away the hole to form a well.
   

   6.  Place a drop of water (or sea water) in the well with the organisms.

    

   This material is permeable to air, so the organisms can potentially live for days.  I recently kept a number of rotifers in a preparation made in this way, for over a week.  

    

Solution(s) maybe to the need for a cork borer

• This web page discusses some solutions from a broader perspective. 
  
• I may have to sharpen a piece of copper or brass tubing.
• Maybe the bricoleur's approach: whatever happens to be at hand.  (I have not found anything yet!)
• Build a slide ringing turntable and use a sharp scalpel blade to cut a circle of the desired diameter.  
•  
•  
  

 

Uses

•  I plan to apply Methylene Blue, a granule or two at most, or better a little bit of a dilute solutoin, to stain the nervous system of living rotifers.