4 This is a very different notion of metaphor from that employed by Lakoff and Johnson
(1998) which seems to me to over-determine both the idea of metaphor and the process
of metaphorization.
5 In other words, the notion of speed is part of the rhetoric of how Euro-American
societies go on,
6 There are interesting connections here with all kinds of earlier body practices from drill
to dance which could be brought out and which are brought together in the twentieth-
century city in the work of writers like Laban (see Thrift 2000a).
7 The practice of photography, in other words, is as important for its process of doing
as for its results (photographs which are normally rarely looked at).
8 Aided, in certain cases, by stimulants like drugs.
9 All these practices are heightened by the growing sense, stimulated by the media, of
audience (see Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998); we now constantly see and take in
other body practices: ways of walking and the like. This mundane anthropology is
becoming more and more important.
10 Thus, for example:
when we approach a great fir on the crest of a mountain, we stand tall or our
eyes travel upward to the clouds and eagles, when we approach a willow our gaze
sweeps in languid arcs across the backs of lime branches rippling over the lake. When
we come upon a fallen tree, we have difficulty seeing it is a willow or a pine or
a tree; it appears as a thicket about a log, in a confused lay out inviting closer
scrutiny.
(Lingis 1998: 53)11 Note also Derrida’s thoughts on nature as a form of writing (see Kirby 199 7 ).
12 Ancient Christian prayer cited in de Certeau (1992: 1).
13 The main marketing slogan of the American Wilderness Experience.
14 See think of the following quotation as a business proposition.
To recognise a person is to recognise a typical way of addressing tasks, of envisaging
landscapes, of advancing hesitantly and cautiously or ironically, of playing exuber-
antly down the paths to us. Someone we know is someone we relate to posturally,
someone we walk in step with, someone who maintains a certain style of positioning
himself or herself and gesticulating in conversation and with whom we take up a
compromising position as we talk.
(Lingis 1998: 53)15 I realize that this section might he read as a Baudrillardian account of the rise of
simulacra. This is not, however the way I would want it read. Baudrillard’s accounts are
far too sweeping for me and lack any but a stylized historical sense.
4 Drivingin the city
1 In what follows, I have generally used the translation by Blonsky (de Certeau 198 7 )
retitled ‘Practices of space’ which generally strikes me as clearer than the Rendall
translation (de Certeau 198 4 ).
2 Hence, the original French title of The Practice of Everyday Life, namely L’Invention
du quotidien.
3 De Certeau’s humanism is not one that proceeds from a fully formed human subject
but is based in practices, and the tension between humans to be found in the encounters
that take place within them. According to Conley (2001: 4 85), it combines a residue
of Hegelianism or existentialism with Christian ethics.Notes 261