Affe #191

About Affe mit Waffe Deprecated

Ormond Mangabeams Jr. was searching again. Actually, he had been searching for a very long time and had almost given up. Also, what he was looking for shouldn't be too difficult to find, at least not if you were satisfied with anything random – unfortunately this didn't apply to him. Ormond was looking for a chair, not just any chair, but a new reading chair.

His old reading chair had been perfect, he had inherited the piece from his late grandfather. The main body of the chair consisted of three curved shells made from compress layers of banana leaves that formed the headrest, backrest, and seat. All parts were provided with padding filled with coconut fibers. In addition, the armchair came with an ottoman made of the same materials and design to put your feet up for total relaxation. Ormond had loved his chair. He sat in it for several hours every day and even if he didn't really use the actual purpose of the "reading" chair, he used it for restful naps – mostly after or before meals and sometimes also in between.

Now, however, it had broken down after years of constant use, and Ormond had taken it to the organic waste collection site for composting last month. He solemnly tied a bow around the old piece of furniture, said goodbye and even had to shed a few tears before his annoyed wife finally took him home. Since then, he no longer felt completely comfortable in his tree house, something was simply missing – and that was the beginning of the search for a new armchair, like the search for the Holy Banana Grail. Money didn't matter. After all, he wanted to use his next chair long enough to be able to pass it on to his grandchildren, so the quality had to be excellent. But after his first experiences, he had learned that it was rather counterproductive to mention that money is not an issue. They really tried to sell him anything that could pass for a chair in the broadest sense. He had been shown office chairs – despite his statement that he didn't want to work in them but sleep in them, massage chairs that at best tickled or shook him and at worst kneaded him like dough. He had sat on bare wooden chairs so uncomfortable they reminded him of his days as a little apeling on the hard school bench and ergonomic seating designed to train his balance from which he had simply fallen off.

Frustrated, after another unsuccessful day of searching, he made his way back home. He passed a restaurant that served fried coconut chips with several dips on banana leaves. It seemed that this was back in fashion among the youngsters, because in fact it was considered rude to serve food like this only on a banana leaf. Then he remembered something his grandfather used to tell him – the banana leaf parable:
"Always remember, Ormond. Usually, the poorest primates eat off a banana leaf. And those a little higher up the scale eat from some type of low-fired ceramic ware. A little further up the social ladder of monkey society it would be ceramics with a simple glaze – they use a banana leaf and then the ceramic that they put all the food on. The wealthier the primate becomes, the more elaborate the glazing would be, until the plate was no longer made of ceramic but of brass. A bronze serving dish is absolutely marvelous, it has a sort of a ring to it. And then things get a little questionable. There are things like silver plated plates and even solid silver ones – and I suppose some nut has a gold platter that he eats from too, although I've never seen one. But you can go beyond that and the primates that have not only means, but a certain amount of knowledge and understanding, go the next step and they would eat off a banana leaf again. And why is that so? Because function is the most important element of design. Aesthetic improvements can be made and almost certainly will be made to a design to reflect an ape's tastes and wealth. However, in the long run it is the function that we return to rather the aesthetics. A wise monkey with wealth knows that food is perfectly capable of being served on a banana leaf without losing any of its taste or enjoyment."

Suddenly the realization hit Ormond. This understanding of how design worked gave him a very holistic view of the subject. It would start with a vision of function and then create ways to improve the delivery of that form – and this meant Ormond would find someone who could glue banana leaves together so that he would once again have a biodegradable reading chair.

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