More than a Metaphor (long tea lip version)
Channel: Kathy Bramley
Date: 2020-07-05

Outsider Music? Or DIY? Punk? Filmed today, July the 5th 2020, the lyrics are a few years old, this is almost a skit and that is close to the original intention even if it's not quite the original tune or very polished. 

Playing with serious linguistic ideas about reducing the difference between model and metaphor, the literal and the figurative: ideas that for me and in this song crossover with ideas about mathematical geometry and the physics of network science. Metaphor, maths, geometry, architectural drawings,  blueprints, schematics, maps, diagrams and 3D modelling of processes in earth sciences - all different kinds of representation or modelling of the real world.  Network science is all about modelling dynamic relationships and patterns in the world, reading an introductory article has felt like looking under the hood of metaphor, feeling the hidden physics of connection in everything. 

These thoughts have a context or resonance as a poet/songwriter/artist since childhood who also since childhood has been frequently accused of taking things literally and having strange ideas.  More latterly, but going back too, I have also been thinking about how stereotypes, exceptions and expectations relate to common notions of speech and language difficulties in dyspraxia and autism. A tendency to taking things literally appears on symptoms lists for both and I believe it's more complicated than the way it's presented as if there are binary settings in how we use or perceive words.  I don't think taking things literally or being happy to use metaphors are as simple as people think. 

All words and ideas are figurative in some sense. Please try to agree with me and give yourself time to process the thought and how it might be true. Think of the examples in the way I linked metaphor to maths, modelling, maps and schematics above. Language and orthography are similar to mathematics and the symbols on a map, at various levels of abstraction.

Sometimes when people are surprised or puzzled by metaphors autistic people do use, it is because sometimes experiences and the structure of thoughts are different. Or maybe it was just created fresh.

And common idioms and metaphors relate to and adapt to many different kinds of reality in more than just poetically cultural and historical ways: the term figurative is meaningful because it's talking about a structure or pattern and network science tells us that between some very diverse structures and processes there are hidden common rules of physics in the dynamic relationships and in the form and functioning of things.

Oo! I'm more than a metaphor, I'm a model. And I strutt my stuff on a notional plain. I transform myself, again and again.

And yes. There's a sort of relationship to the band Right Said Fred and their song I'm Too Sexy for my Shirt. But I like novelty songs a lot more than their politics, afaik! Madonna, Cher and Kylie Minogue and actual models also playing a part in the inspiration.