Visual Ping Pong

‘Table Tennis table?’ ‘More like a kitchen-table’. ‘More like a cooker hob’. ‘The tables, they’re tanned’. ‘Tanning tables?’ ‘Yes, the tables have been turned.’

Such situations are often characterized by visual “ping pong” between those making a visual observation and those reacting to the visual observation. I call this “visual ping pong”, as it seems that participants are simply hitting images back and forth over the net, as if they can score points on an opponent: the art of exchanging images, photographs, or insults back and forth between two people for an extended period of time. A playful, witty banter session giving each party a turn to in essence "drop the oeuf" when they run out of eyes, balls, or shots.

When you think about it you can be “tanned” on all three tables: by sparkling after-dinner conversation at the dinning table; as you slave over the cooker hob – what’s cooking if not tanning? and I’ve often been tanned, given a roasting, even, at ping pong.

To be continued...