The meal is over. On the tablecloth there are corks, an orange, a few walnut shells, an empty glass and a coffee spoon. Those of us whose instinct is to see if we can somehow balance these objects, one on the other, are generally found to be annoying. Conversation falters. People wait for over ambitious configurations to collapse. Structural doodling is our way of playing at being engineers. We search for the point of balance as weight is transferred from one item to another. We load a folded card or a drinking straw until it buckles, replicating in miniature tests made with hefty presses and rigs in the basements of engineering schools.

LRB 5 April 2007 | PDF Download