Tips (the ends of things)
A visual essay concerning objects that come to an end. A work-in-progress.
Embarassing Tips
Some tips must be hidden. Knives and swords are sheathed. It is impolite to point the finger, to expose the tip fo the finger. Rules govern which tips are exposed and which are not.
Tips are embarassing. That is, body tips. The tip of the penis and the nipple are required, by custom, to be hidden.
Are only the powerful, dangerous tips that are hidden?
Decollatage. The curve of the breast, its fullness is allowed to be seen. In fact it is prized. But the nipple is taboo. (e.g. the Janet Jackson affair (breasts are exposed almost completely in every mass media venue but not the nip)). Occasionally the dangling privates of a (handsome) man are seen in R rated movies but never really focused on. You can see the hairy whole but not the tip. Fingers are not to be pointed - this is less embarassment but a sign of rudeness... but it seems similar the tip of the finger is not to be held up for scrutiny, not to be the center of attention. Same with the tongue. Sticking out your tongue, exposing the pointy end is the height of rudeness, though childishly silly. And so the tips of the body must be kept under wraps. Perhaps this is why there is a little flourish on the end of created objects - a profusion at the tip. Showing off. Exposing in another form what cannot be exposed otherwise. I know this sounds simplistically Freudian but I want to keep it even simpler than that (I am hoping by not even writing the ph-word that I will escape the trap of over-used insights). There is clearly some tension between hiding and showing when it comes to tips and this tension is being worked out in not terribly disguised forms in cultural products.
Tips penetrate. Edges slice. This only works for sharp tips. Knives. But you cannot have a slicing tip. Piercing, probing... "p" words.
What are tips at the bottom of things... a different kind of end? (Octopus tentacles)
