Saturday, October 15, 2011

The Curious Case of Beating Up Buttons

WARNING: The following contains uncensored images of buttons which may be offensive to some readers.
Buttons! You either love them or hate them or you can be ambivalent towards them. I have a friend who has a bit of an aversion to the button. So much so that she has gone to great lengths to provide anti-button solutions for the world's sewers.
I, myself, am of the ambivalent button persuasion unless it is one of these very special artistica buttons. There is a Buttonfest on in Melbourne this week end for all the buttonphiles to attend. There will certainly be the cream of buttons on display at such an event.
We have been known to use the odd button around here but the serious art house buttons are kept in the big green cupboard and are not for general consumption.
The everyday domestica button is, on the other hand used frequently as a fastener and as a form of toddler tamer. In the time it took to squeeze all these buttons into this pig's slot, this plant which is inserted for gratuitous relief, grew 5 cms.
Thus an alternative button receptacle was enlisted. "There are almost as many buttons here as my mother has birthdays. 1...2...4....7...."
This button therapy can be used to overcome deep seated and irrational fears of the button. Repeated insertion of buttons into a slotted receptacle will render the troubled button-phobic back to the desired button ambivalence (or be like fingernails on a blackboard).

Be not afraid button-phobic. The button will not harm you but, rather, seeks only to serve. Face your buttons, button up and long live the button!

11 comments:

  1. Oh buttons, love them, visit Buttonalia every trip to Melbourne. My girls always loved haberdasheries, my son, not so much. So when i had him with me, i'd sit him at the button section, without instruction, & leave him to decide whether to sort into colour, shape, size, whatever, it was shopping bliss. The staff loved it as it tidied things up, yay!! Love Posie

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  2. Hi Annie,
    So very glad to see you again; I lost you too!
    We do become a bit like old friends that one hasn't seen in a while, don't you think?

    I love buttons too, grew up with them as an essentiel part of my play. Never been to a button fest, I suppose it's not a good enough reason to catch the next plane to Australia (not that I could afford too :)
    Lovely weekend to you!

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  3. Jest not. I knew a boy who had a serious fear of buttons, especially those big buttons on old-fashioned men's p.js.
    Not sure if there's a medical term for phobia of buttons(?) but he definetely had one.

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  4. Buttons don't bother me really. People being 'crafty' with buttons could possibly irritate me ... 'push my button' as it were.

    I knew a boy who was afraid of cotton wool. His sisters used to put cotton wool balls in the top of his school shoes and when he put his foot in, he'd scream!!

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  5. Posie: I had a sorter when he was little but now he has morphed into a messer like the other boys. I wonder if we had kept him in an untainted separate room he would have stayed tidy.

    Lilli: Pleased to know that button play creates such gentle, creative folk as yourself.

    Kylie: My son wouldn't wear buttons for the first five years of his life. He was T-shirts and elastic only. When he started school I considered cutting off the uniform's polo shirt buttons but his desire to be the same as everyone else prevailed.

    MMMC: You were not one of those wicked sisters were you?

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  6. Wow, you do appear to have quite a button collection. You reminded me of my feeble attempt to collect buttons when I was little. It barely covered the bottom of a jam jar. One of those really small jam jars.

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  7. I dig buttons and proud of it.

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  8. CC: These are cheats collections that I give the wee-uns from the dollar shop.
    DMC: Say it loud! You dig buttons and you're proud!

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  9. I could shout it from the front patio to all the proletariat below.
    They might put me in my own little room straight out of Child Craft which seems to definitely have a tendency to address the psychologically challenged.
    They might put me there to make doll house furniture out of buttons for my remaining years.

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  10. DMC: It's always good to have a plan!

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