B iomechanic s of bricklaying

Illustration: weekends were a genre of a work stream of interruptions, and a necessary two day Sabbath The type and style of architecture opposite to the retaining wall and contract to built, for which I was geared to tolerate weighing against a slack of manpower performance through the week. I endured a up like a bricklaying machine. seeming working day vacation, at leaving a crew behind idling on a construction site, while I drove off. I headed toward the east rand, en route admiring the countryside while my guts churned up meeting during office hours these people in ties and suits and mere other species. the greater Johannesburg straggled its northern outskirts when from the countryside veld the lonesome glass tower grew in the blue skyline. I kept sight on the pivot point while zigzagging my approached through the suburban street, pulling up into a stall on the wide expanse of tarmac. entered Roberts Constructions' local office building and stepping through the entrance lobby feeling claustrophobic at the thought of elevator. Alongside I treaded and rose through angle sharp coiling stairway. some half-dozen floors of landings higher, I emerged from the lobby stepping through the swinging back leaf of a pair of glass doors. sought my way through an open plan offices scattered with papers piled desks. No sooner did I sign a subcontract brickwork agreement on the corner of a desk, that I was off again, tracking my way back and finding my lackadaisical crew. By Friday after a jump of construction sites, to the proper site and, with pay time on the menu for laborers living from hand to mouth. I headed off irritated by the foreseeing doubling up of time away from site. I stepped in my earlier tracks at the beginning of the week to the main contractor's offices. at speaking distance and sparing an introduction at the woman seated low behind the counter, I said; "I'm here to collect a check." in slow motion, escaping with a turn away from her docile attitude, I swept a glance across the office floor. through the glazed curtain wall, thoughtless, and seeking distraction in the panoramic view, I picked out in the far distant suburb the relevant orientation by the white specks of stylish private properties. locate in the midst of flocculent green covered knuckles the approximative
The writer evokes a life's network of astral experiences, arranged in a chronology of jumps of subjects giving priority, yet not necessarily sticking to a timeline, but rather subjects of a theme, episodes in a collection, out of the writer's manuscript, or tome, in the context of an elaborate Odyssey of my mind expressed in; "another way of thinking."

spot where a few days earlier I completed my contract but, rather a conscious taking about an economic no-sense of my work. I stepped a away and back to the counter, when a white man bearing a beer belly approached and breaking an intuitive moment; 'Not under these conditions.' the stranger in his stride with devouring eyes on me, saw his wild unfamiliar reflection. He took no count, with an anxious need at greeting, befriending me his contractible handshake sensing his emotions weren't reciprocal. Instead, he exulted in a fan's voice, saying; "We watched you, and for the whole day!" the subcontractor painter shook me. He revived a figure perched high and plumb above me leaning on the balcony. in utter dismay he gradually turned, hesitant, stepped around, and moved on. I watched the beaten figure leaving, his emotion left me in the lurch by his trailing words, saying; "...the painters from the seventh floor?" I followed the man by sight, confused as he headed straight for the far distant double doors glazed door, where I entered earlier. He disappear in the moment I was distracted by a right side call of a fervent figure storming from the daylight upon me. A ghosting figure dressed in a brown suit, tie and shirt, treaded in the steps of the painter before him. Gradually, I acquainted the man emerging from the daylight with the signing of my subcontract agreement. With long strides he seemed to cut a way through the mounts of paperwork that cluttered the office desks, eyes popping and darting me. in his approach, I read the man's mind, saying in other words what the painter told me earlier; '...The construction manager arrived on site in dismay that a fourteen wheeler horse and trailer of bricks vanished he questioned us on the phenomenon we lifted our shoulder, pointing over the balcony to the driveway; the bricks are well and gone into the retaining wall?' but, I had Illustration: sight on my check held back in the site manager's hand, teasing me with the man's mental question; 'How did you 1. there is a part of guessing, at quantifying get that right?' while I saw that long queue on a Friday the bricks, these are the known afternoon at the Standard bank cashing in checks. With elements; the trucks used by Brikor at little to say, in view that it was my job to lay bricks and the time, giving a fairly good estimate of that I was organized by with a deep sense of being the bricks delivery to site. partisan of the least effort. I virtually swipe my check from the man's grip, and turned away to step in the tracks of 2. The manual handling of bricks, have the ghosting painter for the exit, when it dawned on me been a fascination, and represented as that I must have done something titanic to deserve all that a combination of cat leaps and ducks in attention. flight.

a few days earlier, I stepped out the house in a morning atmosphere as the white sky came creeping over my shoulders to reflected the spanking new white pickup from an overnight of a midweek shift of construction sites. At contrast with weathered and used equipment loaded the previous evening brick profiles lie along the scaffold planks cantilevered front and rear the body, tied together with trestles on top of the carrier. upside-down wheelbarrows shy with small tools and equipment were boxed on the loading bed. I stepped in the cabin, assured that the hitched industrial-yellow concrete mixers was to follow wherever I set to head off for and drove away, mapping my way across the open Highveld country toward the distant PUTCO bus terminal at the outskirt of the Johannesburg. I approached the concrete overpass to find the bunch of figures standing along the curb. Slowing down, I entered the night air moving up to the creepy daylight at the other extreme of the bridge. There, the native men's white eyeballs were turned in my direction with a lackadaisical expression that read; 'What will be will be,' and came off from sorting through a trickle of traffic that panoramic windshield to fetch theme. Frozen in their posture, I pulled up by the bunch's sweeping eyesight coming down from the windshield, to brush along the passenger door into the rear without a movement until the coming to a halt of the side panel. The men flocked to the rear. by the sound of the metallic stampede, I twisted in my seat, glanced through the rear window, and watched the climbing figures in the forefront of the concrete mixer until the last of hand grip on the carrier's steel pole and movement with a spider crawl from the rear bumper over the tailgate. As the calm returned and the figures were seated amongst a bricklayer's equipment on the bed and in a shade of overhead load, my body uncoiled and I pulled off. I followed a course eastward fetching a mental map which in part orientating me through the countryside after leaving behind the township. I travel along while the city outskirts straggled off into the distance hill brow. At a spectral farsighted cloverleaf of a then unimaginable freeways breaking the pivot of the lonely glass tower from the facing Bedfordview suburb approaching from the opposite quarter, the country road curved around a futuristic picnic resort, of woods leading me toward Johannesburg and merging with the international airport thoroughfare at the other side of the hill brow. I checked my memorized directive received from the construction manager, and eased off left by a road pointer to weave a way deep into the suburb with ease for a moment of reflection. the air through the vents warmed up, and drew me to glance over the street, with an eight o'clock sun at rest over the green flocculent in-leaf swells that treaded the horizon my biological clock. I wonder whether a late start was going to lead a workforce to see a premature sunset, when I sensed entrapped with a loss of direction. I shifted eyes seeking and found no issue, than continued. emerge from the trap, re-orientated by circling a mount to square up to the thoroughfare which I left moments earlier. when over the ridge a pointing straightedge toward the leading blacktop surface, stepped up the penthouse deep glazed strip of apartments confronted with a glazed balcony railing across the concrete floor slab. Step by step while approaching the roll over street, the concrete slabs mounted the building to its dominant position. The downhill exposed the cowering garden swell looming white shards of shy private properties through the knuckly landscape. With the street leveling out, I shunted across the right lane and pull up in part on the driveway apron a short distance up to a mass of stacked bricks. The other side of the pickup facing the tail end of a ghosting eighteen wheeler horse's trailer. With figures in a line of sight, in an activity of bending over and picking from a kiln hot load with a slap of black rubber flapa bricks. by a sweep of joined hands, the coiling figures let go behind them the bricks in unison take flight through the air. On the sidewalk, a series of figures were catching the flying bricks. while stack piling the bricks at their feet they rose from the ground to level up with the trailer bed. At the last brick, the figures brought out brooms, brush down the crumbs and dust prior to the experiences vanishing from my mind.

I squinted and through the shaded driveway hollowing out along the foot of the elevated facade. In the depth of the apartment block and opposing midway up an hillside cut back. at the base lies the sleek white shine of a green-concrete strip as a remedy to the bulky and uncivilized tease. On halt while assuring my place of work, the sign rippled to men, a feet cascade of hits against the metallic panel, interrupted with thumps to the ground. When I stepped out and came around to break into the little group alongside the pickup. in Afrikaans introduced the team to their tasks. I moved on leaving behind a scattering crew. I arrived at my place of work by the lash of shifting eyes to the source of activity. a figure walked from the swan-neck faucet a thick black snaking construction hose to the top of the stack of bricks to lie with a fountain pour, soaking the kiln thirsty bricks imperative for a productive output. figures gathered by the yellow concrete mixer, unhitched, swiveled, and wheeled the machine up the driveway toward the dumper heaps of pit sand to rest. While in the forefront figures break into smaller teams, in the background perched on top of the pickup carrier, another group untied the equipment and were slipping down long green thick angle irons along with tinner counterpart legs to men on the ground. Moments later while I hunkered on the concrete base, these shadows in motion over me, in the midst of which I rose to my feet. My head where the arms of iron came together, the thicker iron erect on the crisscrossing pencil lines, while bleached palms were at grips with bolts and nuts and introduced the supports. The activity about me split up, moved with their equipment toward the other extreme of the concrete strip. in the vicinity, a few hands fetched weights and packed bricks on the steel shoes, Illustration: (not to scale) while I was aiming to center a water bubble in the spirit level for plumb. In the distance the little whining engine called my attention, after Corner profile, with the pair of I hooked the corner-block entwined with the line to the profile lining up stays, and the green inset the fish the pencil mark for the underground course. I stepped off representative of the wooden leaving behind the gateway to the covered parking, and glanced line block. across my way, at the driving figures turning the mixer's wheel. I watched an elephant mortar dung texture fall from the hollow of the revolving drum splashing into the wheelbarrow. moved up slipping the fishing line taut through my fingers, and came by the street front profile. There I slipped the line through the slit of a corner-block, and with a few merciless jerks adjusted the block to the spring. entwined the line, and hook the block assured without slack. Adjusted the height for the course, and ready to start off, went spotting the figures across the mixer, warmed up in their routine by the sidewalk stack piled of brick. waking from sleep each bricks with alternating metamorphosing foursome hands and a finger grip giving legs and a tail to the brick, the black hand blending a patchy red pelt to a cat leap monster jumping from the pile to the elbow, onto the hip, knee to disappear inside the wheelbarrow. overhead the sun appeared on a tread in the sky prior to nine o'clock, while reflecting a golden shine across the lengthy and height alternating glazed patio doors and the balconies

surfaces, peering a glow down that dissolve its regard in the gearing up mechanism of the driveway shade. There, double folded squeezing my organs into a position unknown since evolving form an animal poise, while figures wheeled in a to and fro confusion wheelbarrows in my line of sight. In alternance this figure coming by my side, with an energetic shovel inside the wheelbarrows mixed the mortar that vibrated in transport and in the mortar board from drying a crust, keeping a creamy and consistent texture, aimed at production output. I ghosted in a wild boar's crawl through undergrowth, feet stepping backward, my right hand on the grip of the trowel, swiping a heap of mortar off the board, bringing the scoop across and spread the concrete surface. Left handled picked a brick from the small stack breaks alternated by mortar board along the footway. on all fours, embedding on thick mortar on-edge headers till the run of mortar ran dry. I exerted patience, continued with stretchers and with alternant steps leveling off the base course. I returned to the start, lining up bricks to sleep in a bed of mortar. In a comings-and-goings walked from end to start my torso bears over the growing previous course, begun back packing the one brick thick wall alternating a stretcher course with headers to finish with a grout wash. As the wall grew in front of me, my spine unfolding, to a straight human posture and ease working erect, short lived as the semi-face courses outgrew my shoulders and slacked my output dragging along the whole team with their equipment. Sharp as a sword with a swing I behead a brick, light as a leaf I swipeb mortar off the board, and with a toothpaste nurdle precision my trowel serves half-dozen brick long mortar bed. a point as fine as a clay sharper for a fine calligraphic draw across the horizontal and perpendicular joint collecting a little of the excedent of mortar after the brick lies to sleep in a bed of mortar with a pillow pressed at the foot of the precedent brick. With a sun's curiosity fading away from the well geared up biomechanical motion, I stepped away and left the half-height wall behind as a sign. In a moment movement of chaos spread clearing my working space till crumbs of bricks amongst outlined mortar boards spills prepared the ground. The labor folly quietened with men bringing up steel trestles from the pickup in the street and unfold the legs along the wall. A chain of scaffolding planks followed and came to lie across the supports. As a trafficable cat walk came to order, I crawled with two of on-hand helpers, to stand and momentary turned away from a top view on a wall shrunk to the toes of my cement bleached shoes. Seeing over the edge figures steering from the driveway wheelbarrows to wheel Illustration: its load to disappear below the extreme edge from An artisan's tools is not any tool, and view. in sight, the driving figures changing tasks in a comparable to any artist work. moment of hesitation, hands metamorphosed black fingers with the red brick blending a patchy monster to life, which cat leaps from the blind wheelbarrow to the elbow, onto the hip, up the shoulder to rest on the edge of the scaffold and accumulating in small stacks. Alongside, by the shovel, pelts of mortar fly through the air to land along the brick stakes. Seeing the mechanism rolling, I turned my back to face the starting profile, moved over, bending down,and double folded stepping backward walking by hand bricks behind the taut nylon line to sleep in a bed of mortar.

I kept focused on the unending mortar nurdle behind the taut line while up front, black hands sprightly and sweeping were morphing those cat leaps fledging feathers. in flight through a man's fingers ducky wings fluttered a comfortable and agile course through the airs, to line-up to the nurdle of a landing strip. spreading wing for me to grab the somewhat three kilograms of clay with a mere clay sharper engraving pinch inscribing a letter in the wet surface. With a change of hands to a ducky water landing that slips palms up the breaking bow across the mortar nurdle. By the momentum of dead weight collecting at the head of the slowing down brick a buffer of mortar pressing up the rear of the previous brick and auto buttered the 'Perpc.' however unconventionald a method the bricks in chain, stringing up the phrase of a thought on the wall on improving my output. I gave the mute helpers a break after rolling off each course at catching up. I moved to the starting point and with a sliding to-and-fro motion pressured the Long Jointer along setting mortar. I returned to raise the Perp's tool and made a similar passage with an additional pinch at the previous course blending the indentation in a unified smooth grid. I was bent over and moving backward raising brick courses, when an inadvertent calling parsec-raye burned in the back of my neck. From the middle of my head, the beacon of eyesight, too abstract at piercing my conscious, engaged a pursuit. Unwittingly, my eyes rolled aside and cranked my head on course, jumping the emptiness of a ground floor without resonance for anchor. Instead, moved up to hang onto an invisible panoramic elevator rising along the facade. The invisible cable-way cabin stopped by a few shaded figures underneath a roof wide sunlight wings across the slab. meeting of eyes, I found the mysterious source, and questioned the man by sight featuring in a painter's overall and comfortable at bearing his beer belly. In the limelight of the resting figure, propped on both bent arms and leaning over the translucent yellow balcony railings. Indifferent about being left alone, while behind him two sets of eye shifting departing figures went into hiding inside, as before them the sun eclipsed over the building. But, the patio glazed doors lost that morning daylight reflection to a transparent interior of vacant apartments. Their comportment read in contradiction, to their leader who showed a sincere exaggerated curiosity glued to that spot, a shying away from soiling their pride. Such as the anticipated evening current of air announced by a cooling atmosphere, I chilled a painter's feelings, while in the grip of impatience I focused on my scheduled performance returning an indifferent gaze and moving on laying bricks and rolling off courses. I jumped down from the scaffold to the ground. Escaped the monster of a wall, with its spirit grabbing my shoulders, fearing that physical demand at feeding another brick. my step preceded me. Behind, I left the little teams gather. refuted another glance back, until, I saw in the driveway pool of water the reflection of a concrete mixer reduced to silence. Until, I crossed a battle field of used cement bags, across the circles tracings on the ground the heaps of sand which had vanished. Until, in my field of sight the pickup faced home, gleamed against the exposure across the street through the green knuckles the distant city. feeling I crossed that finishing line, I glanced over my shoulder at the figures. At hand crumpled into sponges the thick brown paper torn from cement bags, and buffing down the wall. After them, the scaffolding came down by a dramatic exhaustion of muscles. the bottom of the wall came under the buffers, while men at loss of their morning sprightly movements, dragged in inverse motion to hitched the concrete mixer, uploading tools, crawling after the dismantled equipment to perch against a pastel blue sky tying down the gear. behind the men, with an added gleam of a moist terra cotta freshness the driveway appeared refined. the men climbed the rear of the pickup, and seated, I pulled off. the day's every body bend and twist, the limb of every man coordinating their tools, rehearsed in mind the results of a successful machine. In time haunted by the idea of mechanization, imagining each figure as an organ of an ideal bricklaying machine, which by the ins-and-outs, the ups-and-downs around tight corners, the heavy industrial motorized steel of my imagination was unlike to accomplish. But, one thing remained, which I repeated to my daughter in times of difficulties; "Find the technique, and you've won!"

... a /... hand shaped cutout of an inner tire tubes with slit for a wrist likes elastic band hold ... b /... Quality of a trade's man's tool ... c /... In the trade language the perpendicular joint ... d /... One learns a technique, and like a signature this gets adapted to one's style of working. Some technical data; a 14 wheeler horse and trailer between some 8000 bricks, a 7 men laborer crew 1 man uploading cement and sand to the concrete mixer, mixing mortar, and tilting the mortar into the wheelbarrows, 2 men wheeling to fetch by the tilting mixer the mortar and upload the mortar board. 2 men packing bricks, 2 men, one behind spreading mortar on the wall, the other in front passing bricks at hand ... e /... Elsewhere details on the phenomenon of the eyesight.