![Despite its diminutive size, the shuttlecock — a 2.7-inch high cone of white feathers stuck into a rounded cork base — seems to me to contain all the time and space of a long summer’s afternoon on a large green lawn. In its delicately ribbed frame are encapsulated pitchers of lemonade, the drone of bees, the smell of mown grass and the sun-baked mustiness of the garden sheds where shuttlecocks rest along with broken croquet mallets, dog-chewed Frisbees and trapped flies.
Considered in an urban environment, such as on a shelf in my Manhattan office, the shuttlecock is only half an object. While it hints at a future of action, the likelihood of it actually being borne aloft, into a sky free of telephone wires and sirens, is pretty slim. In its dormant state it becomes a mere shadow of its potential self in flight, when it thwacks through the air, cork base forward in an aerodynamic thrust that has inspired the design of space shuttles…
[Objectified]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/f1XnIBlrUd73up6nNhT8ZPcG_400.jpg)
Despite its diminutive size, the shuttlecock — a 2.7-inch high cone of white feathers stuck into a rounded cork base — seems to me to contain all the time and space of a long summer’s afternoon on a large green lawn. In its delicately ribbed frame are encapsulated pitchers of lemonade, the drone of bees, the smell of mown grass and the sun-baked mustiness of the garden sheds where shuttlecocks rest along with broken croquet mallets, dog-chewed Frisbees and trapped flies.
Considered in an urban environment, such as on a shelf in my Manhattan office, the shuttlecock is only half an object. While it hints at a future of action, the likelihood of it actually being borne aloft, into a sky free of telephone wires and sirens, is pretty slim. In its dormant state it becomes a mere shadow of its potential self in flight, when it thwacks through the air, cork base forward in an aerodynamic thrust that has inspired the design of space shuttles…
