Everybody Has Some Idea What's Going On

Today I loaned a book about tapestries to a library patron. We had this brief exchange:

Him: My wife is going to see the Bayeux Tapestry so she wants to know a bit more about it.

Me: Oh, is it here?

Him: No, it's on loan to London.

Or words to that effect.

I've been mulling on the exchange since. Think of the assumed shared knowledge it reflects:

1) He assumed I'd heard of the Bayeux Tapestry. (Correct.)

2) He possibly assumed I'd heard that the Bayeux Tapestry was on exhibition in London. (I had actually heard this, but I'd forgotten the details.)

3) I assumed that, when I said "Oh, is it here?", he'd know I didn't mean that it was always here-- in Ireland, or in Dublin.

Everybody has some idea what's going on. The truth of this often strikes me and surprises me.

I mean, there's so much to know. Think of everything that happens in the world in a minute, in an hour, in a day, in a week...all those events piling up, and all the ages of history coming before them. And yet we can have a working assumption that people know what we're talking about when we talk about almost anything.

The Bayeux Tapestry is interesting in this regard. What other tapestry do you know about? I remember, when I was learning about it in school, thinking: "Why are we learning about a tapestry? This is history class." Probably the teacher did explain its importance as a historical source but I just wasn't listening.

Or maybe I'm being too harsh on myself. Maybe I did understand it's importance as a historical source but wondered why we were being taught about the thing itself in such detail.

The depiction of Halley's Comet on the Tapestry has always interested me as well. It seems so unusual and exceptional.

I can remember, in 1986 (when I was nine years old) being confused as to why people were getting so excited about the comet. Weren't there lots of comets? Now I'm very pleased that a pub in Dublin is named the Comet because it was built that year. (Or so I've heard.)