Fake Interview with a Tent Designer

For a few weeks at least once every year, generally coinciding with my rare hammock time, I live in a tent. This is a solitary, thankless and unrewarding. You pull it all out, lay it out on the dirt. Then the realisation hits. Tents are a massive pain in the ass. You have no idea how you set it up last year or the year before. You began crudely, like a child after huffing glue, jamming poles where they do and don’t belong and cursing. You are erecting the structure which will shelter you and your family for over a week.

The architecture of tents is a fascinating thing, especially as we enjoy our place in the Golden Era of tent design. There are domes, tunnels, popup, pyramid and a-frame. They have as many shapes and designs as much as they house broken dreams. Fortunately, because the Internet is fantasy, I’ve magically interviewed Marco Rossi, the designer of the Ferrino Proxes Advanced in which I’ve spent the past four summers.

Jim: Hi Marco. Nice to meet you. Thanks for taking the time from your busy life of sipping espresso all day up there in Torino in between lunch breaks. Now tell why the fuck is this thing leaking.

Marco: Thanks Jim, I also appreciate your time and your incompetence which clearly not just makes me feel better about myself, but is another example of how a tent is a mirror. The tent is a reflection of the owner and as it leaks, you leak. You think you followed the instructions, but you skipped parts didn’t you? You are the tent and you are the leak in society.

Jim: Fair. Now, can you tell me why this Jurassic Park looking type of bird (I swear it moves like a Velociraptor) keeps on shitting on the front, right corner of the tent?

Marco: That is simple. The tent is you. The bird is also you. Life is constant philosophical paradox. You are removed from yourself, as a baby from it’s mother, and you see the reason, how shit you put this thing up this year again, why you should shit on yourself. To me it’s fairly obvious.

Jim: It is now. Thanks. So Marco, how did you get this job?

Marco: Well you know the usual, I live by the mountains and my childhood, unlike yours was spent in the woods not because I didn’t have many friends, but because I was awesome and conquering mountains and winning awards and all that. My father was a postman and my mother said he was very honourable and both of those led right to architecture school. I always liked architecture, but not that much to have fancy glasses or anything. Mainly it could have been because I live in the town where they make them and the guy quit. But you know what Jim, what inspired me was the chapter “Boner for War” in the best book I’ve ever read which you wrote, The Gates of Vienna with the Ottoman tents, that really inspired me, you know the bit with the Vizier in front of the grand tent.

Jim: Yeah, it’s an obvious, career-defining scene for sure. So this thing is supposed to be for four people. Were you designing for halflings or humans?

Marco: I don’t like the tone of that question. I think this interview is over.