Monday, December 3, 2012

Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre

Well, what to do when there’s nothing to write about?
The news—just horrible, as always. Who needs it, especially on a Monday?
Talk about the cruise? Nah—vacation stories are boring. (As well as golf and psychotherapy accounts….)
Well, the obvious choice is to borrow someone else’s creativity for a while.
Hey—what about Chris Jordan? He’s dripping with the stuff. Take a look at what he created!


Right—I can hear you. You’ve seen it before; you’re not impressed.
OK, take a closer look…

Starting to get it? The next one makes it obvious.


The project is called “running the numbers,” and here’s what a commentator has to say:
Cans Seurat, 2007 – depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every thirty seconds.
The work of photographer Chris Jordan examines American consumption – his latest series of photographs. “Running the numbers” looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. Jordan's hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone.
Damn, where do guys get these ideas! Take a look at this….

Investigating further, the story turns grim. And today, this blogger begs you—watch the video below. Try to get to the end—I couldn’t.

Why?
I was weeping too hard.
But it’s necessary.
Now we know what rough beast, its hour come round at last, is slouching to Bethlehem to be born.
Mankind.
Us.

2 comments:

  1. Humankind is the most destructive invasive species of all and of all time. My entire end-of-year charitable donation budget is going to Planned Parenthood. It will be easier to cut down on the number of people than on people's use of pollutants: Thoreau said, "For every thousand hacking at the branches of evil, there' is one striking at the root."

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  2. Actually might be a good idea....

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