Hil Hits a Homer

Hil posts a “nature” photo of stuffed animals at the American Museum of Natural History. There are objections.

I suppose there’s a truth-in-advertising issue here, something deeply felt at this particular time and in places where these notes are read.

Remember the young lady from Kuwait who in 1990 stood before the world and told us how she watched helplessly while Iraqi invaders dumped babies on the nursery floor and stole their incubators? Statistics show that an Olympic pool could’ve been filled with the tears shed by her CNN audience. After the war we learned she’d made it all up. Now, when you think about it, that turns her story into theater, and pretty good theater too. I’d much rather witness somebody telling a big lie that helped start a war than watch some fear-jerking news story about Iraqi atrocities. Atrocities are a dime a dozen.

My point? If her story had been true we would’ve been getting the news at second hand and so what. But in fact we saw a story actually happening. We even acted a part in it ourselves. Now, that’s history hot off the griddle. It’s also one way art can be realer than real life.

Another reply to animadversions on Hil’s photo.

Books could be written. Books have been written, though never by photographers. (Think of Susan Sonntag.) The lesson to be learned, maybe, is that everything (including the photograph) is an object and enjoys equality before the laws of physics. Don’t mistake the ding for the ding an sich, the quiddity for the quidditas, the name for the song. Don’t commit the sin of synecdoche.

Hil’s visit to the Museum reminds me of a night course Chris and I took there twenty-five years ago, lessons on gems taught by a famous gemologist. Everybody loved this guy. He looked, acted and talked like a longshoreman. And he laughed at the people who brought him cut stones of great antiquity to admire. “This may be from Queen Isabella’s diadem!” He’d guffaw. “Lady, this stone was made by some volcano two hundred million years before Isa-beller was born! There’s no such things as antique gems.” He, at least, knew what the meaning of “is” was.