Shit Happens

Shit happens. Does it mean anything? Usually not. Then why all the talking heads telling us what to think about two or three recalls of toys made in China? What does it mean? It means most toys are made in China, right? Naive fool! It means much more than that! Cross my palm with green and I'll tell you. So say the talking heads.

It's another aspect of apophenia, that human quality of finding faces in clouds and significance in everything that happens. These days intelligent folks find secular meanings; in the Middle Ages the meaning was a moral. T.H. White's translation of a medieval bestiary is a good read. The panther attracts his prey by opening his mouth and emitting a seductively sweet breath. Even so Satan lures us into his chow chomper with promises of sweet joy. The whale pretends to be an island so that shipwrecked mariners will camp on its back; then it dives and drowns them all. Even so Satan etc. Undsoweiter ad nauseam.

Shit happens, and some shit works. Story of evolution, story of the universe.

Photos happen too. And they're chock full of, um, meaning – ask any head.

Locksley Hall Springs to Mind

Comment to the photo linked above, by Karen Habbestad:

Like many of your recent photos, this suffers from Webification – it needs the details that the Web takes away. Even if it were higher-res, most folks probably don't have monitors and lighting suitable for viewing it.

I'm having the same problem. My printer died, and after some reflection I let it lie despite knowing what I've just said about the Web. Fact is, almost nobody ever saw the prints anyway; they cost more time, trouble and dollars than they were worth. Besides, the luminance range of a print can't compete with what you get on a luminous screen. Like printed books, photographic prints are retro. I know: retro has its charms for some, as witness the Hummer and the PT Cruiser. But I'm too old now to be charmed by recent history.

Problem is, the new tech isn't there yet. Everybody knows that pictures in frames hung on the wall will soon give way to hi-res walls that can display whatever scenery or Morris wallpaper or framed Rembrandts you like, so long as somebody pays the toll on copyrights for images created after 1923. But soon isn't now, nor is it soon enough for the checkout generation.

That said, I love the photo, with its balanced-off-center static composition, the fulcrum of the weeping "Delta," and the perfect underscore of the granite curbstone. View it is a bit like listening to a string quartet played over the telephone – if you know the music, it clicks into focus and you hardly notice what's missing.