the great american way
So over the weekend I drove my friends Allen and Lu up to Devil's Tower and Mt. Rushmore. And in the past I always thought that trips like that were about the scenery--you know, taking pictures of magnificent sights and all. And, in fact, they are about the scenery, but they're not all about the scenery. Cuz if they were just about the scenery you could just buy a postcard and stay home. So I discovered, at age 29, that trips like this are really about placing yourself in the scenery--proving that you've had the experience too. Capturing yourself in a sublime moment, maybe.
If I wanted to go all literary on your asses, I'd mention the barn in DeLillo's White Noise. It's about how we've all seen the barn (or Rushmore, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or whatever) so many times that we don't even see the barn (or Rushmore, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or whatever) when we actually are standing right there in front of it, how we're really just seeing the compilation of memories of pictures of the barn that we're now, finally, seeing. But there's no reason to get all literary. I've been to Rushmore before, and to the Tower, and through Spearfish Canyon, and I've seen them in pictures before too. But I'm telling you, I'd never seen them before.
This time, it was about capturing a moment of myself--being able to mark this set of photos off as different from others I've taken when I've been there before. And of course, since nature is so damn imperceptibly slow to change, the easy way to mark change is by taking a picture of yourself.
For some people this will seem totally obvious. But not for me. I'm slow to some of these things.
So, I've now got pictures of Allen posing on a rock--a typical 60s Chinese pose, he says. I say it looks like the proud conqueror going boldly forth--and pictures of Lu flashing the peace sign our way with the Tower in the background, and pictures of all three of us picking George Washington's nose.
And while I'm pretty sure that we're not the first to capture these brilliant poses for all time, we're the only ones who mattered that day.
If I wanted to go all literary on your asses, I'd mention the barn in DeLillo's White Noise. It's about how we've all seen the barn (or Rushmore, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or whatever) so many times that we don't even see the barn (or Rushmore, or the Golden Gate Bridge, or whatever) when we actually are standing right there in front of it, how we're really just seeing the compilation of memories of pictures of the barn that we're now, finally, seeing. But there's no reason to get all literary. I've been to Rushmore before, and to the Tower, and through Spearfish Canyon, and I've seen them in pictures before too. But I'm telling you, I'd never seen them before.
This time, it was about capturing a moment of myself--being able to mark this set of photos off as different from others I've taken when I've been there before. And of course, since nature is so damn imperceptibly slow to change, the easy way to mark change is by taking a picture of yourself.
For some people this will seem totally obvious. But not for me. I'm slow to some of these things.
So, I've now got pictures of Allen posing on a rock--a typical 60s Chinese pose, he says. I say it looks like the proud conqueror going boldly forth--and pictures of Lu flashing the peace sign our way with the Tower in the background, and pictures of all three of us picking George Washington's nose.
And while I'm pretty sure that we're not the first to capture these brilliant poses for all time, we're the only ones who mattered that day.
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