Quote from a Belle email
"This might be like being sober, right? we look at the photo (woman on a patio with a wine glass) and we forget to play the tape forwards and backwards, to remember that we need to see it from all sides -- how long has she been sitting there, does she come every day, will she go home and have more, will she drink and drive. We think we can tell everything from that one photo, but we can't. we get a snapshot in time. to see the whole thing, we need to remember to play the video. play it forward."
I think this is much more profound even than that. Because we are looking not just at an instant, a moment in time, but at an image of an instant - never mind the forward and backward, there is all the infinite richness of what is happening in that instant, which somehow gets flagged or pointed to or squeezed by that image, so that all that is associated with that moment (of which the drink in the glass may really be an insignificant detail), the scents, the air, the feelings, are all keyed to the fact or image of the drink. The drink becomes the key, the signifier. If I have that drink in my hand, then I have everything else as well. And we make the same mistake with so many things - a particular piece of clothing, a place, a meal, a snatch of music, a person - it's not exactly a mistake, it's a shorthand, but we end up living in a world of symbols and signifiers, and never actually experiencing the wonder and beauty and freshness of this moment, this now; we're always looking back through all the signifiers to other past moments (and even they may just be a collection of signifiers). Eventually alcohol's numbingness is absolutely essential to fill up the emptiness of all those symbols and signposts.
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| Loads of sun, happy battery |
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| very funny |
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| random, but interesting. an accidental photograph |
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| tiny mosses on a paving slab in the Simpson Morfey's garden, at exactly the right angle to catch the afternoon sun |
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| Bonnevaux is down there - top centre, the lake looks like an opening quote, looking south |
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Say anything you like. I do.