Emerging Slowly from the Dark
“Look what they’ve done to my brain, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my brain
Yeah, they picked it like a chicken bone
And they think I’m half insane, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song”
When I last published photographs, Bernie Sanders was still in the Presidential race. Four months have since lapsed. Today, seeing shirtless and bikini-clad teenagers roaming the Lakefront, I thought, “As a percentage of their live, four months is not so much time, as anxious as they might have been from being locked up with their parents and separated from their friends.” And then I thought of the twenty-somethings who fought in WWII. Their lives were put on hold for five years. Like teenagers today, the Greatest Generation still had plenty of years left when they entered the military, assuming they survived Pearl Harbor, Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and points in between. The war was a relatively early interruption in their lives. We Baby Boomers are proof of that fact: There was still ample time for a family, a career, and travel in retirement. With over 50 years intervening between Woodstock and our retirements, we Baby Boomers are now experiencing an interruption in our lives, albeit one that comes toward the end. Four months is a long time, particularly because it will likely extend to a year or so. Once you become eligible for Medicare, you don’t need Einstein’s Theory of Relatively to realize it’s the difference between the front-end and the back-end.
And so the question is: Will I now perceive time or the world differently? Is Covid-19 a lens filter that can’t be removed from the lens through which I see the world?
Today, I cheated a bit. I headed out with an infrared camera, which meant I was photographing through an 850-nanometer IR filter, thereby blocking part of the reflected light spectrum. It seemed right for one of my first outings.
Forget science; easy to do in the Age of Trump. it is the effect that matters. And that effect is definitely one way to skew how I see the world. Today, a reduced light spectrum fit my mood. Tomorrow and each day thereafter, we will see how my mood evolves as I come out of the ether, but continue to experience and digest the damage that Trump has done.
Let’s be clear, the entire pandemic is his fault. Had he done what he should have done from the outset, we wouldn’t be back to normal yet, but we would be a lot closer than we are today. Instead, he has chosen to steal our democracy and our time.
Unfortunately, however, the artist has no control over the external world. It rolls over us; it changes us. Only the coming weeks, months, and years will tell what the external world did to artistic visions. We should see some haunting, humorous, and angry output from writers, visual artists, dancers, and musicians. It should be fun and enlightening.
[Click on an Image to Enlarge It]
The Cytokine Storm Hanging Over Our Heads I
The Cytokine Storm Hanging Over Our Heads II
The Cytokine Storm Hanging Over Our Heads III
The Cytokine Storm Hanging Over Our Heads IV
