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“Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove twenty-two miles into the country around
by bjshepard 10y ago
“Several days later Murray asked me about a tourist attraction known as the most photographed barn in America. We drove twenty-two miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the signs started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were forty cars and a tour bus in the makeshift lot. We walked along a cowpath to the slightly elevated spot set aside for viewing and photographing. All the people had cameras; some had tripods, telephoto lenses, filter kits. A man in a booth sold postcards and slides-pictures of the barn taken from the elevated spot. We stood near a grove of trees and watched the photographers. Murray maintained a prolonged silence, occasionally scrawling some notes in a little book.
"No one sees the barn," he said finally.
A long silence followed.
"Once you've seen the signs about the barn, it becomes impossible to see the barn."
He fell silent once more. People with cameras left the elevated site, replaced at once by others.
"We're not here to capture an image, we're here to maintain one. Every photograph reinforces the aura. Can you feel it, Jack? An accumulation of nameless energies.”
Excerpt From: Don DeLillo. “White Noise.” (published in 1985!)
- asoplata 10y agoMore people have independently recommended this book to me than any other. Now I HAVE to read it!
- mrexroad 10y agohighly recommended. read it over a decade ago, and still think of it often. the feelings/emotions, as they relate to all sorts of mundane aspects of society (e.g. the barn), haven't faded in the slightest.
- VLM 10y agoLike you'd expect, almost like an art installation, the kindle version costs $2.67 more than the paperback. Thanks middlemen!
- chrisseaton 10y agoWhy did you consider buying the Kindle version rather than the paperback? Because it's more convenient? Maybe that's why they're able to charge more for it.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoIn USA there are format shifting rights in the Fair Use doctrine I gather. So one could buy the book and scan it and create an ebook, as this is logically equivalent to getting a copy from a torrenting site but is far less economical and wastes more resources it seems the moral thing to do is buy the paperback and send it for pulping and download a copy of the ebook? The author gets paid, the publisher gets paid, you get the copy you want with less resource waste than scanning it for yourself. Anyone have a moral objection to that they'd care to elucidate.
- soperj 10y agoIs the torrenting it really illegal when you own the book already?
- tasnent 10y agoFor now.
- Crespyl 10y agoArguably, yes, since in bittorrent downloading content is directly tied to distribution of content. By torrenting a work you own in a different format, you are (potentially) also distributing that work to someone who doesn't already own a copy.
- soperj 10y agoSO just downloading without uploading should be fine?
- vijayr 10y agoSame thing at Times square during New Year's Eve. Almost no one looks at anything during that time directly, it is all through a camera lens. Which is fine, it is their choice - but it becomes super annoying when hundreds of flashes are going off around you, at the same time, and if you were the odd man out who actually wants to see things with your naked eyes than a lens, it is impossible. It is a real disappointing experience
- scrupulusalbion 10y agoI thinks its important whether they are taking pictures of people in those situations. Tourist locations get plenty of photographs, but the people doing the visiting are properly the object of photography. I don't care about yet another picture of the Eiffel tower; a picture of someone standing before the Eiffel tower is much more interesting.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoI was with him until the pseudo-babble about auras and energy. And it occurs to me: that situation was self-selected for those people. See, some folks are not really capable of the perception effort required to really look at something. To experience it fully. But they can buy a camera. Just go somewhere else. They apparently travelled through wonderful countryside to get there - just stop! Barns are not rare, and many are made on the same plan.
- Lambdanaut 10y ago> pseudo-babble about auras and energy Those labels are metaphors for an experience you may not be aware of. He's not talking about something measurable, but ethereal. It's akin to an artistic feeling. You can feel it through certain meditations and awareness practices. Claiming to know what it is is contrary to knowing it, because it transcends labels, but I will claim that there is a "something" to be experienced that can be referred to as "aural" or "energetic". It is the essence of something that is both inclusory of itself and its context. It grows beyond the thing itself. Seek and you may find it's more actual than our linear logic, and that it shows once and for all the absolute nudity of our emperor Logicae. It is for experience alone.
- coldtea 10y agoThe words "auras" and "energies" here have nothing to do with pseudo-babble, new age-ism or whatever. It's just a quite standard poetic / descriptive use of the word, in fact the term "aura" is used in its most common literal meaning -- those photographs of "the most photographed barn in the world" maintain its myth and it's allure. That's what he means with "auras" there. >And it occurs to me: that situation was self-selected for those people. See, some folks are not really capable of the perception effort required to really look at something. To experience it fully. But they can buy a camera. The idea behind the passage what that those "some folks" are increasing, or even the majority. It's not about there not still being other people who can appreciate the things they see.
- smrtinsert 10y agoPersonally I take and look at more photos these days then I did before. The reason is I feel free in ignoring major targets (Roman colliseum etc) and focusing on impromptu shots featuring people I love (spilling ketchup from burger all over ones shirt). To me, that's where my personal photography is heading and I find it much more valuable. I like feeling liberated from socially "important" photographs such as touristy spots. I never placed that much value on them if at all.