Observation of the Eighteenth.

The streets have a street light shine on them. One would swear the rain had just stopped dropping on them. It has not rained for days. The atmosphere is of such a composition that the tarmac seems unable to shake the grip of the tiny gloms of hydrogen and oxygen. Photographers prefer streetscapes to look wet when photographing them. It seems they look sexier, zoomier, much more of an ‘unattainable presence concept’ when they are freshly hydrated. Light dances on wet asphalt in way that it does on little else. How else can such a prehistoric medium look so delightful? How else can a city, so easily, maximize its light value than by drenching its hard-scape so that nearly all surfaces become highly reflective? Ironically, when the city is wet, when the ground is bouncing light as fast as it can process it, they feel more unsafe. It could be that when one steals a glance over their shoulder, they not only see the world above their sight line, they also see that world reflected in the ground below their sightline. They see each person, each shadow, each unidentified-moving-object, twice. One would think that this ‘double’ vision would make the walker seem more comfortable, and informed, it is not so. The walker is disconcerted, the sound of footfalls is different, the dropping of dew on an alley garbage can lid there is even a feeling of eyes, a great many eyes upon him. It would seem now that the once thought great ability to see an object as well as its reflection, is turned out to be a great vulnerability to the walker, a chink in the armor.

djmase

12.18.07