Those pictures made me wistful. I really like field guides, and being able to identify all the constellations, reptiles, insects, trees, bones, etc- anything I come across. It makes me feel good somehow to be able to name and label everything in my world.
Well one day I had a really cool professor who let me borrow his Field Guide to North American Fungus. I was all excited to go out fungus-hunting, but it had been a really dry season and there were no mushrooms to be found anywhere. And so I never learned my fungi.
So disappointing.
And then I see these pictures and think that I had had possesion of the fungus-book at the wrong time. If only, if only...then I could at least tell you exactly what kind of mushrooms those are.
But maybe it's time I learn to say things like- "Those are pretty" instead- "What phylum is this from?"
Mm, I don't know. I've never thought that knowing something's name and where it came from makes it any less pretty or interesting. In some cases, it makes it moreso, even. Why not say both? That's actually why I liked your painting-- it's a rendering of something from a medical text, but it's done in such a way that it becomes art.
Somebody I know who works in a hospital ER was talking about a photo she has of somebody's intestines, taken in black and white with subtle lighting. "It's like," she said, "if Mapplethorpe took pictures of internal anatomy."
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 01:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 06:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 06:53 pm (UTC)Sure, except they're all moldy now...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 02:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 06:53 pm (UTC)Yeah, I was thinking of it...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 03:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 06:54 pm (UTC)Three or four inches. I had the camera right down on the ground to get those pictures. 8)
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-24 08:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-25 10:08 am (UTC)Well one day I had a really cool professor who let me borrow his Field Guide to North American Fungus. I was all excited to go out fungus-hunting, but it had been a really dry season and there were no mushrooms to be found anywhere. And so I never learned my fungi.
So disappointing.
And then I see these pictures and think that I had had possesion of the fungus-book at the wrong time. If only, if only...then I could at least tell you exactly what kind of mushrooms those are.
But maybe it's time I learn to say things like- "Those are pretty" instead- "What phylum is this from?"
(no subject)
Date: 2003-08-25 10:14 am (UTC)Mm, I don't know. I've never thought that knowing something's name and where it came from makes it any less pretty or interesting. In some cases, it makes it moreso, even. Why not say both? That's actually why I liked your painting-- it's a rendering of something from a medical text, but it's done in such a way that it becomes art.
Somebody I know who works in a hospital ER was talking about a photo she has of somebody's intestines, taken in black and white with subtle lighting. "It's like," she said, "if Mapplethorpe took pictures of internal anatomy."