Photos 08 Jul 2008 08:13 am
Creepers
- There was an excellent documentary on PBS this past Thursday. It was called, “Home.” Perhaps it was just local channel 13/WNET that aired it. The show was a documentary about New York from the vantage point of outsiders who’d moved here. The director, Alan Cooke, interviewed lots of celebrity types; Frank McCourt, Liam Neeson, Alfred Molina, Rosie Perez, Mike Myers, Colin Quinn, Susan Sarandon and Woody Allen offered choice comments throughout the show.
Malachy McCourt, at one point, said that the City was cold and difficult. Even the sidewalks were cold, hard concrete. Yet in these sidewalks there were always cracks with bits of life shooting up from the least likely places.
Wall-E offers a world of no vegetation, and we have to accept that premise. Yet, reality shows us that nothing can stop the bits of green from stopping in the coldest of extreme. George Carlin once said that styrofoam was not going to destroy life on earth. It was just going to stop HUMAN life on earth. He speculated that perhaps humans were put here specifically to invent styrofoam so that the earth could continue after all humans died off using styrofoam for whatever it needed. Even the devestated Hiroshima and Nagasaki have already recovered from the nuclear onslaught some sixty years ago. Grass grows there.
Here are bits of grass, life and plants creeping out from the least likely places.
(Click any image to enlarge.)______________
To me, it’s more likely that 700 years after the humans left earth,
the planet would have looked more like the photos below.
Madison Square Park is looking gorgous these days.
on 08 Jul 2008 at 9:33 am 1.Masako said …
Although every year I engage in constant battle with the weeds infestation in my yard, I have to admit I hold a certain admiration toward them. They are the masters of survival, always adapting to their environment and thriving. Pardon me for being philosophical: Manicured gardens are beautiful but I find myself fascinated by the weeds. As if they are saying: Don’t give up. Be at it. And eventually you will find the perfect soil to grow tall and strong. I think that independent sparks for life, beautiful.
on 08 Jul 2008 at 3:43 pm 2.Mike McMenamin said …
And yet, whenever I try to grow something, it dies. Maybe I should give potted weeds a try.
on 08 Jul 2008 at 10:29 pm 3.Tom Stathes said …
Living in the suburbs of NYC, I’m all too familiar with family and friends who go on green-killing sprees, that is, spraying the weeds and grass that grow from the sidewalks so that they die. Never mind killing off the greenery, imagine all the chemicals being put right into our sewers from this. Just goes to show you the psyche of some who prefer the cold, lifeless concrete over its beautiful green counterpart. Why not kill nature for the sake of cosmetics? That is contradiction at its finest.
on 10 Jul 2008 at 11:20 am 4.Alex said …
You might be interested in Guerrilla Gardening then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrilla_gardening
http://www.guerrillagardening.org/