#ill

We drove 22 miles into the country around Farmington. There were meadows and apple orchards. White fences trailed through the rolling fields. Soon the sign started appearing. THE MOST PHOTOGRAPHED BARN IN AMERICA. We counted five signs before we reached the site. There were 40 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 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." There was an extended silence. The man in the booth sold postcards and slides. "Being here is a kind of spiritual surrender. We see only what the others see. The thousands who were here in the past, those who will come in the future. We've agreed to be part of a collective perception. It literally colors our vision. A religious experience in a way, like all tourism." Another silence ensued. "They are taking pictures of taking pictures," he said. ↗

— Don DeLillo

#don-delillo #humor #photography #satire #tourism

I thought, after the Pulitzer, at least nothing will surprise me quite that much in my life. And another one happened. It was quite amazing. ↗

— Rita Dove

#amazing #another #happened #i #least

It is important that the United States move with all deliberate speed to develop and get into usage alternative fuels that will allow us to end our dependence on foreign oil. ↗

— Virgil Goode

#alternative #deliberate #dependence #develop #end

Every single country that has an auto industry is stepping forward to help that auto industry. Why wouldn't we help this industry too, because it needs 3.5 million jobs. ↗

— Jennifer M. Granholm

#auto industry #because #country #every #forward

I remember Glenn Miller coming to me once, before he had his own band, saying, How do you do it? How do you get started? It's so difficult. I told him, I don't know but whatever you do don't stop. Just keep on going. ↗

— Benny Goodman

#before #coming #difficult #get #glenn

As soon as it was understood that we could handle things in our own way, it was the thrill of my life to walk out on that stage with people just hemming the band in. ↗

— Benny Goodman

#could #handle #just #life #my life

Where's the progress that we're going to see in Afghanistan? You have to keep public support both on the economy and the war or these things will really become troubling. ↗

— Doris Kearns Goodwin

#become #both #economy #going #keep

We know there are a lot of people in the unemployment pool that do not match up in their skill set for what jobs are going to be created, and that's an area we've got to keep pressing on. ↗

— Austan Goolsbee

#created #going #got #jobs #keep

I do genuinely believe that the political system is not linear. When it reaches a tipping point fashioned by a critical mass of opinion, the slow pace of change we're used to will no longer be the norm. I see a lot of signs every day that we're moving closer and closer to that tipping point. ↗

— Al Gore

#change #closer #critical #critical mass #day

We have been trying to play a lot of different kinds of music, and probably the next album will go back more towards the direction where you couldn't classify each song as a certain kind of music. This album you can. ↗

— Mike Gordon

#back #been #certain #classify #different