Wednesday, March 19, 2008

No Crows For Me

There was an item in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about an unusual number of crows inhabiting Allegheny Cemetery over the winter. Of course Miss Kitty and I had to go and check out this claim. We did run across a large flock of them that flew over head, but I didn't get any shots of them, and birds are notoriously difficult subjects to work with.
Still, we wandered around the expansive grounds of the graveyard, cold day though it was. Somewhere during this it occurred to me: We don't take death as seriously now as we once did. By 'we' I mean Americans, and by 'seriously' I mean eternal rest. Looking at the ornate monuments at first I thought, Wow, they had more money than sense. But then I thought, Ok, they had money and they wanted to make a statement with some of it. I would never do this because I have nothing to say - and if you read this blog you know how painfully true that is - and yet I love the silent stoicism of these sculpted monuments. Especially when they're blanketed in snow. A static image unmoved, literally frozen, backdropped by a sky nearly as dark gray as the granite pedestals.
Oh, you know, it all lends itself to flights of fancy, meandering thought, while wandering around the bone yard weighing what came before, is no more, and won't be back again.

5 comments:

Natazzz said...

I heart cemeteries. Especially old ones, recent ones don't seem to have as much character. Not sure if that's because people are too cheap these days to buy their loved ones complete tombs, or because of boring rules and regulations. Probably both.

When I was younger I'd go and visit cemeteries ever place I went (I was very impressed by the cemeteries in Seatle).

I always thought they were very peaceful. That, and they made great locations for photo shoots.

Anonymous said...

I visit cemeteries only for historic, not spiritual reasons. I loved your last sentence. That´s what they are for, to think about, to remember what is no longer existent.

You have got nothing to say? You are so wrong about that, so wrong.

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

Like a parade, everybody loves a cemetery :)

Anonymous said...

Jennifer wrote: "...weighing what came before, is no more, and won't be back again."

Hmm, then again...

All elementary particles are either bosons or fermions (depending on their spin). The spin-statistics theorem identifies the resulting quantum statistics that differentiates fermions from bosons. According to this methodology: particles normally associated with matter are fermions, having half-integer spin; they are divided into twelve flavours. Particles associated with fundamental forces are bosons, having integer spin.

Fermions:
Quarks — up, down, charm, strange, top, bottom
Leptons — electron neutrino, electron, muon neutrino, muon, tau neutrino, tau
Bosons:
Gauge bosons – gluon, W and Z bosons, photon
Other bosons — Higgs boson, graviton

Just sayin' ;)

jennifer from pittsburgh said...

Gypsy, if you're going to drag physics into this, please include Zen warning space ;)