Friday, March 19, 2010

The Hiroshima Experiment


Some half baked photos for you.

7 comments:

Benjamin Ady said...

Posited: If you call Hiroshima an experiment, then you necessarily have to call every new introduction of a higher (lower?) technology for death and destruction an experiment as well.

The person who posted the pictures you linked seems to have a lot of anger. I wonder if this anger is helping him get what he wants? I wonder if there are other ways to get what he wants, which aren't as detrimental for his health? Mostly, i wonder what he wants.

Marty said...

For some reason, the sound of the words "The Hiroshima Experiment" just clicked - no real thought to it. I see that his next picture has the word 'experiment' in the caption. However, I would have no objection to calling each new advance in wartime technology an experiment if you like, as if each new explosive device were part of a dispassionate scientific inquiry.

I (seem to) recall your seeing anger in some prior album, which I didn't see, or don't see in this one. I admit, I don't bother looking. I did notice some hatchets flying through the air about Hitler, but I thought the colorization was striking, and he looked feeble.

This picture of Hiroshima is the one that I found stunning, however. The grainy picture of a man half baked, being attended by a nurse, with a soldier looking on, startled me. And a beautiful nurse. When I cam back to it, I noticed that she herself, and the other solder, were badly burned.

I expect that the photo did not melt the heart of God any more than it is usually melted, something I find hard to understand, to comprehend.

Benjamin Ady said...

I also find it hard to understand God. The main reason I find it hard to understand him/her is because I don't/can't see how to have conversations with him/her. They seem very one sided. One sided conversations work for me in helping me understand the person who's doing all the talking. But the conversations with God all seem to be one sided the other direction. Or if not, then he/she is just all pissy and royal, like with Job. It's hard to grow in understanding of someone who is main stance toward one is fear/anger.

Marty said...

I don't think that God is afraid of me or angry at me. The notion that it is a mortal sin not to go to mass on Sunday is what does it for me: that His not seeing me again in church each Sunday is a new affront to Him I find comforting. They say it is an ill wind that blows no man good.

But I am thinking that His priorities are so different from ours, that there is almost no way He is going to help us with what we want. He is just going to watch the mess. Christ healed a few people, when it served His purpose - there were many lepers, many widows. But what is His purpose?

The only idea is that it is like a painter who paints scenes of disaster or happiness with equal attention. Are we only paintings? Apparently, and Him too.

Maybe "The Hiroshima Experience"? A heavy metal band?

Benjamin Ady said...

God and man as paintings? If we are all, I hope we are Van Gogh's, and not Picasso's.

Hiroshima seems like such a distant horror, in light of more recent events. The really creepy thing is the banality of evil. It's not the dropping of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's all the relatively normal people who have gone to work 9 to 5 since then, building 100,000 plus extant nuclear warheads 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, decade after decade. And church every Sunday morning. Their kids going to school every day saying "under God" while saluting the American flag. etc.

Marty said...

on the painting idea. god is sitting around and decides to paint - paints heaven. hmm turns out its real, so he steps into it. paints more, earth, people, also real, and so steps into the painting of earth. warns the people not to eat the realistic apples, the paint has too much cadmium, poison. they do anyway. he decides to leave. things are getting a little crazy, and steps out, back into heaven. the people find they can paint too! its a paint by numbers thing, but still. like the drawing of one hand drawing another hand drawing the first hand. god decides not to step back in, but to add his own picture, his self portrait: jesus. well that didnt go like expected, but what do you expect?

Benjamin Ady said...

Martin--brilliant! and I'm a huge fan of Escher. here's the drawing you referenced. Yes, it seems likely God is more like Escher than either Van Gogh or Picasso. Perfect!