Bubbles

[poliphilo]

Sad thoughts are such fun. No really they are. Especially thoughts of death. 

Why else would one be a goth? Or watch autopsies on TV? Or fetishize Heath Ledger's Joker?

Death absolves us of responsibility.  Death stops the pain.  Death is the comforter.

I have four little pots of bubble mixture lined up on my work station. Bubbles are symbols of mortality. 

Poussin's Dance To The Music of Time is a 17th century Vanitas painting. It's all about the brevity of human life and the vanity of human wishes. The dancers represent the seasons- whirling round so fast. And check out the miserable little kid in the bottom left hand corner with the bubble pipe.

. 

My pots of bubble mixture were handed out at weddings. They're in the shape of  a three-tiered wedding cake with a heart on  top. Ha!

If I'm feeling discouraged I take time out to blow bubbles. It never fails to cheer me up.

Comments

[ingenious76.livejournal.com]

Interesting points about death, especially the point about goths. I've met many, and whilst they may talk of looking forward to death, I've not actually come across one who has slashed their wrists yet. Its a way of making yourself appear cool and interesting without having to actually do anything. Or a way of trying to put yourself beyond the normal attention-seeking boundaries of "nobody understand me."

As for the fetishising of Heath Ledger's joker - this is part of the reason I'm a bit leery of going to see the Dark Knight. I can't help but wonder how many of the audience will be ambulance-chasers.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The goths I've known have all been quite lively people.

Heath Ledger's Joker is a 21st century version of the capering skeleton of the medieval danse macabre. The fact that he was dead before the film came out takes things to a whole other level of weird.