well, i write again today to make an attempt at a few points of extra credit. I write on the photography of two individuals: Claude Sahon and E.Gilb. These two have work up downstairs at my school. I feel that Claude's work, pictures of dilapidated farm equipment against a stark landscape on the Eastern Plains of dear old Colorado, could indicate the spirit of America receding. The equipment looks like it's from about the turn of the century, perhaps a bit earlier, in a time not long after the great expansion West, that ever present theme in our history. but now we've made it one nation from coast to coast and have lost a reason for why it's one country. the coasts don't like the middle and the middle doesn't like the coasts. it's all a necessity, like that farm equipment. it also shows the transformative nature of cosmopolitan life. since the end of the Wild West as we think of it we've been looking back and forward at the same time. But mostly the effect has been the steady move from the hard life of a farmer to the easier life of a bourgoise, a city dweller. i saw a stat that something like 95% of the U.S. population lives in cities or towns and that the rest are the farmers. it seems to me that we've lost our pioneering soul and have found precious little to replace it. which pulls us into a discussion of E. Gilb's photos. they are from a trip to India. They show various people doing various things, the most interesting to me are the picture of a temple at sunset and the picture of people bathing in the ganges. The wats in this area, the buddhist temples carved into living stone, one of the first civilizations in the world: the area is anchored by tradition. it is said that "60,000 devotees take the holy dip each day in Varanasi." The holy dip is a quick plunge into the ganges; specifically 5 dips is the most auspicious number (Stille). But what these photos show me is that the U.S., as a nation, is still young, still finding out what it's really about. we don't have cultural traditions like india's (the holy dip dates back at least 3,000 years according to Stille) and we certainly shattered what ties we did have with tradition when we started our revolutionary war. our lost state as a culture is clearly reflected in these two sets of pictures.

i took information throughout from this source on india: http://www.science-spirit.org/article_detail.php?article_id=363