"...and even the most faithful histories, if they do not wholly misrepresent matters, or exaggerate their importance to render the account of them more worthy of perusal, omit, at least, almost always the meanest and least striking of the attendant circumstances..."
- Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method
- Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method
I am reading Descartes's Discourse for another class, but this quotation jumped out at me and made me think of the first day of Joe's class. The houses and trees and cars were the "attendant circumstances" that were actually more interesting than the alleged UFOs in the photographs.
I love looking at photographs, whether I took them or not, whether they are of people I know or not. And one of the things I love about them is the life behind the subject matter. I am endlessly fascinated by the clothes, furniture, silverware, strip malls, etc. that are in the background of the snapshots. It's like a time machine...a peek at what telephones or magazines or carpeting was like 2 years ago, or 15 years ago, or more.
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