Banksy calls it a "bemusement park" and from the pictures I've seen, it is loaded with wry social commentary and some pretty hard-hitting stuff as well. You can look on the CBC's "Arts and Entertainment" site if you want to see photos, but a couple that really struck me were a sculpture of a killer whale leaping from a toilet into a kid's plastic swimming pool and another installation in a tank with a North American style pleasure boat bobbing along with a jam-packed boat filled with people fleeing war and poverty, just like we're seeing in the Mediterranean Sea (and other places, as well) these days. It's on at a place in England called Weston-super-mare until September 27, but apparently the line-up is about four hours long at this point so if you go, bring a book!
We don't know anything about Banksy and I really like that because it flies in the face of all this passion for fame that is such a part of what we seem to have become. Everyone wants his fifteen minutes (or seconds) of notoriety. I used to want it when I was young. I wanted to walk in to public places and imagine that people were looking and whispering about me and saying, "oh, that's HER!" "Is that HER?" But now I realize that often people would be saying it and accompanying it with "she doesn't look very good" or "she's a lot OLDER in person" or something like that. I am glad now that nobody knows me -- anonymity is great!
On a completely unrelated topic (but maybe not, since I thought of it while I was writing), have you ever heard of a "mirror fast"? It's when you avoid looking in the mirror for a period of time. A writer named Autumn Whitfield-Madrano coined the name and decided to do it because she felt like she was too focused on her appearance and that, by avoiding looking at her reflected image, she was able to focus on more important things in her life, like her goals, her relationships, her good qualities. I admit that when I see my mirrored reflection, I am often shocked. I really don't look like I imagine I do. I often see my own mother when I glance quickly into a shop window. When I see photographs of myself, I'm often dismayed and focus on all the things that "aren't right". Other people see the same photograph and they just see me, not what's wrong with me (I think they do -- at least, that's what they say). I think I might try it and see what effect it has on me. Of course, I certainly don't do a lot to enhance my appearance, and I often wonder what effect I would have on people if I knew how to dress (!) but I know how to do lots of other things and you can't have it all, can you?
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