What Are We Come To?

Ed is involved in a kind of game project with a bunch of other photographers on Flickr wherein you take pictures of items that involve specific numbers. The group starts with somebody taking a picture of one item; then somebody does two, and on to much higher numbers. You are on your honor to photograph things that already exist in the number; i.e., you are not supposed to group, say, 15 items when you need a 15 photograph. You have to find an existing 15. I spend a lot of my time these days reflexively counting whatever is in front of me. "Oh, there are 14 towhees outside the window. Alas, we need a picture of 13; will one, but only one leave? No, alas."

Below is a photo of a quilt that Ed used for the number 14: there are 14 appliqued sailboats in this quilt, which is titled: "The Way We Live Now." But it should be retitled "The Way We used to Live."

In pursuit of this very minor activity, Ed dropped into the Blaine Post Office the other day because there are many banks of countable post office boxes there and he happened to be there. And he took a few pictures. But then a postal clerk came up and told him that he had to stop because postal patrons had complained that 'someone was taking photographs of post office boxes.' True enough, but, SO WHAT?

Well, I guess we know. Blaine; gateway for terrorists; post office boxes; favorite haunt for terrorists; photographs, cameras, what have you: Be Very Afraid. How are we ever going to regain our senses?