postcards from venice
Wedded to avarice and wrath and ignorance and lust, men will entertain animosities towards one another, desiring to take one another’s lives.
…in the Krita age, everything was free from deceit and guile and avarice and covetousness; and morality like a bull was among men, with all the four legs complete. In the Treta age sin took away one of these legs and morality had three legs. In the Dwapara, sin and morality are mixed half and half, and accordingly morality is said to have two legs only. In the dark age Kali, morality mixed with three parts of sin liveth by the side of men. Accordingly morality then is said to wait on men, with only a fourth part of itself remaining.
O Pandava, the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas and Vaisyas and Sudras will practise morality and virtue deceitfully and men in general will deceive their fellows by spreading the net of virtue. And men with false reputation of learning will, by their acts, cause Truth to be contracted and concealed. And in consequence of the shortness of their lives, they will not be able to acquire much knowledge.
And in consequence of the littleness of their knowledge, they will have no wisdom.
And those men, who are devoted to ceremonial rites in honour of the deceased and of the gods, will be avaricious and will also appropriate and enjoy what belongs to others.
And those things will also be enjoyed by men in such times, and enjoyment of which hath been forbidden in the scriptures.
And deceived by the false science of reasons, they will direct their hearts towards everything mean and low.
And they will frequently save themselves from anxiety by such deeds, and even glory in them.
And filled with avarice and swelling with pride and vanity and unable and unwilling to protect their subjects, they will take pleasure in inflicting punishments only. And attacking and repeating their attacks upon the good and the honest, and feeling no pity for the latter, even when they will cry in grief, the Kshatriyas will, O Bharata, rob these of their wives and wealth.
Time that is strong, assailing the universe, cooks it within itself and sweeps away everything without consideration of seniority of years or the reverse.
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All selections taken from the Mahabharata, Vana Parva, Section CLXXXIX and Santi Parva, section CCXXVII.
Also, these are actual postcards for sale in batches of 10 (either one of each or ten of one or your choice somewhere in between), for $10.
In high school, my friend and I went to Venice one morning, set up shop by the other vendors, and invited people to insult us for fifty cents. We were given one insult (get a job!), which wasn’t really an insult, before the cops told us we weren’t allowed to be there.
When I remember Venice, it never looks like those pictures. It is always filled with people. The pictures evoke a nostalgia that I know is only nostalgia. It’s not exactly how I want to remember Venice, but it’s closer than how I do remember Venice.
I hope at least that one person paid!
I think I’ve struck a well-nigh perfect balance here in Venice, in that I stay at home with my native Venetian wife 90% of the time, and when I do foray out, it’s either to go grocery shopping or to go running on the beach, and rarely anything else. The Venice I know is sometimes full of people, but usually it’s not. Venice to me is, granted, the crowds on the boardwalk that I can’t help but pass on the way to the beach, and whom I don’t really mind at all; but then Venice is also a cold late-autumn swim in the Pacific in the morning when the fog is so thick visibility is reduced to 20 yards or so, and you can’t see another living soul, and you feel like it’s the end of the world. Or it’s the windstorm that kicks up the sand so forcefully that you think you’re a character in a Frank Herbert novel, and again, almost nobody else is there, and it feels like the end of the world.
THAT’s the Venice I want to capture with my next photo series, only that’s much more difficult to do, a much more difficult vibe to capture. It’s Good Vibrations slowed down to 12 rpm put through a 1/2 second delay and grand auditorium reverb.