I cropped this from a much larger photo taken c.1905 of young boys dressed in foil.
Do you ever find yourself looking at photos of (presumably) dead people at times when they were full of vigor and curiosity, and consider how much more static they seem than your friend appears in his or her self-portrait (for example)? Both are moments captured, but these boys just seem stuck, whereas your friend, to your knowledge, is still trying to figure out how to correctly poach an egg, or whatever it is he or she does in daily life. These boys are somehow pitiable, and I realize that this reaction is a type of self-pity, because photos like this serve as reminders that one of these days, my entire life will be coalesced to a few photos of myself holding squash, or whatever, maybe a name on a family tree in the hands of someone trying to muster some significance out of their own meager life by riding on coattails of ancestors, and perhaps a few lines on the century in which I lived, immortalized in a piece of literature that only a handful of people will read.
Well, anyway, no point in trying to defy certainties. I’m dying, but I’m here now. Time to go eat a slice of cake.
