"On Longing" Exercise

"The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale."

I had this strange fear that, when I went to Paris, I would be horribly underwhelmed. Of course, I was wrong, and found myself shocked at just how monumental a lot of the historic photo-ops were. I've never felt smaller than I did staring up at the tower from across the street, or when I managed to make my way to the top and stare down at the city below.

"Capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experience."

I took this photo while I watched two of my friends smash porcelain plates, cups, and bowls as a method of releasing stress. While the glassware in it's unaltered state may not communicate much, I felt that the breaking of it, as well as the previously smashed porcelain lying all over the ground, really gives us a clue as to the experience these people had, both in regards to their emotional state at the time and the fun they had breaking things.

"The Souvenir reduces the public, the monumental, the 3-Dimensional, into the miniature that which can be enveloped by the body."

I took this picture without telling the person in it, and I'm still glad I did. We were watching the fireworks at Disney World. I chose this photo because of the headband she's wearing: we each bought a pair of Minnie Mouse ears to commemorate us going to Disney together for the first time, and whenever either of us see those ears, we're reminded of the time we spent together. It's interesting to me the way an object, no matter how useless it turns out to be in the long run, can end up meaning to the person who owns it.

"To have a souvenir of the exotic is to possess both a specimen and a trophy."

Morgan and her Spanish ham. On the Paris trip, we also visited Barcelona, and one of the girls in my tour group was very excited to buy some packaged ham to bring home for her mother. Customs ended up taking it away, so Morgan didn't get to keep it, but she had fun talking about it while it lasted. 

"The place of origin must remain unavailable in order for desire to be guaranteed."

Disney Quest has been long since closed, but I still miss it. I took this photo while on a day trip with my friends Ripley, after it was finally official that Disney Quest would be demolished. They dropped the ticket prices by half, and we decided we should go to give the place a nice send off. Because Disney Quest is quite literally gone, and I can't go back to make more memories with more people, no matter how much I may want to, I thought that this photo fit this quote pretty well.