My
generation, the baby boomer generation, grew up fearing Russia and
anything alien from outer space which I think was really about Russia - a
society totally different than our own. One of the cult classics of
that time was IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. I liked it so much I bought an
8mm five minute silent movie with subtitles. When we don't understand
something we fear it - well, most people do. Others go out and embrace
it and figure out what makes it tick. Scientists and daredevils embrace
the unknown.
Below are photos, most of which I took,
but some which I borrowed from others who posted on Instagram, of an
object that appeared one day at Higgs Beach in Key West. I live a
couple blocks away and would go over there quite often just after
sunrise to visit this thing I could not understand. It just materialized
out of nowhere one day. Initially there was no explanation as to what
it was.
That
is the White Street Pier in the background. The beach is manicured
each morning before the tourists and sun worshipers arrive. Those
tracks in the sand belong to the manicuring machine.
The East Martello Gardens is in the background. Maybe the iron fence was built to keep the aliens out.
We
have a bit of a homeless problem in Key West. Some do-gooders feed them
and that encourages more to come here - and stay. They sleep anywhere
they can find a comfortable and safe place. For the weeks after I
discover the thing I call the thing, I would drive over to Atlantic
Boulevard (funny name for a two way street about only twenty feet wide)
to take pics. Then I would see somebody laying in the bottom of the
thing and drive back home.
One
day I had had enough. I got out of the car and approached the thing.
There was nobody sleeping there - just some mass of some sort. The thing
looked like a smashed concrete sewer pipe.
Borrowed photo.
Borrowed photo
On those occasions I show a condominium with a beach view I tell the
prospective buyer about how quickly and how often the views of sand,
water, sky change. They normally don't get it. These pictures show it to
some degree. It's funny how a stationery object with a hole in it can
be so mesmerizing. The hole challenges the viewer to look inside to see
what is there. As you move around the view of the hole changes. It's
remarkable in its simplicity.
Borrowed photo
Now I realize this not a smashed concrete sewer pipe but instead a fossilized giant shark mouth risen from the ocean.
Notice
something different? There is a little monument that tells us this is
not a shark nor an object from outer space but instead a work of art.
The last line of the movie was "Well, they're gone!" or something very close to that.
One
day I went to the beach and the thing was gone. It disappeared as
suddenly as it appeared, without notice. I felt a sense of total loss.
Seriously. I had come to love the thing. It was someplace to go. To
photograph and to imagine. And then it was no more.
