Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Smile! I'm on Google Street View

What does this image communicate?
In this age of Instagram, where civilization seems to be returning to pictographs, I've been pondering life's essential questions, including "Why do living things communicate?"

I answered one of its many subsidiary questions, "How do living things communicate?" when I returned from vacation. I simply  hit "reply all with quote" on my p-mail, catching up with everyone along my route: an age-old solution. Hey, it works.

But I digress, sort of. Sometime last fall, I encountered the Google Street View camera during a spin on Oakridge Avenue in Natick. I smiled, hoping that I'd get on camera, then promptly forgot about it.

Images do have an enduring power, perhaps longer than a p-mail. Thinking about communicating through images, I checked Google Maps, and there I am, taking up all of the wayback in Mom's car. Just what does this image say about our culture?