Why did the Chicago artist and writer Henry Darger faithfully record his observations of the weather every day for ten years? Darger was probably one of the strangest and most isolated writers or artists who ever lived. Darger reputedly wrote the world's longest work of fiction, so he was certainly an unusual individual. We cannot ask Henry what is the attraction of following weather trends, as he passed away long ago in 1973, but perhaps an understanding of the motivations behind Darger's weather watching habit is not completely beyond our grasp. There are other people who share Darger's fascination for meteorology. After all, someone must be watching The Weather Channel, and there are apparently folks who frequently consult the website of the Bureau of Meteorology ("the BOM") as a form of recreation. It all sounds pretty, pretty autistic to me. Try as he might, Phil Brown's efforts to explain his love of weather watching can only succeed up to a point. As a daily cloud-watcher I think I understand some elements of the appeal of this hobby, but I think it takes a certain type of mind to fully appreciate the joy of discerning the difference between a rain-bearing cloud and a pseudo-rain-bearing cloud.
First Person
ABC Radio National 810am
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/firstperson/default.htm
Confessions of a weather nut. Episode 1
Written by: Phil Brown
Read by: Phil Brown
First Person.
ABC Radio National
June 2nd 2011
Episode 1 of 1 Concludes June 2
Production
Producer: Justine Sloane-Lees
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/firstperson/stories/2011/3196846.htm
Confessions of a weather nut.
Griffith Review. Edition 12: Hot Air
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Phil Brown
http://www.griffithreview.com/edition-12-hot-air/confessions-of-a-weather-nut
Wikipedia contributors (accessed 2011) Henry Darger. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Darger&oldid=424286648
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
When somebody talks about the weather, it is the one topic which seems to grab attention.
Why do you think that is?
Several reasons.
The first, I thought about while reading Somebody Else's Kids, where one of the students quotes weather reports verbatim.
(Like: "This town is 70 degrees Fahrenheit, with a chance of storm and cloud").
It's possibly the one predictable system that changes a lot. You can predict THAT it changes, but not necessarily the changes themselves.
And the weather goes on while we are sleeping. Most things don't seem to.
And it can be very real, very grounding. Whatever the Vivian Sisters were up to, there was always weather.
And we have to take it into consideration for so many things, especially if we live an outdoor life. On the other hand, we cannot let the weather stop us from doing things...
These are my reasons/conclusions thus far.
Post a Comment