Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Bishop Berekeley's civic misdemeanor exposed?


It was an Anglican Cleric, Bishop Berkeley, who posed the famous question "If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it really happen?" I snapped this skyway level shot of ground level lunch exposed with a kind of unbidden intimacy. I imagine the quality of the moment for the actors in this mime: hunched in suits, casual in shirtsleeves, reserved in business wariness, perhaps. The security guard accosts me and tells me I can only take pictures of the American Flag and the brilliant water fountain in the public area. He sees my name tag identifying me clearly, and relents a bit, offering lengthy explanations of how the skyways are owned, managed, and patrolled. But he insists that I take no more pictures. For him, it is literally "taking" pictures ... that are not mine. They are owned by the management firm and encoded into the terms of leases for the commercial establishment. Sanctions abound. Intimacy is rare. Confidence is low. I hasten away.
If I didn't know it was a crime to freeze this glimpse, is it still a crime, however petty and faceless, finally? Where does the Bishop stand on this matter?
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