corn in central park

this is just a tiny bit of proof about how certain themes current in the social unconscious are everywhere. the movie poster for will smith's new movie shows new york as deserted, with corn growing in central park. just as these hollywood script writers were toiling away on this movie, i was thinking up a novel i would like to write, about political crisis and the suburbs. an image that entranced me was the lawns of once-coveted suburban homes turned into cornfields due to the flight of the wealthy to the cities. clearly, the fascination with decline, decay, return to survivalism, the possibility of existence beyond or below industrial civilization is extremely powerful in this country.

i feel sure these fantasies exhibit desire for freedom from the structures that constrict and shape everyday life. there is a desire for destruction, and release. the idea of planting one's own crops is fascinating: for the supermarket to disappear, for a new relationship with the earth. oddly, in this particular movie, this fantasy is a solitary one. there is no new ordering of society; society just disappears!