Friday, May 13, 2011

Bowman Landes

How to describe this turkey's pose?

Confident, surely.

Self-assured. Optimistic. Devil-may-care.

But in the winghands-on-hips stance, the disingenuous "Who, me?" look in the eye, we see something more. We see an attitude of entitlement. This bird knows he's good eating. The facts of his life, his curriculum vitae—from his hatching to his eventual mechanized death—suggest nothing less than the inevitability of his consumption. And he knows it.

Thus, the smugness, the superfluous plea for approval. He has their approval already.

His destiny, to be metamorphosed from living thing to lifeless product, is preordained. It is axiomatic. You'd be a little full of yourself too, if you knew the weight of an entire civilization were leaning on you, pushing you to become what you were meant to be.

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