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Jeff Hartzer's avatar

Can we say that out loud? Not sure I can.

I have a popular first responder page on instagram (sorry Sherman, but there are some fires burning, mostly smoke). My photographs cover a long period of time and when reviewing them this week I wondered, "Are Roll-Overs safer today with 'your eggshell' cars built to implode, or was it better to just hang ten over the cliff with Thelma and Louise in a car built to last, for comfort not speed?

Footnotes for the apocalypse:

Firemen have a hell of a time putting out electric car fires. Another sign of end times is that fire fighters have become 'all the rage'.

Soon all of us may be putting out fires.

Blast the volume up and listen to Tom Petty's song, 'You Wreck Me'.

My father began all of our barbecues/cookouts with a can of gasoline.

[ @abqonscene is my first responder instagram ]

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Oh, you should read Ramona Emerson's Shutter, a crime/horror novel about a crime scene photographer. She was a student of mine.

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Jeff Hartzer's avatar

Thank you. Tough job even if fictional.

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Michael Mohr's avatar

‘Eggs’ is right. Physically and metaphorically. Fragile. We’re always just a split second from the other side aren’t we?

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Steve Lovelace's avatar

I'm just glad my traveling egg has air bags. My ego egg, not so much.

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Marcia Lovelace's avatar

Interesting that you mention egos here, Steve. I often think of cars as ego "boxes" that separate us and make us think we're invisible to anyone outside (ie nose picking...) and that keeps us from feeling connected to each other (ie the insane driving that has only gotten worse since the pandemic). Ego eggs seems perfect.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Great post. Yes!

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Ego egg!

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Jillian Hess's avatar

So many kinds of harm!

I'll be thinking of this poem next time I get in a car.

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Michael Mohr's avatar

❤️

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RonMcF's avatar

Wisdom in a small dose.

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Calvinball's avatar

Who was the first person to look at a horse and think, "I wonder what would happen if I jumped on the back of that thing?" I assume their genes exited the pool directly after.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I think the second to try it might be the bravest one!

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Kate Bradley's avatar

So much gravitas in so few words. Thanks.

And combining this poem with your previous reflection on villains, sometimes with ourselves in that role (a possibility I myself neatly avoided), I was thinking of those others in their eggs directing their wishes towards me.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Yes! The opposite trust is also true.

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Terry Freedman's avatar

Good metaphor. Unusual but apt

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Kerry Kirking's avatar

On the latter journey I have been so richly blessed, feeling very grateful.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Ah, so lovely! I celebrate your blessings.

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JB Minton 📺's avatar

“Rolling in my Egg🥚Point Oh...”

What a great image!

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Thank you!

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Elena Solow's avatar

I don’t understand eggs. What? Am glad I don’t drive anymore.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Eggs: fragile, fragile...

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Peter Himmelman's avatar

“Traveling in our eggs.” Shall we do co-write on that song!

What a great way to describe everything and everyone. No matter how much weight you can lift, how big your bank account, how expensive your car, no one can escape their vulnerabilities.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I'd love to co-write a song!

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Peter Himmelman's avatar

It shall be done. We’re heading East this morning. I’ll be in touch. Between us, I’d say we could knock out a winner in under an hour.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Cool!

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rhuskey's avatar

And may I never be the cause of someone else's wreck...

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I say that same prayer...

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J.'s avatar

We call our vehicles Waka (Maori language). It's also the name for an ocean going canoe.

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Oh, my God, it's takes epic trust to take that canoe out onto the water.

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Calvinball's avatar

I am pretty confident that those who traveled in ocean-going canoes 200 years ago, if they came back to life, would have great fear if they were to be transported in a car going 60 mph and changing lanes on a modern urban freeway. As I would if someone put me in a canoe on the ocean. Trust is relative.

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J.'s avatar

There is a decades long revival of the making and sailing of ocean going waka in Aotearoa, stretching across the Pacific and sharing knowledge about celestial navigation, marine life, currents. It's very collaborative.

My opinion is that our ancestors would have been curious about modern vehicles and keen to try them. They were early adopters of new technologies!

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Humans want and need to evolve!

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Terry Freedman's avatar

When travel by rail started people were scared that going at 20mph would kill them

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

Those first cars were very slow, too!

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Sherman Alexie's avatar

I'm scared of all transportation methods!

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