![]() ![]() ![]() Famous for winning the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, she’s published over 30 books since 1965. ![]() Mary Oliver is the country’s “far and away, the country’s best-selling poet,” according to a ten-year-old article in The New York Times. What to do with the spare time left over by ceasing to engage? Consider reading Mary Oliver’s latest book, Upstream, and its meditations on inescapable, physical life and the world beyond any screen. All that is fungible, forgettable it’s been replaced many times before. No one really needs a relationship with corporate capitalism, conspicuous consumption, or cyberspace, either. In fact, we might go one better and forget the image entirely - nobody really needs their image on any screen, silver or TV or phone. Flash-forward to the present and footage of a dad delaying a family meal to snap pictures of the food on his cell phone. They return home, triumphant, and, finally happy at his success, the man lets his poor family eat. When the painting is done, footmen hustle it out of the manor and around town, showing it off to upper-class fops who flash thumbs-ups in response. As servants lay out a dinner of fruits, vegetables, and game birds, the bewigged gentleman calls in a painter and demands a still life on the spot. ![]() The ad, which promoted IKEA, opens on the drawing room of a lord apparently living around the time of King George III. This summer, a commercial was lauded for skewering a common bad habit. ![]()
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