no title needed

i stopped by a (friendly) acquaintance's house last night to pick up yet another load of free books. most of them were by a Dutch-American psychoanalyst but this is beside the point.

the point is that he had that famous photograph of Tiananmen Square from June 4, 1989 on his wall. it was a black and white photo, slightly wrinkled, and he told me it was one of the first prints of the event. i am dubious of its provenance, but this too, is beside the point.

the point is i told him what an effect it had on me as a child, watching it the summer i was 12 years old. the bags the man held seemed so out of place, so comically light in contrast to the gravity of the situation. i watched him step back and forth, blocking the tank as it tried to go around him, and the absurdity of the iconography underscored his anonymous heroism. it made a profound sub-conscious impact on me; it was like watching Buster Keaton.