Thursday, February 13, 2014

Flying dog: all paws off the ground

It was Edward Muybridge who, in the 1880s, took the first photographs that demonstrated the science of locomotion. His photographs of a galloping horse proved that horses leave the ground at a particular point in the gait.

Mom is no photographer, but she caught me with all fours off the ground. You can tell because that's two feet of soft snow I'm levitating over, and with good reason. Were I actually touching anything, I'd be sunk in up to my elbows. That would mean disaster: should I get a flake of snow on my body, I might go into cardiac arrest. It's worth it to fly.

Muybridge's photographs inspired the famous scandal at the 1913 Armory show of European and American art in New York, when Marcel Duchamp showed his Nude Descending a Staircase [No. 2]. Viewers compared the painting to saddlebags, a Navajo rug, and a nightmare.

My nightmare would be that this snow won't ever melt. Because you can't go on forever with all of your paws off the ground.