spiral eggy

Last Saturday – so long ago that it doesn't really belong into a blog anymore, a medium that's all about now – last Saturday, anyway, I went to the post office for the second time that week to pick up a delivery. This one I had been made to expect for a long time. It had been referred to only as "the conspiracy", and I was asked to volunteer my home address to be able to participate in it (if that's what one does with conspiracies).

The conspiratory shipment consisted of two items, one in a clear plastic bag, the other handed over just so. Both turned out to be gigantic styrofoam fried eggs, about a foot in diameter with yolks outsizing a tennis ball. On the eggs where the Whitbys' signatures. What's up with this?

After doing some research on the web (i.e. googling), I found out. The two eggs, together with 298 very similar fellows, were created by a friend of mine who goes by the name of Dude and his kids, to be scattered (the eggs, not the kids) in the Salt Flats of Western Utah and be turned into an art project. The Spiral Eggy resulted from this outpour of creativity and craziness. In its incongruous beauty and ephemeral existence, it reminds me of Christo's The Gates in Central Park, which has long fascinated me. (Did you see this, GC?)

Something beautiful is created, a lucky few see it, then it is destroyed. True art doesn't hang in museums, but is lost forever. The Gates lasted for two weeks, and only stunning drawings remind of it. The Spiral Eggy lasted for all of one afternoon, and only a few eggs remain. They're still mostly in the Dude's garage, but being sent out into the world.