Gross domestic secrets
Comments: 11
I wish I could tell you what was going on, it’s highly interesting. I can’t, so let me take this in a different direction thanks to a photo I found lying around the desktop from a couple of weekends ago.
Thinking about secrecy and disclosure, it struck me that a good reason to like this photograph, even as much as the geometry and lighting which prompted me to push the shutter in the first place, is the subject matter. Tansu, chests of drawers, are objects in that special class where the mundane and the highly surprising overlap because, in addition to clothes and towels and linen, cupboards contain secrets — and not just letters we wish no one to read, or keys to trunks we wish left unopened, or instruction for what should happen come the worst: we’re talking, surely, some really crazy things.
It further struck me that a fair and reasonable accounting of all the secrets in chests and drawers and tucked away in closets across the country could give a workable GDS figure — gross domestic secrets. Countries could be ranked according to GDS, useful once we figured out what knowing how many secrets a country has is good for. Business could be affected. It would certainly affect the art market, and daytime television. It might affect the attitude of the press to the ruling party.
America, where I think I saw figures showing that 86% of the population has made a confessional appearance on television and more than half of those who haven’t are wait-listed, ranks very low of course, as the eradication of secrets continues apace. Only Iceland ranks lower. In the highest-ranking countries, Bhutan makes a surprise appearance in the number 3 spot. I leave the two top places to your imaginations.
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Posted to Photographs • 2005.10.10 (Mon) • 17:15
Comments
Posted by Kristen 2005.10.10, 22:36
Bhutan promotes Gross National Happiness over GNP. I wonder if keeping secrets is part of the happiness quotient?
Posted by Mary Beth 2005.10.11, 01:35
what a tease you are. I sort of forgive you, because of the wonderful photo. But you’re still a tease.
I’ll take some secrets over total divulgement every day of the week. No thank you - you don’t have to tell all to me. Really.
Posted by Newfred 2005.10.11, 10:19
In a further twist, how about people with plenty of secrets but no chests of drawers? Lacking, as I do, the security of that taboo item of furniture (which from my childhood I associate with parents’ make-up, contraceptive devices and (in retrospect) disturbing books on different positions for copulating) my secrets are scattered in some extremely insecure places. Shelves, shoulder bags, desk drawers; anyone could find them. Perhaps I want them to.
Posted by Experimental music 2005.10.13, 01:33
nice photo :)
Posted by Jeff 2005.10.13, 21:15
“America, where I think I saw figures showing that 86% of the population has made a confessional appearance on television…”
Really? Where did that stat come from? I would be very surprised if the number came to 1%, if that.
Posted by Newfred 2005.10.14, 06:10
Jeff: I think the 86% figure might just have been an ironically fabricated statistic!
Posted by Wraith-chan 2005.10.17, 07:22
I really do love that picture as well.
And it reminds me: there is this short story about one. It’s not one of his greatest stories, but fun to read at 1AM. “Tansu” by Ryo Hanmura. In one of my books. Grand picture.
Posted by Jesse 2005.10.26, 02:30
Thats a good picture I like it :)
Posted by John Beale 2005.11.01, 19:39
Great picture! It makes me relax :)
Posted by witold 2005.11.09, 21:43
There was a great article about the amount of safe deposit boxes in banks in New York’s Chinatown. http://www.nychinatown.org/articles/nytimes050708.html
I think there was a point in time when I realized that sometimes a good way to keep a secret is to generate a nice wrapper around it, made out of some seemingly more important information. Not a lie. Just a fantastic little story maybe, or a description, or even a drawing, something that contains the truth tucked away nicely between the lines. So the secret can happily survive but it is invisible to anybody who does not know the real meaning of the words or images. I sometimes imagine the entire world were built this way. Water has been spilling out of bathtubs as long as there have been bathtubs and apples have been falling off trees as long as there have been apples and trees. Some of the secrets are now written in giant letters on many, real and virtual walls and what most see is just the wall and the paint. And that’s really great.
Excellent photograph, of course.
Posted by kit 2005.11.13, 17:07
2: Canada.
1: Turkmenistan.(of course.)
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