Praise of idleness (of all summers)

Montevideo, Uruguay. American Luna Park.

An old Ferris wheel with colored seats arranged in a radial pattern, twelve, one for each month, one for each rusty metal spoke, balanced, equidistant. It's as if you were looking at the architecture of a clock that indicates both the hours and the seasons.

This old colorful amusement park is not abandoned: those who manage it are on holiday, just like all Uruguayan citizens who go on holiday in the month of July.

Everything so deserted, ghostly. This urban environment might look like a postcard of Prypyat (the Ukrainian city that was evacuated and abandoned following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster). If there were crowds, I could also think of Coney Island?

After all, there is a famous Ferris wheel there too, on the beach in New York... But NO, it can't be, too chaotic! Before taking the photograph, I walk around on foot, alone, in the hiss of the wind that sweeps the deserted street. I think for a moment of contemplating the American flag, that iconoclastic concept of the "American dream" made famous and publicized by the Kodachrome shots of William Eggleston (who between 1970 and 1980 also inspired the director David Lynch with acid colors and bright tones).

Cold wind that blows and hits the posters handwritten by a gypsy, in the air of the Atlantic current, and makes the seats of the Ferris wheel squeak and swing which, by force of inertia, makes a half turn on itself until it stops in the Zenith position , like a street lamp. In my eyes, the carousel metaphorically replaces the sun, now high in the sky, motionless on the day of the summer equinox.

Everything remains still and static to be looked at by human eyes, in the only period of the year in which everyone is allowed to rest, dedicate themselves, think, contemplate, love, enjoy nature, read and watch: in short, more than idleness, it is ecstasy.

Luca Periotto

NP Agosto-Settembre 2023