photo

Real Estate Lurking (Part I)

People used to read a newspaper in the morning, now they read their news and social media feeds. It connects them to the outside world, or so they think. Personally, I’ve always preferred visual evidence of human complexity and so, I lurk fresh real estate listings. From them I glean everything I need to know about the culture that surrounds me. Georgians (Kartvelians) have a cultural slogan. They repeat “It must be seen!” to each other several times a day. It has for centuries solidified them as the dogged realists of Western Europe. To see a thing is to know it and I, like a haruspex, enjoy reading the entrails of this region in the keyhole view of its real estate listings. What seems like a stripped and staged dusty living room to some is, in fact, a fountain of information to someone like myself. And, aside from the laughs and chilling horrors, the found photography opportunities are unbelievably lush for anyone with a trained eye. Here are a few latest examples…

The sad futility of the “Love, Hope, Live” makes this accidental framed arch masterpiece especially touching.
Still on the theme of loneliness and fading hope – the glorious couch paintings of roiling oceans forever hung too high.
More delicate eerie loneliness, loss and abject poverty by the sea… the fire extinguisher says it all.
Oh but it’s not all sad! This, for example, is someone in Fredericton trying to sell their house with this scene