The “Bean”
As you look across the skyline you see the buildings warped. The ground bent and mangled. But as your gaze falls upon yourself, and you are perfect, no misshapen limbs, no strange body. How can that be? You are looking into the world famous “Bean”. When my eyes trundled across the path of the bean, the sight simply amazed me. The Bean is an amazing work of art and has inspired many souls.
The Bean’s real name is “Cloud Gate”; the nickname was acquired from the bean like shape it was made in. Inspired by liquid mercury, it reflects and distorts the city skyline. The underside of the “Bean” is accessible and visitors can see their especially distorted images in the bowl like curve. The winner of a design competition, the “Bean” provided numerous technological concerns regarding the design's construction and assembly, in addition to concerns regarding the sculpture's upkeep and maintenance. The maintenance may have aroused some concerns, but all is well. I chose this as the result of many reasons the first of which is that none of the other pieces wielded any information to me. Also as a boy, when I first saw this I decided that, one day I wanted to learn more about this wonderful structure. Many people, I think would be simply amazed by this work of art and I want everyone in the world to have such an amazing opportunity.
The artist who created this, Anish Kapoor, has a reputation for creating spectacles in urban settings by producing works of extreme size and scale. He had created a similar piece in London called “Sky Mirror”. Before “Cloud Gate” Anish had made art that distorted images of the viewer instead of portraying images of its own. I really respect him for that. He often tried to evoke immateriality and the spiritual, often acquired through dark voids or shine and reflectivity. His art follows the eastern theologies shared by Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism, also Albert Einstein’s theory of a non-three-dimensional world. The simplicity of the Bean has inspired me and my soul. I would never guess that a big hunk of polished metal could look so beautiful. Maybe In a million years people will have found a new type of art. Maybe there won’t be any people in a million years. The only people who know that, will be the people in a million years.
Blood Red Day
My arm shot out and the knife slit an inch long cut in the man’s neck. He didn’t even have time to scream. I squeezed my body out of the crevasse I was hiding in and quickly pulled the body into the woods. Once in the safety of a clearing I found hours before, I examined the body. The body looked to be about 20, with well built muscles and a set jawbone. I stripped the clothes off him and put them in his pack, further exploring showed me that his pack had food for three days and was outfitted with a rifle, a pistol and a typical bullet making kit. I hastily shoved his clothes over mine and ran out to the road. Hoof beats in the distance warned me of an approaching patrol. Standing on the side of the road, I saw the approaching figure of a horseman. Shots rang out, after ducking to ensure my safety; I looked up for the horseman. All I saw was two crumpled figures lying in the sandy road. I looked around to find the source, after locating the cloud of smoke I crouched and sneaked over to the smoke silo. With the crisp red coats of the British army in mind, I slowed as I approached the pillar of smoke. I checked and double checked until I was three hundred percent sure no one else was around. Only then did I run over to the body. The cloths immediately betrayed him to be a red coat. As I approached him he reached towards his pistol. Before he could get a shot of he collapsed, and allowed me to live. With his last gasping breath he reached out and, collapsed. I gathered my things and hopped up on his horse, and galloped on down the road to the next stage of my ambush.
As I neared my checkpoint, I saw a huge pillar of smoke on the horizon. Wow the British are really coming down hard on us. I thought, as I slowed my exhausted steed to a stop. Jumping off, I almost fell because of the hours of riding. Judging by my exhaustion, my horse needed a nice long drink and a well deserved nap. Leading him to the nearby river, I saw the remains of a beaver dam. Lucky break, we had, imagine if the dam was still here. Well, all is well now, might as well take advantage of it. A nice long nap sounded like heaven, so I ate a hunk of bread from my pack and curled up on some blankets.
After hard riding for a day, distant sounds of warfare clashed against the hours of hoof beats that had droned on forever. I let my horse get a rest, and on wobbly legs I walked over to the peak of the hill. Still no signs other than the sounds that a war was going on, I was shoved to the ground as three galloping horsemen ripped past me. Watching the shapes disappear, I noticed they were patriots. Quickly I jumped onto my horse and raced after them.
Once they realized that they were hearing four hoof beats one of the horsemen turned around and commanded me to stop. I slowed and after inspecting me he muttered
“They just keep getting smaller and smaller these days, don’t they.”
And he galloped off; I managed to follow him off the path and onto a well disguised trail. That lone sentence spurred me on to prove to him that body size doesn’t matter. I guess I was pretty small even for a girl, but none of them needed to know that.
We arrived at a clearing about five minutes later. About fifty men were standing around chatting. The clearing was about 20 feet long and 30 or so feet wide. One of the men stood on a collection of crates and shouted for everybody to be quiet. The chatting died down fast, and all the men turned to face the man I now realized to be John Adams. I now realized that everybody was carrying guns and ammo. I knelt down to collect my gun and powder horn, as I did so John Adams started to talk. His voice was drowned out automatically by my ear, as I still was trying to lift all of my things. One of the men reached down to help me up. When I finally stood up straight John Adams had finished speaking. The same man who had helped me up, told me to follow him. Because I had not heard what John Adams had said, I asked the man what we were doing.
