Photophobia

The 15 December LRB Short Cuts column, by Peter Campbell, begins: "It’s the time of year when the kinds of things that are done with light are very like those which, if done with a spray-can, would have boys up in front of the magistrates." He speaks of "electric graffiti" and contends that bright light does not discover, but drives away, beauty. He praises shadow. I enjoy the ways that people decorate their houses and yards but to me artificial light has nothing at all to do with this time of year. For me it's candles and kerosene lamps and fires in fireplaces and stoves and a fresh tree standing in a bucket of wet sand. It's more olfactory than visual. I like a night sky lit, if at all, by the stars and the moon. A sky like that hasn't been seen in Austin or anywhere near it for a long, long time. I do love electrical commercial displays (neon and its kin, running lights, billboards at night). I'd give a lot to see the old El Mat(amoros) Quetzelcoatl sign lit and snapping its jaws again.