I can't help but think this is the best photo ever - not because I'm a sucker for celebrity, but because I'm a sucker for those people in the background who are having the time of their lives and (like me) documenting it.
In the ancient world, there were some statues of gods and goddesses that were perpetually hidden from view, or revealed only at particular times. In our world, everything is open to scrutiny through one screen or another. And then when we are confronted with a notable or extraordinary encounter with reality (like being 10 feet away from the pope) what happens - we look at him in miniature through our little screens because the moment of seeing him is defined by our ability to see him in virtual form later.....weird!
In the 19th century, upper middle class ladies kept journals. In the early 21st century everyone is a documentarian - or at least is constantly prepared to be one. Is there some sense in which this kind of moment - a chance encounter between a personal memory (a visit to the Vatican) and historical memory (the present leader of the Catholic Church) - is illustrative of the way that the means of making history - great and small - have never been so diverse or available. Does history, then, become populist? Or does it, as Kierkegaard might argue, become mundane.
By the way, what this photo doesn't capture is my mum standing to the right screaming blasphemies at the top of her lungs....we're never going to be invited back.
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