PATINA: A RUMINATION

Funk #731, El Paso, Texas, May 2021,
by ©Bruce Berman

Text/Photography by Bruce Berman
Music Video by Bob Dylan

The funk is almost gone.
The generation that lived it is going down, too.
The 1930s (like this truck), 40s, 50s, 60s and even 70s is just about disappeared (desesparado).
I watch it go.
I watch parts of me go with it.
No energy actually vanishes. It reappears, new, in another form. Life ongoing… just not how we expected.
Is that the lesson of history, of photography of things from the past, of this image, Funk #731?
This truck could be rehabbed. Buffed up. Sprayed new. But it won’t be new. Glossier than it ever was. But it won’t be new. It could be stripped down to its individual pieces and bits, item by item, pump by pump, ball joint by ball joint, reassembled.
But it won’t be new.
Can I be?

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