The Errant Æsthete

Wonderful read out of Design Observer by the esteemed Steven Heller on those former classics of doom, dread, and earth shattering calamities that set us on edge, prophesied our end, and are now the new, and very real face of the world we live in:

Remember the scene in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall in Dr. Flicker’s examining room where Alvy Singer’s angst-ridden mother tells the doctor her son is depressed? As the doctor furiously puffs on a cigarette, Alvy says the universe is expanding and since “the universe is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!”

“What is that your business? What has the universe got to do with it?,” screams Alvy’s mother. “You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!” To which Dr. Flicker adds, “It won’t be expanding for billions of years yet, Alvy. And we’ve gotta try to enjoy ourselves while we’re here. Uh?”

Existential gloom and doom scenarios have not just plagued the sackcloth and ash crowd. Many of the most rational among us have been consumed by the specter of endgame.