Sunday Bean Blogging

Sunday's are often for Bird Blogging, but this week I decided to do some Bean Blogging instead. These are photos from Chicago's Millenium Park of what's commonly known as The Bean -- an incredibly popular 110-ton, eliptical piece of public art installed in the main plaza of the park's many interwoven and diverse areas. Made from highly polished stainless steel, it resembles a huge drop of slippery, shiny mercury. Officially known as the Cloud Gate, it's British artist Anish Kapoor's first public outdoor work installed in the US.

Another from down under

Coming up on The Bean from a side park area

The Bean reflects constantly changing images of the city's skyline, the street scene and the sky itself from many angles, each with its own properties, from distorted to clear as a bell. We visited The Bean while in Chicago last month for the YearlyKos bloggers' convention.

The rather dizzying shots are from the concave underside of The Bean, where the distortions and mirroring effects are the strongest. The others show how The Bean reflects the cityscapes around it.

Why  feature The Bean on this particular Sunday? Because we've been discussing how much better our world would be if we spent as much money on Beans and other community enhancements as we do on bombs, prisons and "security." Just think how different things could be if we unleashed and supported positive human creativity for the enrichment of the common good with anywhere near the same degree of determination and focus we apply to unleashing and supporting violence, greed and "law enforcement."

BEANS NOT BOMBS!

Click on photos for larger images. Photo Credit: M.E. Broderick.