Photo of the Week

A simple picture of a couple of Mother's Day roses becomes something a bit more disturbing when viewed negatively. (You must click it to see the full bloom effect.)

I've known a few Roses in my life.... There's the character on L O S T, of course, supposedly endearing but something of a curmudgeon. My wyfe's former boss is named Rose, and we like her -- and not only because she invited us to stay at her house in the Hamptons that time. When I was a kid, there was an old lady named Miss Daisy Rose (no kidding) who lived next door to my friend and whose whole house was in a time warp -- all the appliances seemed to date from the 1930s or '40s, and I don't recall that she had a TV. She did things like canning peaches and crocheting. Then there's the blue rose in Fire Walk With Me, which, so the Lynch Mob speculates, is a symbol of the impossible or the supernatural, since blue roses don't occur in nature. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose is a book I enjoyed. Gertrude Stein said "rose is a rose is a rose", and who can argue?

They do smell nice. Too bad about the thorns.