Frat Boys Gone Wild

Speaking of testosterone overload, what fine gradation of difference is there between all that butched-up megalomania in the desert (see next post) and these Deke-ettes at Yale, captured by Richard Mosse in 2007?

Fraternity from Richard Mosse on Vimeo.

Artist's blurb:

Fraternity was shot at Yale University's infamous DKE frat house in under an hour. The men were happy to participate in the project in exchange for a keg of beer. They compete against each other to shout or scream the loudest and for the longest time. When they cannot scream any longer they must stop, and cannot begin again. DKE (pronounced Deke) stands for Delta Kappa Epsilon, and counts five US presidents in its alumni, including George Bush Jr, George Bush Sr, Gerald Ford and Theodore Roosevelt. Other famous Dekes include three Justices of the US Supreme Court, one Vice President, and countless State Governors, Senators and Speakers.

Guys like this are guys who end up running the country. Think about it.

Ozymandias

From Breach, a collection of photographs by artist Richard Mosse, displaying the ruins of Saddam Hussein's glory:


All that straight-boy megalomania-gone-wild, which the world has seen replayed a million times in every age and every land, reminds me of Shelley's famous poem:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.